Epson Printer Help Needed

[hammerman]

Yet again, i turn to you wonderful people for help.

I have an Epson stylus SX445W wireless printer. A few weeks ago, the wife was printing a large A4 photo out and it stopped printing halfway through and said the red ink needed changing.

This i did this week but when i went to use it today, the photo quality was awful and pale. I did the nozzle test and cleaned it and it showed no red on the pattern. i cleaned and retested, and again and still no red ink coming through.

Ive been through a couple of the troubleshooters but nothing. The ink cartridges aren't genuine Epson but the others work a treat.

Anything else i could try ?

many thanks

HM

[sddsddean]

Probably an iffy cartridge if its non Epson.

[eddiek]

link that helped me in the past. SSC service utility for epson printers

[Canary42]

I used to have an Epson, and non-Epson cartridges often failed, so I stopped using them.

[bookbinder]

Always use Epson cartridges. Epson design their printers to work with their cartridges, and nobody else's. You should not be surprised when your printer does not work properly if it's trying to do the job with another firm's cartridges in it.

[hammerman]

Never had a problem with other cartridges in the past. I put another red one in and that doesn't work either. All the other non epson ones are fine.

Might have to go and get a genuine red one to see :-(

[Hymie]

It’s been a very long time since I have had any problems with Epson compatible cartridges.

However, many moons ago I suffered similar problems; first remove the offending cartridge and check that inserting the cartridge has resulted in the cartridge outlet ink seal being pierced (if not, manually pierce and replace).
I have also managed to ‘prime’ reluctant cartridges by adding a couple of drops of either IPA or petroleum spirit into the ink cartridge outlet orifice.

[Hymie]

To assist me in identifying the correct operation of each ink cartridge, I have created a Word document consisting of four small text boxes, filled with Black, Magenta, Cyan and Yellow.

[Khandro]

As there is no 'red' cartridge, to make red the printer only has the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and black) ink colours, and so must use a few magenta and yellow ink dots, not necessarily equal numbers of each, to achieve different shades of red, so which colours were showing on your test print?