Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

---In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, <beefyzee@...> wrote:

Thanks for pointing that out. I had to Google QFN, that went straight over my head LOL. Hopefully I'll get by with the resolution for quite some time. I've accumulated four other old Epson inkjets during the course of this thread and the best two have better resolutions.

 

I'm starting with the cheapest one and completely flushing all the ink out of the colour cartridges. When I get them fully dried out I'll fill them with proper black film opaque ink.

 

I love these old Epson printers. Cheap, piezo print heads, free 3rd party application available for resetting cartridges and overiding ink pad counter, etc. I've found service manuals for every one so I take them apart if need be.

 

Jus picked up ONE only Epson Stylus Color 3000 yesterday. This guy is Chinese from the Russian border and absolutely basic communication is futile depite him speaking English. When he answers "yes" to a question, it can just as easily mean "no". Turns out he was only selling one printer MINUS the black cartridge. Got the printer for $40 with 3 empty colour cartridges, and seemingly blocked print heads which I expected. Spent another $25 on a couple of black cartridges from the States.

 

This is a monster of a printer and seems to have professional functionality. I've heard nothing but great reports for it's ability to print great film positives. It's even got a print setting for film. Hopefully I get it working.

 

Keith.

---In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, <andrewm1973@...> wrote:

Keith,

One thing I did notice about the Epson 3000 is that

it only has a resolution of 720 DPI.

https://www.epson.com.au/products/inkjet/stylusC3000_specs.asp

This is probably fine for screen printers phototools

It might be a bit marginal for a 0.4mm QFN

> beefyzee wrote:

---In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, <alienrelics@...> wrote:

Realigning Epson heads requires a bit of factory-only software (possibly available online, let's not talk about that here) and is a real pain.

I have rescued a -lot- of Epson printers. The only time I removed the heads for cleaning, it was a nightmare.

I don't buy any fancy cleaning things, I don't use a syringe to force liquid through the heads (bad news!). I wrote this up:

http://www.polyphoto.com/tutorials/PrintHeadCleaning/EpsonCleaning.html

The Epson 3000 is still going for a lot of money because of the dense ink, the built-in bulk ink system, and because it can print on 17x22 paper or 17 inch wide rolls.

I just cleaned one up that had badly clogged heads, had sat for years. I filled halfway empty cartridges with the cleaning solution as described on the link above, then follow those instructions. The most important part is patience.

Steve Greenfield AE7HD

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, <beefyzee@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks Dave,
>
> I agree about non-functional inkjets being just about a throw out item. Thing with this particular model of printer is it seems to get good reports for it's ability to print high density, which is what I want for single sheet photo positives. Just read on a forum yesterday that these old "workhorse" printers print more densly than their newer successors. So I'm mainly wondering if anyone here has had the actual experience too.
>
> The guy has two of them and said he'll sell them for $40 each. I might see if he'll do the two for $60.
>
> Refurbished models of these seem to be about the $700+ mark, and just general working ones about $250-$300. They still seem to be in demand by people doing silkscreening and photo positive stuff.
>
> Keith.
>

> <SNIP something about EPSON 3000>