Epson 3800 Head Cleaning Error

[Melodi]

Does anyone know anything about Epson 3800 Head Cleaning failures?  I got an indicator to replace the maintenance cartridge, which I did, but am still getting the error.  It seems to fail about after it's about 90% complete.

In addition, since this would not complete, as a last resort I tried the power cleaning cycle and re-ran the nozzle print test. There still seem to be problems with the light gray portion of the test print. The light gray is missing a single small "dash".
I would have expected the power cleaning to clear this up.

Thank you for any information.

[Lisa Nikodym]

I don't know anything about this particular problem, but I've found that the Epson web site's email customer service often has useful suggestions when one is having problems.  You should try them...

Lisa

[gekkardboy]

The maintenance cartridge could have a bad chip on it. I've had this happen before on my 3800. I would get a replacement from the seller.

As for the missing dash, to did try multiple cleaning cycles? Epson printers are setup to clean more vigorously with each consecutive cycle. Is is also possible for the nozzle to become so clogged it will need to be cleaned by a service center.

I had a few missing yellow dashes on my 7600, even the service guy was not able to clean the heads to get it back. But you can still print with missing dashes, especially if you are printing at 1440 dpi or higher. Eventually, the yellow nozzle came back on mine and I get a full pattern once again. ?!?

[Melodi]

Thanks for the input.  I tried the power cleaning cycle that appeared to complete, but several normal cleanings which all crashed.  Epson let me know that the software was crashing because the printer couldn't fix the issue.  To me, the user interface/ feedback for the failure isn't that informative.  I'm taking it next week to a service center to see what can be done.  If nothing, I'll just continue printing for now since as noted, it still prints ok to my eyes.  I'm not noticing any major issues with the prints.  Thanks everyone for your feedback.