Epson Photo Stylus 1400 - Paper Loading Problem with Inkjet Misalignment

[DS256]

I've been having problems with my 1400. It seems that when I change paper stock, the first sheet will not always feed properly and may be on an angle. This seems to cause the print head to go out of alignment creating off colour printing and/or banding.

I've spent a fair amount of time online as well as talking with Epson Canada support to no avail.

I suspect that the rollers may become dirty. Unfortunately, Epson no longer sells cleaning sheets to clean the rollers for the 1400.

Here are some suggestions on overcoming the problem:

• Make sure the left hand paper guide is not too tight against the paper.
• Make sure the paper is lose in the feeder.
• Periodically clean the bottom of the feeder area. I use compressed air.
• When you load new paper stock, feed a non-printing page through using the paper/garbage button (top button). This will ensure you have a clean paper feed without involving the print head.
• I found a utility WIC (https://www.wic.support/) that will print both the nozzle check but a colour check that is more detailed. This is where you see the problem of ink colours intermixing.
• If on the nozzle check, or WIC colour check, you see a problem, run the Epson 1400 Alignment program from the Maintenance tab. Normally I find I have to select one pattern above or below the standard 5.
• After running the Alignment, the nozzle/colour check should look normal.

I was surprised about the effect the head alignment had especially after wasting so much ink on cleaning.

Took me quite a few days to get to this point.