Examining The Nozzle Check Pattern; Aligning The Print Head - Epson Stylus Photo R280 Manual

Using the Buttons on the Printer
1. Make sure the printer is turned on but not printing, and the
red ink light is off. (If the red
on, you need to replace a cartridge.)
2. Hold down the ink button on the printer for
approximately 3 seconds.
The printer runs a head cleaning cycle and the green
power light flashes. Cleaning takes several seconds.
Caution:
Never turn off the printer while head cleaning is in progress. You
may damage it.
Do not insert the CD/DVD tray until cleaning has finished.
3. When the green power light stops flashing, make sure
paper is loaded in the printer, then print a nozzle check to
determine whether you need to clean the print head again.
See "Checking the Print Head Nozzles" on page 11 for
more information.
If you don't see any improvement after cleaning three times,
turn the printer off and wait overnight. This allows any
dried ink to soften. Then, try cleaning the print head again.

Examining the Nozzle Check Pattern

Examine the nozzle check pattern you printed. Each staggered
line should be solid, with no gaps, as shown.
❏ If your printout looks okay, you're done.
❏ If you see any gaps (as shown below), clean the print head
again.
ink light is flashing or
7/07

Aligning the Print Head

If your printouts look grainy or blurry, or you see light or dark
lines, you may need to align the print head.
Note:
You may also see lines in your printouts if your cartridges are low
on ink or you need to clean the print head.
Before you align the print head, make sure the CD/DVD tray
is not inserted in the printer, and make sure the front tray is in
the paper (lower) position.
1. Turn on the printer.
2. Make sure none of the lights are indicating errors.
3. Load several sheets of plain, letter-size paper.
4. Do one of the following:
❏ Windows: Right-click the
taskbar (in the lower right corner of your screen). Select
Print Head Alignment
❏ Macintosh: Open the
EPSON Printer Utility2
printer list, click
OK
.
Alignment
5. Follow the instructions on the screen to print the alignment
pattern. You see a window like this one:
6. Look at the four sets of patterns in your printout. For each
set, look at the printed squares to determine which one in
each set is the most even, with no streaks or lines, and enter
its number in the corresponding box on the screen.
If every square in a set contains a line or lines, select the
square with the thinnest line or lines. Then click
and
Realignment Print
and repeat this step.
7. Click to close the Print Head Alignment utility
Finish
Epson Stylus Photo R280
printer icon on your
.
folder and select
Applications
. Select
SP R280 Series
, then select
Print Head
to print another alignment sheet
in the
.
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