Mepis-Friendly Do-Everything Printer

Whats seems to be wrong with it Jon bad prints no prints?? And do you have a winders rig with the drivers loaded?

jim

Hey Jim. I don't DO Windows

What happened is this. The Epson has 4 ink recepticles: black, cyan, red, yellow. They were all getting low, so I bought new ones (Epson brand). I replaced them and went through the front panel settings to 1) Clean the heads, 2) Test the nozzles, 3) Align the heads. When I then did a Color Copy of a magazine cover, all I get are either 1) nothing at all, or 2) ocassional streaks of black or cyan or one other color.

So it looks to me like 1) Ink cartridges are bad (all of them?) or 2) nozzles or ink channels are blocked (again, all of them?). I had last used the printer successfully (but black only) about two weeks before.

It was getting late and I didn't want to get any more ink on my fingers so I quit

This evening I will try to remove and shake the cartridges again and see what happens (besides spraying ink all over the room).

I shall also be following drlizau's advice and offer kind supplication to my Diety.

But, since I have been thinking about getting a new printer anyway, I thought I'd ask. Of course, my original thought was that I'd then be able to use the Epson as backup, but if I can't get it fixed, it may just be a backup doorstop.

Jon

Well maybe in this case you need a vmware bail-out like me. I too avoid winders as mutch as possible but in this case for me anyway its a must have utilitie . I have found some Epson printers cranky after ink cahnges taking a considerable time to charge without the ink tank change software to prime them up . I wasnt aware linux had this special feature so i may all wet here. But i do know a dry inkhead can be bad news if used too long that way on any printer. Epsons to my knowledge isnt user replaceable it has to go to factory for that, replacement is usually cheaper in that case.
Some times letting them sit for a day will help it charge for some reason slow absorbtion i suppose. But at times they can be contrary. If you have head cleaning software in linux trying that from time to time may work with a one cleaning at a time approach. Good luck!

jim

Jon,

I have run Epson printers since I started using MEPIS about 2 years ago with little trouble. I currently have an RX500 printer,fax, copier that works well for printing with MEPIS. It does its own copying with no help from the computer. However, I have not really tried to get the scanner to work with MEPIS..I had bad experiences with Kooka early in my newbie life (still am a newbie, may never grow up in Linux). So, I just give up and dual boot. The scanner is one of those things I still use the Epson (windoze) software on the disk for that task.

The only other hitch with the Epson's is at least I have never found a good set of Epson low ink warnings, etc for use with MEPIS. If you know of one, please post it.

As for pure printing, I have both an Epson R300 and an R320 that work well under MEPIS. They print nice color; even on CD and DVD labels. There were no installation problems; they work perfectly. However, the "ink is low" and other warnings are AWOL again.

Also, there are newer (and more expensive) versions from Epson that do the same thing as these models. Being a bit of a scrooge, I have not paid the higher prices yet. One can get a real bargain (less than $100 for each of the models I have tried) at Fry's Electronics -- if you have one near you -- when they stock up on refurbished machines. So far, I have had very good luck with them.

I'm using an HP PSC-1410 for a multi-function (it shows up as an HP PSC-1400 in Linux Distros that support it).

No built in fax modem. But, it works fine for scanning, copying and printing with SimplyMEPIS 3.4.3 or 6.0, and copying will work in color or black and white without a PC. It's a flat bed type copier/scanner (which I prefer).

It will not work with the 3.3.x versions of SimplyMEPIS.

You need to add it using the Cups Web Interface with SimplyMEPIS 3.4.3 for HPLIP Printer Toolbox (where you can check ink levels, align it, etc.) will see it, selecting the first occurance in the list of printers (it will show up more than once).

With SimplyMEPIS 6.0, you need to add it from KControl, Peripherals Printers, and select the second appearance of it (the one with underscore characters in it) before it will scan and be recognized by Kooka and HPLIP Printer Toolbox.

It works fine for me (including using the HPLIP Toolbox to clean and align heads, check ink levels, etc.), and it works fine with Kooka for scanning, too. Ink is a bit steep for it though (but, you're replacing the heads each time you change ink with an HP like this one, too).

HP Small Business has some left for only $69.95 now (including color and black ink cartridges).

HP PSC-1400 at HP Small Business Onine

The Home Section doesn't let you buy them direct anymore (they probably just marked them down to sell the rest in the businss section).

More HP All-in-one's in HP Home Office Section

Jim C.

I currently have a Hewlett-Packard PSC1110 for an all-in-one device, and I am looking to move to an OfficeJet 5610 or something similar.

For MEPIS (or other Linux distribution for that matter) use, I strongly recommend Hewlett-Packard devices, though EPSON is not bad either.

When shopping for an all-in-one device, be sure to consider the cost of operation. For example, the newer HP 92 and 21 black cartridges yield approximately 200 pages, whereas the 56 cartridge yields approximately 400 pages.

There are generic versions of the 56 cartridge available so you can save money on printing costs.

Cybernightlife: Everyday Home and Small Business Computing the Linux Way.
http://cybernightlife.50webs.com

I have been using my RX500 with Mepis ever since the RX500 came out. It prints, scans, copys, and reads cards well with Mepis. Kooka works fine with it. The small screen on the printer will tell you when ink is low. Replacing six colors can be expensive, so I use third-party inks.

But I don't think that you can still buy 500's.

Jon, you might want to avoid print head align commands with Epsons. I have heard sad stories, now yours as well.