Ending the Epson DVD Printer Push-Pull Problems

[Mike Teutsch]

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

[Vic Owen]

Great post, Mike. I'll give it a try. Maybe we can then move from the "Epson push" to the "Epson suck"!

[Terence Murphy]

Well, just when I think I'm understanding the vocabulary necessary for this printer, Mike comes along with a solution. Our sample size is still small, but 4 for 4 the sanding trick seems to cure the need for the "Epson push" and "Epson pull".

Thanks Mike! You DA MAN!

-Terence

[Jonathan Nelson]

lol, that totally worked. I just gave up and accepted the problem a long time ago.

Thanks a lot for sharing this simply yet very affective fix.

[Mike Teutsch]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Nelson

lol, that totally worked. I just gave up and accepted the problem a long time ago.

Thanks a lot for sharing this simply yet very affective fix.

You are welcome! Isn't it great when a fix is so simple?!?!?!

Mike

[Richard Alvarez]

I had two discs to print this morning so I tried the sanding solution. It worked GREAT for the feed-in... not much change on the feed out. I'll take that much success at least.

[Mike Teutsch]

Hey Richard,

I don't recall having a problem on the feed out part. Where does that occur and what does it do?

Mike

[Richard Alvarez]

When it's feeding out, it gets 'almost' all the way out, then stops while the printer continues to churn. Sometimes, this will give a printer jam warning, but not always.

[Mike Teutsch]

I'll check that out on mine. Did you sand up to the very front end of the tray?

Thanks---Mike

[Alessandro Machi]

The sanding idea sounds good, certainly better than what I tried, which was lightly spraying some adhesive on the slippery side, DO NOT TRY THIS.

However, I also discovered if the retractable plastic extension guide located underneath the dvd tray is extended all the way out it barely touches the dvd tray and that adds an extra friction point and seems to make the tray work properly.

[Mike Teutsch]

Originally Posted by Alessandro Machi

The sanding idea sounds good, certainly better than what I tried, which was lightly spraying some adhesive on the slippery side, DO NOT TRY THIS.

However, I also discovered if the retractable plastic extension guide located underneath the dvd tray is extended all the way out it barely touches the dvd tray and that adds an extra friction point and seems to make the tray work properly.

Your right on the extension, as anything that keeps the tray from hanging down helps. As the tray hangs, it take pressure off of the moving rollers which are on the bottom.

When sanding, use a course paper---60-80 grit at least. You don't have to sand the whole thing, most important is the roller area on the bottom where the rollers are when the tray hits in inside guide rollers. And you don't have to sand it that much, you are just making it rough.

Good luck----Mike

[Liam Hall]

I've just stumbled across this thread. Thanks Mike, another little annoying problem solved.

Cheers,

Liam.

Hi Mike, thanks so much for doing what I've thought was hopeless!
I use 3 r200s as well...

NOW, if we could just firgure out a way to spool 1 disc to several r200 printers at the same time....!

Thanks! David

Originally Posted by Mike Teutsch

Hi All, A bunch of us were commenting in another thread about the problems with the feed tray or the Epson printers....
I have attached some pictures. Sorry they are not better but I just used my cheap little camera.

[Greg Boston]

I missed this thread originally. I haven't had any feed issues yet, but I don't print a lot of DVD/CDs. In any case, since this fix seems to work, I'm making this a sticky thread.

Thanks,

-gb-

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Stembridge

Hi Mike, thanks so much for doing what I've thought was hopeless!
I use 3 r200s as well...

NOW, if we could just firgure out a way to spool 1 disc to several r200 printers at the same time....!

Thanks! David

When I had my r-300's, I could print to two both printers at the same time, but when they both went bad within a few days of each other, I switched to the R-220's, and for some reason I can only get the computer to print on one printer but not the other one. I tried naming them different names but I still only get one printer to print at a time.

By the way, your 200 probably obstructs the view of the sponge pads that lie on end of the carriage. You may want to pat that area down with an absorbent material, you should see a ton of ink come off as you pad down these areas.