Epson Stylus Color 600 Service Manual page 47

The figure below shows carriage mechanism. The print head as a core of the printing mechanism is
stored in the carriage unit. This print head keeps the tilt of print head in flexible and adjustable structure by
moving the adjustment lever up and down by the tilt adjustment mechanism. (Refer to chapter 4 for more
details) Also, parallelism adjustment lever is mounted on the left and right side of carriage guide shaft and
it adjusts parallelism degree between platen and shaft when this shaft is installed to the printer
mechanism.
After this adjustment is completed and operate PG adjustment lever, it becomes possible to change the
space between platen surface and print head surface into 2 phases; either 1.1mm to 1.8mm. It is possible
to vary the space between platen surface and print head by rotating the axis of carriage guide shaft which
itself is decentralized, with the operation of PG lever. This is the mechanism that user can adjust the
appropriate PG value by himself according to the paper thickness or any other environmental conditions
such as paper curl.
Carriage lock mechanism is to prevent the carriage from being left at uncap position for a long time
because of vibration during the printer transport or mishandling by the users. If the carriage is left at uncap
position and uncap state of the print head for long time, an ink on the print head surface gradually
becomes viscosity. As a result, the nozzle will be unable to discharge an ink. To make matters worse, the
holes(crater) of nozzle may be completely clogged by the viscosity ink and it may not be able to return to
the normal condition just by cleaning operation. In order to prevent this, printer goes to carriage lock state
at the following conditions.


After Power OFF operation:

If the power is turned off on the way of printing or any other performance, carriage lock will be
performed in the end after completing initialize operation.


After power ON operation:

After power is turned on and automatic P-On Cleaning is performed, then carriage lock will be
performed. P-On Cleaning is an automatic head cleaning that is performed when the power is
turned on. The timer IC always calculates printer's power OFF time by the power of lithium
battery mounted on the C200 main board. P-on cleaning function automatically selects the
cleaning level according to the time which the printer is not in used.


After Eject the paper:
After Load/Eject button is pressed and the paper is ejected, if the data is not input, the printer
performs carriage lock and goes to standby state. However, if the paper is loaded to the printer
inside by Load/Eject button, the printer does not perform the carriage lock operation.
Rev. A
Figure 2-8. Carriage Mechanism(Top Viewing)
Chapter2 Operating Principles
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