Examining The Nozzle Check Pattern; Aligning The Print Head - Epson Stylus Photo 1280 Product Information

2. Press the b maintenance button and hold it down for three
seconds. Cleaning takes about 30 seconds, during which the
printer makes some noise and the Ppower light flashes.
Never turn off the printer while the Ppower light is
flashing, unless the printer hasn't moved or made noise
for more than 5 minutes.
3. After the Ppower light stops flashing, do one of the
following:
If your printer is connected directly to the computer, go
to step 4 to run a nozzle check.
If you're printing over a network, open an application and
print a short document containing black and color data.
Check the quality of your printout, then go to step 8.
4. If you have an application running, access the printer
settings dialog box.
Or, with Windows, click
select . Right-click your
Printers
printer icon in the Printers window. Then select
1280
(
Properties Document Defaults
5. Windows: Click the
Utility
Macintosh: Click the
6. Make sure paper is loaded in the printer, click the
button, and click
Check
prints. (See the next section for details.)
7. If the nozzle check pattern has no gaps in its dots, click
.
Finish
If the pattern is missing dots, click
head again.
8. If you don't see any improvement after cleaning three or
four times, check the solutions in the Printer Basics book.
You can also turn the printer off and wait overnight—this
allows any dried ink to soften—and then try cleaning the
print head again.
, point to , then
Start Settings
EPSON Stylus Photo
in Windows NT).
tab.
Utility button.
Nozzle
. The nozzle check pattern
Next
to clean the print
Clean

Examining the Nozzle Check Pattern

Examine the nozzle check pattern you print. It should look
something like this:
Each staggered horizontal and straight vertical line should be
complete, with no gaps in the dot pattern. If your printout
looks okay, you're done. If any dots are missing, as shown
below, clean the print head again; see page 10 for instructions.
missing dots

Aligning the Print Head

If your printouts contain misaligned vertical lines, you may
need to align the print head. Your printer must be connected
to a local port, not on a network, to use the Print Head
Alignment utility. Follow these steps:
1. Make sure the printer is turned on but not printing, and
letter-size paper is loaded.
Load letter or A4-size paper to print the entire
bidirectional pattern.
For the best results, load EPSON ink jet paper in the
printer whenever you check the print head alignment.
2. If you have an application running, access the printer
settings dialog box.
Or, with Windows, click
select . Right-click the
Printers
icon in the Printers window. Select
in Windows NT).
Defaults
3. Windows: Click the
Macintosh: Click the
4. You see the Utility menu. Click the
button.
5. Follow the instructions on the screen to print a test page.
6. Select the best line from the first group of lines on the
printout, then enter its number in box #1 on screen. Select
the line with the cleanest, straightest edges. Then choose the
best line in the second group and enter its number in box #2
on screen.
1/01
EPSON Stylus Photo 1280
missing dots
missing dots
, point to
Start Settings
EPSON Stylus Photo 1280
(
Properties Document
tab.
Utility
Utility button.
Print Head Alignment
EPSON Stylus Photo 1280
, then
- 11