Update 6 / Feb 12, 2014
I had the friendly visit of an Epson technician yesterday. He took apart the right hand side of the printer, to get to the pump.
He hypothesized that the pump was not doing its job. But after a few "powerful cleaning", he was satisfied that the pump was not the culprit.
He managed to get Orange and Light Magenta to show on the nozzle check.
He tried one or two additional powerful cleanings while closerly observing the working of the pump and the clear tubes that are conducting the sucked up inks
to the Maintenance Tank. He must have spent 90 minutes working on my printer but in the end, he could not see what would keep the other colors to show up on the nozzle check. So we brainstorms possible ideas. He suggested I got the Epson Adjustment program to conduct and "Ink Eject" : if I see all inks passed through the tubing on their way to the Maintenant Tank then, he thought, we will know the problem is not coming from the head.
This afternoon, after obtaining the Epson Adjustment program, I tried a nozzle check first. I was suprised to see, not only Orange and Light Magenta but also
a bit of Light Cyan and Light Black. Then I tried to issue the Ink Eject command. I observe that some ink was actually pulled through the tubing but not much?
In fact, after 3 minutes of this, the printer stopped and I got the following error message "Something went wrong, please check the printer. The printer does not become ready".
This, to me, indicates that the printer is unable to complete the command fully. I tried two more times, in case. Same error message. Then, having nothing to lose, I tried issuing the "Ink Charge" command. I got a nice "The command has been transmitted to the printer. Do no send another command as long as the sequence is still running". Well, it's been 15 minutes now and nothing is happening on the printer side. Looks like the printer is still idle. Just tried sending a nozzle check and nothing? Maybe the printer knows internally that the ink cartridges are empty, most of them were "initial cartridges". I restarted the printer and the software, and tried my luck with another nozzle check but, no response? Ah! Got a "Communication error message". I couldn't turn the printer off from the front panel so I pulled the power plug and got a "Fatal Error: 3000".
At this point, I am not encouraged. I guess I coud try another Ink Eject? I have not done the SL2 which they say is recommended to "fill the head with ink" after setting a new print head? Actually, when I tried to issue SL2 earlier, nothing happened? I just tried it now and got the message "Not enough ink"?
At this point, I'd have to buy new ink cartridges to further continue the process. But I'm not optimistic about the prospect.
It's very possible that I have fried the delicate piezzo in my heads by injecting Windex, water, nail remover, 95% alcool and compressed air -- the works.
I was toying with the possibility of refilling (somehow?) the empty ink cartridges with water? Just so that I could see whether it's possible to further clean the system.
On YouTube, I saw that it's possible to inject ink in a OEM Epson cartridge, with a syringe. But I'd have to have a way of resetting the chip? otherwise, even if I fill the cartridge
with water, the printer will see the cartridges as empty?
What a saga. Better dump the printer now? And order a new one?