Epson CX5400 not doing any printing

[Jurek]

As it says above.
Pushes paper through but that's about all.
Ink's are showing black as 50% full the others 75%.
I've cleaned the nozzles twice and reinstalled the software and turned the printer off and back on.
All that continues to issue forth is pristine white paper.
It's about 4 years old and hasn't had a particularly hard life.

Any advice as to what to do would be welcome.

Thanks.
J

[Valiant]

Reinstall your print driver, most common cause with the printers at work. Failing that, take the print head out, clean it, and then stick it back in.

[Fixedwheelnut]

 change the font colour from white to black 


I've got me coat 

[Jurek]

change the font colour from white to black 


I've got me coat 

Or alternatively just put in some black paper, yeah?   

[Jurek]

UpdateUpdateUpdate:

The ink is leaving the cartridges but not making it through the print heads / nozzles and onto the paper. (No sh!t Sherlock )
When I took out the cartridges, there was a messy puddle of CMYK in the bottom of the carriage (if that's what it's called) where the cartridges sit.

My next proposed move is to try to extract said carriage and either dunk it in a bath of Isoprop Alcohol overnight, or (preferably) stick it in my ultrasonic tank using Isoprop as a solvent.

QuestionsQuestionsQuestions

Is Isoprop OK to use with the plasticky carriage, or will it eat it?
Should I be using Isoprop in the ultrasonic tank?

[Valiant]

What's wrong with just spitting and using a tissue??? Tis what I do and it works lol.

[Jurek]

What's wrong with just spitting and using a tissue??? Tis what I do and it works lol.

I'm not sure my saliva has the solvent properties it'll take to remove the gunky ink I have found so far.
I've not yet retrieved the cartridge carriage to see what the state of the nozzles / heads underneath is.

[Valiant]

You'd probably be the hexpert on plastics on ze forum. But isn't the section in question a metal of sorts?

[Jurek]

Too soon to say - I need to do a bit more dismantelage and see what I can separate out.

It's mostly acrylics that are affected by Isoprop - but they'd be an unusual choice for machine components - More commonly it'd be Polyacetals or Polyphenylene Oxides as a first choice for componentry - trick is to identify them when they're unmarked.
That's what I was hoping someone on here might know.

[Valiant]

Shurely the housing wraps around the cartridges? Try a little dab?

[Wombat]

The problem is the name of the printer model.  I have a HP officejet K5400.  It is the biggest, noisiest, longest starting up, most expensive to run heap of crap I have ever seen.  Do NOT buy one. 

On the rare occasions that I can get it to actually start printing, it is very fast, and does double sided properly, but it eats coloured ink so fast, even when doing pure black documents, it'll be going back to HP, as "goods not fit for purpose"  I've had enough of it after 6 months.

Presumably the numbers 5400 are cursed, Epson should have called yours something else.