Epson 7800 covers page with black ink!

[Borowiec]

My Epson 7800 worked perfectly a week ago. Today I did a nozzle check and, instead of the usual pattern of fine grids for each ink, it printed out two bands of dark stripes. I turned it off, back on, tried again with the same result. Then I tried printing an image (out of Lightroom); the result was a sheet dripping with black ink, covered from edge to edge except for the leading edge, with just a faint outline of the image under all the black ink.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

The image below is of the nozzle check; no point posting a photo of a solid black page!

[I.T. Supplies]

Try a cleaning since the nozzle check is reference of the nozzles firing properly.  A cleaning may help the missing nozzles (may not always show on the nozzle test print since there are so many per color) and this may help on the colors as well as the blacks.

Once it's cleaned (if it can be cleaned properly), the nozzle check should get better "hopefully".  It's hard to say with the older models, but having it print well at one point and doing this can surely happen without a warning/notice of issues unfortunately.

Wish you luck on the cleaning and nozzle reprint!

[Borowiec]

Thanks. I also posted on another forum (Inkjet Mall) and called the local Epson repairman. They both gave the same explanation: there is a short somewhere in the head that is causing it to constantly print black ink, and there is no solution except to replace the head and the motherboard.

It's going out on the curb tomorrow after fourteen years of faithful service