Cutting it off

Okay, now the fun part. Never enough mentioning I was feeling chicken when the printer was just unpacked on my table and I had a screwdriver on the hand, ready for con(di)struction. It really took many minutes before I finally made my firm decision for the dissection. First push of the screwdriver trying to carefully releasing plastic locks cracked open the case, yes CRACKED open, meaning the plastic lock was Brocken. With this very first destruction incident, all courage and energy for moving ahead was flowing from everywhere. There was no stopping until I finally ended up dismantling all necessary parts from the injection molded plastic printer base.

Humm, I remember when I got the first scratch on my vehicle. Before that I was terribly carful with the interior and exterior. But after, well, you probably have the same experience.

Okay, let’s get back on track.
The next big thing was to identify how I am going to fix the horizontal feed tray. Well, before that, and even before you open the printer, it is advisable to give it a few test runs (in original condition) and get familiar with its working (mainly the head movement, timing and delays). In my case, I was directly at the modifying stage. A careful examination revealed there are plenty of plastics to remove (cut away) but at the same time EPSON engineers have designed it in such a way that certain guides (well actually those are plastic indents, edges, wedges etc. for giving structural rigidity) are already visible and can follow easily for cutting it along. Epson engineers may not have thought of our rude intentions, breaking and making something else, but the design definitely helps our process.

The goal is to allow a flat bed to be fixed leveling the top surface with the master feed roller. So, keeping this in mind, you can easily remove everything on its way obstructing our flat bed. In my case, I have used 3mm clear plastic (acrylic sheet), which was lying around. In fact, it gave me good visibility when mounting and aligning the board. Some people have used other plastics and even wood and plywood with varying thicknesses. Thickness of the board matters, since it governs how much plastic you need to remove (cut off). Keep in mind, you need to align top surfaces of the board and master feed roller perfectly, or else the suffering is eminent at the end, trying to make it work.

For cutting plastics, you may ideally use a DREMEL (or any rotating tool), but I didn’t have that luxury. A plain old Hacksaw blade was the only tool I used to cut it across, but occasionally I used brute force with my paper knife on some easy to access parts. If you are not carful with the tool, especially a power tool like DREMEL, you may end up breaking most vital plastics easily. Keep in mind, the structural integrity of the molded plastic base is vital, since all moving parts shake and vibrates it vigorously in printing. Cut only the minimal plastics giving way to the horizontal feed tray. Keep everything else intact.

I used only a hacksaw blade to do this so can you. It is easy if you pay attention to what you doing, and more importantly knowing what you are doing. Set of hand-files and 600grit sand paper was used to soften the rough edges made by the hacksaw.

Remember; remove all moving parts from the base before attempting the cut. This includes the whole head carrier beam, head cleaning mechanism, ink absorption pads, feed rollers etc. Cutting plastic is messy, and dust can go everywhere and cleaning from tight corners can be next to impossible. Specially, wool, cloth, absorption pads etc. attracts dust and plastic particles, so removing them before cutting process is vital. Otherwise, you will have to mask other parts with paper and tape, and do the surgery. However, removing them gives you a good sense on internal working of your printer, so I prefer that way.

Kavee