Epson XP-7100 All in One Print Quality Issues

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My Epson XP-7100 produces black splotches when printing 8 x 10 photos. Text documents print without issue. The problem started in March 2023 but I was able to fix the problem with cleaning the printer heads. That worked until a couple weeks ago when the issue surfaced again. This time nothing has worked.

I’ve cleaned the printer heads, aligned the printer heads, replaced both the photo black and regular black cartridges, and made sure there were no ink smudges on a transparent plastic tape that runs above the printer head rail.

The smudges seem to be coming from the regular black cartridge because they smear easily before the 5 to 10 minutes they take to dry completely.

I called a local printer repair shop and they said they stopped repairing Epson printers because of unspecified “issues”. They did suggest replacing the ink pads. I’ve searched online how to do this and it seems pretty straightforward except that the printer apparently needs to be reset after the new pads are in place. The Epson website implies that the reset is only a temporary solution. It also says that the reset can only be done from Windows but no other OS. Unfortunate because the printer is currently installed only on an iMAC.

Does anyone have any experience with resetting an Epson printer? Does anyone have any other suggestions for resolving my splotch issue?

It’s a good printer and produces high quality photos so I don’t want to trash/recycle it.

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Will it print photos without splotches if the regular black cartridge is not in place?

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It will only print if all the cartridges are in place. Perhaps there’s a workaround I’m missing, but so far no luck finding one.

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I have an Epson, and I have been fairly successful cleaning up with a Q-Tip (carefully sucking up excess ink, not spreading it around). If you can get to it. It’s tedious. There might be other media beside a Q-Tip. I’ve never tried replacing the pad.

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DrBonzo

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I assume you’re cleaning the underside of the print head? It’s not immediately obvious how to gain access to that, although the splotches almost certainly must be coming from there. There is no sign of any stray ink anywhere inside the printer that can be seen after lifting the top to expose the ink cartridges. I’ve even stuck a dental mirror in there and see no signs of stray ink.

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