Epson Ecotank - is my printer dead or alive?

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Batman

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#324972 19-Jun-2026 18:16

Hi I have a ET 3800 and one day it just started printing blank pages.

Tested with multiple devices - blank pages.

Did a nozzle printing test - blank pages. (I presume this tests all the colours?)

So. Is the printer dead or is there something else i can do?

When i tip the printer around, the colour ink is swirling but the black ink is just a faded stain - does not swirl.

Any ideas?

And no i have not done any maintenance on it, as youtube now tells me i should have.

Cheers.

(PS already bought a new ecotank but hey thought I'd ask on a Friday evening!)

kiruti

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#3504688 19-Jun-2026 19:50

My Canon did (and still sometimes does) this, and a deep clean seemed to fix it. Seems to happen every so often if the printer doesn't get used much.

fe31nz

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#3504713 19-Jun-2026 23:20

It is potential death for you to leave any ink jet printer for too long between printing things. It only takes a few months and one or more of the ink jets can be blocked up permanently - and head replacement is often more expensive than a new printer. The head cleaning options, even "deep clean" are not guaranteed to unblock it, but if it happens to you you should try them multiple times. So it is best to schedule a monthly printing day where you print a page with all of the inks being used. The printer test page is usually OK for this. Obviously, this will use up ink and therefore has a $ cost (which can be significant if it is an old ink cartridge type printer). But it is usually cheaper than a new printer. You can skip doing this if you are printing things that use all colours, but beware of doing black and white printing for a month and letting the colour ink jets get blocked. Or printing colour forms that do not use one of the colours.