Mike Teutsch
February 14th, 2007, 10:47 AM
Hi All,
A bunch of us were commenting in another thread about the problems with the feed tray or the Epson printers. To be more precise, we were complaining and commiserating about have to push them by hand to get them started sometimes and in other cases having to pull them back out. This has long been a bone of contention with these great little Epson printers. Hard to beat them for cheap CD/DVD printing, but a pain to have to assist them all of the time!
Don Bloom, in the other thread, coined the term, "Epson Push" for the problem.
I decided to see if it could be fixed, rather than just lived with. Well, the fix turned out to be really simple.
The drive rollers for the tray, four of them used, are located in the front near the area of the DVD tray hinge. Two small arms or rollers apply pressure from each side on the top, but generally not enough to insure the proper operation and contact with the drive rollers.
When the tray tries to feed, often the rollers can't get a good enough grip to move the tray. If they get the tray moving at the start, it often stops about 3/8" in and you have to push it again. This is caused by the tray having to pass under the inner paper guide rollers. These rollers have a lot of tension or apply a lot of pressure downward for the paper feed rollers. The front of the DVD/CD tray has a thin plastic lip and a taper to aid in getting through, but there is still a lot of force needed to get the front of the tray past them. Push the tray in by hand and you will see what I mean.
After figuring out what the process was, the cure was easy. The bottom of the CD/DVD tray is very smooth and it is hard for the feed roller to get a grip on it. All I had to do was to sand the bottom of the tray crossways with some sandpaper. I would suggest about an 80 to 120 grit paper and using a sanding block of some sort as I did. I used 80 grit, because that is what I had handy.
After sanding the tray crossways and cleaning it up, it works flawlessly every time. No Problems at all. The slight roughness of the bottom of the tray gave the feed rollers something to hold on to, some tooth as they say.
If all you have is issues when the tray starts to feed, you only need to sand the area that is marked with red in the attached picture. I did the whole thing.
Things to remember:
1. About 80 to 120 grit paper, with flat surface sanding block.
2. Do not sand or damage the small plastic tip of the tray when sanding. You do not need to get near it any way, as the front inch or so of the bottom of the tray does not even need to be sanded.
3. Clean the tray before putting in back into the printer. It can be washed off and dried; it is just a piece of plastic. We not want any sandpaper grit inside the printer!
4. You are just roughing the surface up and there is no need to remove any real material. You are just scratching it up, not sanding material off.
5. Go crossways, not lengthways.
6. Make sure you are sanding the "BOTTOM!"
7. And this one is important: I take no responsibility if you screw yours up!!! :)
I have attached some pictures. Sorry they are not better but I just used my cheap little camera.
Good luck to all.
Mike
A bunch of us were commenting in another thread about the problems with the feed tray or the Epson printers. To be more precise, we were complaining and commiserating about have to push them by hand to get them started sometimes and in other cases having to pull them back out. This has long been a bone of contention with these great little Epson printers. Hard to beat them for cheap CD/DVD printing, but a pain to have to assist them all of the time!
Don Bloom, in the other thread, coined the term, "Epson Push" for the problem.
I decided to see if it could be fixed, rather than just lived with. Well, the fix turned out to be really simple.
The drive rollers for the tray, four of them used, are located in the front near the area of the DVD tray hinge. Two small arms or rollers apply pressure from each side on the top, but generally not enough to insure the proper operation and contact with the drive rollers.
When the tray tries to feed, often the rollers can't get a good enough grip to move the tray. If they get the tray moving at the start, it often stops about 3/8" in and you have to push it again. This is caused by the tray having to pass under the inner paper guide rollers. These rollers have a lot of tension or apply a lot of pressure downward for the paper feed rollers. The front of the DVD/CD tray has a thin plastic lip and a taper to aid in getting through, but there is still a lot of force needed to get the front of the tray past them. Push the tray in by hand and you will see what I mean.
After figuring out what the process was, the cure was easy. The bottom of the CD/DVD tray is very smooth and it is hard for the feed roller to get a grip on it. All I had to do was to sand the bottom of the tray crossways with some sandpaper. I would suggest about an 80 to 120 grit paper and using a sanding block of some sort as I did. I used 80 grit, because that is what I had handy.
After sanding the tray crossways and cleaning it up, it works flawlessly every time. No Problems at all. The slight roughness of the bottom of the tray gave the feed rollers something to hold on to, some tooth as they say.
If all you have is issues when the tray starts to feed, you only need to sand the area that is marked with red in the attached picture. I did the whole thing.
Things to remember:
1. About 80 to 120 grit paper, with flat surface sanding block.
2. Do not sand or damage the small plastic tip of the tray when sanding. You do not need to get near it any way, as the front inch or so of the bottom of the tray does not even need to be sanded.
3. Clean the tray before putting in back into the printer. It can be washed off and dried; it is just a piece of plastic. We not want any sandpaper grit inside the printer!
4. You are just roughing the surface up and there is no need to remove any real material. You are just scratching it up, not sanding material off.
5. Go crossways, not lengthways.
6. Make sure you are sanding the "BOTTOM!"
7. And this one is important: I take no responsibility if you screw yours up!!! :)
I have attached some pictures. Sorry they are not better but I just used my cheap little camera.
Good luck to all.
Mike