Epson XP-205: Black Ink Not Printing, Cartridge Recognized, Color Prints Fine, Head Cleaning

Hello

I have a practically new printer that first ran out of black ink, so I used mixing the color inks to get a black print. Then the color ran out, so on the same day I bought all the color replacements and installed it to the printer and it started. Black ink does not print at all, but the cartridge itself is recognized correctly. Color prints flawlessly. Cleaning the heads (repeatedly) does nothing but consumes ink. At first I assumed that the problem was caused by the drying of the black head, because it hadn't been used for quite a long time. But this is probably not a problem, because if I accidentally ran a table printout from Excel, where the frames were black and the text was also black, the frames were surprisingly printed in black, but the text was not! What's more, the frames are so perfectly printed that they look like from a laser printer and there is not even a single black dot in place of the expected text. So I suppose the problem is not a dried-up head, but somewhere else, but where? Where to look for the problem? Factory reset didn't help either.

Regards

Krystian

Hello

The nozzle check printout shows only the colored inks. There is no droplet from the black. The grayscale printout changes nothing. In both cases, from Excel, an empty table is printed in black and there is no text. In Word, regardless of whether I print with the gray option selected or not, it prints nothing in black, neither black and white pictures, nor tables, nor text. Interestingly, the amount of black ink is decreasing rapidly, for example when I order photo-quality printing.

Regards

Krystian

krisxxl wrote:

the amount of black ink is diminishing, and at a rapid pace

Does it lose it physically from the cartridge or only on the ink level indicator on the display or on the computer?

Hello

It is depleting on the indicator in the printer driver. Physically, I don't know if it's declining, because I don't know how to check it.

Regards

Krystian

If the black one does not check the nozzles, the head to the head is clogged / dry, or possibly damaged. When printing, black is sometimes folded from colors and sometimes printed from black, but all colors must always be included in the nozzle test.

Hello

I am aware that you may suspect a dry nozzle and mixing colors to obtain black, but I do not like it when printing a table from Excel, because the black obtained there is too black for mixing colors. I know what black was from the black cartridge and I know what it was from mixing colors - these are two different shades.

Regards

Krystian

Since you are sure that it is black over black, it is possible that the printhead is clogged with air, or the cartridge has a problem with venting and ink flows into the nozzles too slowly. To print the table, relatively little ink is needed, so the table is printed, and before each printout of the nozzle pattern, the printer cleans the heads, using all the ink that has already flowed into the nozzles, and the test looks like it looks like. Yes, my theory :)

I would advise you to rinse the heads (black only) with head cleaner, ipa, or glass cleaner. Leave it like that for a day and try to clean the heads systemically. This may have to be repeated several times.

Hello

Unfortunately, it didn't work. The printer gave up the ghost completely. After starting it, it moved the ambulance as standard and then the LEDs went out and I can't start it anymore. Anyway, I have to buy a new one, and I will take this one apart and see what's inside I would like to thank all those who are interested for their help.

Regards

Krystian