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dot matrix printers

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by butch_firefox

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hello guys....
i'm so happy being part of TechRepublic.com...
i can now share my hardware technical problems..
huh!!!
guys i'm really having a problem with these epson LQ-300 series printers...we have a lot of
defective...our primary diagnosis is that a printer head problem..we are having problems with the loosing of ribbons, white lines in the
printed area and crooked lines...what shall i do with this because its so expensive to purchase a new printer head.almost half of the price if u buy new printer...hoping for ur rply...tnx

39 replies

by thumbsup2

They take a lick'in and keep on tick'in! ;)

Oh wait... that's the by-line of another product! :D

Well, you get the idea. They're practically indestructable. The Epson's weren't made for the wear and tear of a real world environment. Besides that, aren't the LQ-300's out of production? If so, finding print heads WILL get expensive!

by nicknielsen

You can't go wrong with Okidata impact printers. I just upgraded an operational Microline 184 to a Microline 186 after over four years (I'm told) of daily use. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that printer did more than 10k characters per day, six days a week for the entire time. The original MTBF for the printer was 10,000 hours. Going conservative and saying exactly 4 years continuous ops is just over 35,000 hours. Aside: The 186 has an MTBF of 20k hours; the only issues I've had are the usual operator problems like trying to run pin feed paper with the pressure rollers closed.

Hate Okidata laser printers, but absolutely love their impact printers.

by deepsand

Epson's are fine for low duty usage; but, for medium to high duty, you need to step up to the plate and pay for real quality.

I've been using, and recommending to clients, Oki printers since 1982, with never a reason for regret.

And, that Oki has so many authorized dealers and service shops around serves only to sweeten the deal.

Yes, they are more costly; but, as with most things, you get what you pay for.

by nicknielsen

Are you using continuous form paper? Is the paper twisting in the feed path? If so, make sure the pressure rollers are released. The one deficiency I have found with every brand of impact printer is that the feed rates are slightly different between pressure feed and pin feed.

If you have to, tape lever for the pressure rollers in the open position.

by sojrner

Sounds like a damaged print head or it was not installed correctly. Check the positioning of the print head first. Then you will probably have to replace it. Maybe it was damaged in the first place???

by mjd420nova

The biggest problem with dot matrix printheads is the lack of lubrication. The wires that make up the fingers that impact the ribbon/paper/platten tend to get mushroomed and then widen the slot they fit into and then are no longer in a straight line leading to distorted characters. The mushroomed pins will also get a bit ragged on the end and snag the ribbon causing missed characters and misalinment of columns and ragged ribbons. Keeping fresh ribbons in the printer and replacing them as soon as they fade out is important to keep the printhead lubricated, sometimes a little shot of WD-40 will keep it going and preventing printing on a bare platten will prevent excessive wear.

by charliespencer

Before you hit the head with WD-40, wipe the business end of it with a cotton swab moistened in isopropyl alcohol. Keep doing this until you remove all of the built-up ink deposits. Then spray it with WD-40, run a couple of pages, spray it again, and run it for a several dozen pages. Discard the ribbon since it will have WD-40 spots on it that may affect later print jobs.

Incidentally, I have several C. Itoh 5000 dot matrix printers I'd be happy to sell you cheap ($100 each and you pay the shipping). These are real workhorse desktop models;

http://www99.epinions.com/C__Itoh_Ci_5000_Dot_Matrix_Printer__Printers_CI_5000

by robo_dev

//begin trivia//

Some printers like the HP Ruggedwriter had much larger pins than most printers, which made them more rugged.

The reason that even the most rugged Japanese made printers have small pins is that it's not possible to print readable kanji with larger printhead pins.

//end trivia//

by charliespencer

In her high school days, Dot was twice president of the school computer club. After graduations, she married and changed her name to Dot Com. They've since divorced.

by butch_firefox

thank you guys for your advice...only epson is the well known dot matrix printer here.i found one model of oki but afraid to try..i will just purchase a printer head and try it.the new printer is going more expensive.times three of the printer head.

by jamesrl

My business still has hundreds of customers with dot matrix printers. We currently only sell one brand - Fujitsu.

But from my old PC days, OKI was probably the best built out there. They last.

James

by butch_firefox

thank you sir for posting your reply...

actually, i would like to try ohter brands..one is the oki because that's what my other supplier offered.but my concern is the resources like ribbons..i might have a hard time looking for.

by charliespencer

If you plan on keeping these antiques running for some time yet, you might as well buy several heads while you can still get them.

by jdclyde

and had nothing but problems with the epsons.

for the print heads, soak them over night in the alcohol.

it is more common for the heads to get gummed up than for them to actually go bad.

strongly recommend next time you have to replace, go to the oki.

by tonythetiger

The white lines are probably pins stuck in the print head. Some have been able to clean these successfully and others have ended up with worse problems due to bending the pins.

The crooked lines are most likely caused by the print head taking a slightly different track in one direction than the other. This can be a loose print head or the mounting it attaches to. This is usually a sign of major wear in the printer. It can be mostly eliminated by turning bi-directional printing off, but this will cause prints to take longer. You're probably better off getting new printers.

by jdclyde

blow the puppy out real good.

amazying how much dust you get off a roll of paper.

Is it using tractor feed or the rollers?

push or pull?

Pull ALWAYS is better, but wastes a page everytime.

by jdclyde

just about half inch in a bowl with the pins facing down.

then use a toothbrush on it (preferably someone elses)

by butch_firefox

hello guys!!!gud day..it's about the printer head i've posted before..i decided to purchase new printer head for our epson dot matrix printers. i tried 2 for our defective not more than two years of age acquired.at first, the print outs have no white lines but the next problem is the crooked lines when the print out
has rows and columns.but if u just print plain text..the print out is good..i've come into assumption that it might not be the printer head is the problem and planning to send the printers to the authorized service centers of epson..i tried to consult other technicians to.one technician told me that it might be the alignment to adjust..then my co technician researched in the net and found out the procedure of adjusting the alignment..then it works...our problem was solved...so guys, if u have impact printers that has the problem of crooked lines and the print out has no white lines...try adjusting your alignment...it might help you...thank you and more power to us all!

by rsanchezp

I use to work for IBM supporting Avis/Budget worldwide . and they all use these type of printers. These printers are used mainly because of the mainframe O/S supports.

Configuring these printers logically (mainframe sessions) and hardware were a pain!. Many of the times were hardware problems where we would always have to send a technician on site.

But yes...its all about hardware configurations.

by nicknielsen

Dot matrix printers headaches? You're kidding, right? I've got over 40 laser printers and 20 dot matrix printers in my territory. I'll get 2-3 laser printer calls a week and maybe 2-3 dot matrix printer calls a year.

[i]These printers are used mainly because of the mainframe O/S supports.[/i]

You can configure any printer to connect to a mainframe session. Dot-matrix printers are used mainly because of the requirement to print multiple-part paper.

If the user knows how to load the paper and keeps the printer clean, a well-built dot matrix printer will last for years.

by butch_firefox

oh yes!!!that's it exactly...now that we discovered the alignment of these printers, it's not a headache anymore..we have other disaligned printers in here and try to configure and now they work well...U

by nicknielsen

I had a client who would call almost daily to get paper jams cleared from the fuser input. I replaced rollers, the image cart, even the fuser, and nothing worked. The client wouldn't admit it, but I think he was using cheap paper and not storing it properly (I once saw several reams standing on [u]edge[/u] on a shelf. "Oh, no, I don't use that in the printer." Yeah, right!)

I know it's not rational, but ever since then I shudder when I see Oki laser printers. Even though I know Brother printers are the worst. ;)

Edit: close parentheses

by deepsand

I infrequently see the same, and always find evidence of paper having been mis-stored, mis-handled, etc..

I really love the "but, it's only torn a little bit" plea.

And, let's not forget the users who insist on reusing paper, and then complain when the print quality goes south and it's going to cost them a zillion dollars to have it torn down and cleaned..

by nicknielsen

When I was in the USAF, I was in tactical units and often deployed on field exercises. On one exercise, an entire box of paper was inadvertently left out in the weather overnight. Over numerous objections, mine included, the shop supervisor insisted on using that paper in the printer immediately after it was found. The steam that came out of that printer as the first sheet cleared the fuser disabused him of that notion almost immediately. :0

I'll give him credit for one thing?he at least understood the paper would be weak and told us to feed a single sheet at a time from the multi-purpose feeder. :D

Edit: In my current job, I'm dealing with pharmacy labels and duplexers. Talk about fun!

by deepsand

Absent a completely straight feed path, printing self-adhesive labels on any type of printer is a crap shoot.

Have you ever seen a duplex printer that was truly reliable with respect to being no more prone to jams than in simplex mode?

by nicknielsen

I have more paper jams in the fuser exit area than I do in the duplexer assembly. The vast majority of duplexer jams I see are because a multi-page job jammed in the printer, leaving sheets in the duplexer. These are mostly Lexmark T-series printers with an external duplexer and 500-sheet tray. As long as we keep them clean, they are pretty reliable.

I've had a recent rash of serious paper jams due to labels being stripped from the backing as they pass through the fuser, but can't find a correlation to the age of the rollers or fuser. I strongly suspect the newer labels are not up to the quality of their predecessors.

I'm having the same problem with poor quality labels on some of the grocery scales I maintain except in this case, the labels [u]won't[/u] strip properly from the backing. What can you do?

edit: splel

by jardinier

I have two Epson 24-pin dot matrix printers which are more than 15 years old.

For sure they are not used constantly but they are still as good as new. I don't really have any use for them now, but hate to throw out a reliable, fully functional unit.

by deepsand

and you've no need for them, perhaps you can find a school or non-profit that can use them.

Throwing out perfectly equipment is such a waste.

by nicknielsen

But the duplexing is required to print drug interactions and health warnings on the back of the label blank. (Hey, I don't make the decisions, I just live with the consequences.) Also, most of my pharmacies don't print enough to justify that kind of capacity. In fact, some of them almost have less floor space than the printer's footprint.

When I was in college, we used to mess with new operators on their first evening at the DP center console by "forgetting" to latch the paper guide on the 1403's output bin. The first page feed always created a paper storm. :D

by deepsand

(You, of course, most likely already know this; but, there are undoubtedly those here who do not and may find it an interesting anecdote.)

With the 1403, such was via controlling the timing of the impact of each print stroke.

On the 1401, it was by way of executing the appropriate Op Codes for the appropriate amount of time so as to control the switching frequency of the core memory within the RF spectrum.

As to the pharmacy duplex labels, and given that it's been a very long time since I've had occasion to read one, I'm a bit puzzled.

I assumed that the self-adhesive labels were those attached to the outside of drug packaging, and the duplex documents were something different. However, your mention of the printer's footprint suggested that that the latter are of a size on the order of the self-adhesive labels.

What am I missing here?

by nicknielsen

The labels and backing are fused to the top one-third of the sheet; the labels are die-cut. The system prints the bottle label, any warning labels, and the signature label. The prescription summary, pharmacy contact information, Health Resources information, and promotional information are printed on the remainder of the sheet and on the back.

On re-reading my last post, it's obvious I wasn't clear. The printer footprint to which I referred was the 1403's footprint.

by deepsand

After all, there's only those 4 casters holding it up. :D

:0 What, you meant its shadow? ?:|

As for your duplex labels, it's quite clear now; thanks for the explanation. I hadn't considered that there might be a hybrid form involved.

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