Epson Stylus 800 Quick Reference Guide

EPSON AMERICA, INC.

Product Support Bulletin

Subject: Stylus 800 Commonly Asked Questions and Answers
Date: 6/4/93 PSB No: P-0101

Page(s): 1 of 2 Originator: SDS

This bulletin answers some commonly asked questions about the Stylus 800 Ink Jet printer.

1. How long will an ink cartridge last?

The ink cartridge for the Epson Stylus 800 printer holds enough ink for approximately
700,000 Roman 10 CPI characters. It is very important to understand the ink yield of the
Stylus 800's ink cartridge under different types of printing conditions. See the following
points below for possible usage and the character yield associated with that usage:

EPSON

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Under light text usage, about 1,000 characters per page (12.5 lines of 80 characters), an
ink cartridge will yield approximately 700 pages.

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Under medium text usage, about 2,000 characters per page (25 lines of 80 characters),
an ink cartridge will yield approximately 350 pages.

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Under heavy text usage, about 4,000 characters per page (50 lines of 80 characters), an
ink cartridge will yield approximately 175 pages.

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If graphics and large scalable characters are printed, the number of pages that an ink
cartridge yields may be significantly lower than that obtained when printing normal text. It
is possible that the life of an ink cartridge may be 100 pages or less.

2. How do you get the most out of an ink cartridge?

Once you understand the yield of the Stylus 800's ink cartridge there are a number of steps
that you can take that will provide the longest life out of each ink cartridge.

 Only remove the ink cartridge from the printer to replace it with a new ink cartridge. If the

ink cartridge is removed and reinstalled, the printer must perform an Ink Priming
Procedure to insure that no air has entered the cartridge. This procedure can use up to
10 percent of the ink in the cartridge.

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Only perform the cleaning cycle (ALT & PAUSE buttons) when the print quality declines.
Performing the cleaning cycle uses up only a small amount of ink, but the total ink used
can add up over time.

PSB No: P-0101
Page: 2 of 2

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Never move the print head assembly from the right capping position by hand. If the printer is
turned on with the print head assembly away from the right capping position, it will perform a
major cleaning cycle. This cleaning cycle uses up much more ink that the regular cleaning cycle
and can greatly shorten the life of the ink cartridge.

 Never turn the printer off while the print head assembly is moving. The print head assembly will

be away from the right capping position and a major cleaning cycle will be performed when the
printer is turned on. If it is necessary to turn the printer off while printing, press the PAUSE
button and wait until the print head assembly moves to the right and stops before turning the
printer off.

 Before canceling a print job in Windows 3.1, place the printer in PAUSE mode by pressing the

PAUSE button. If a print job in Windows 3.1 is canceled, Windows 3.1 will reset the printer. If
the print head assembly is not at the capping position, it will perform a major cleaning cycle.

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Always turn the Stylus 800 printer on
If the print head assembly is away from the capping position and the computer is turned on, the
computer will reset the printer causing it to perform a major cleaning cycle.

the computer is turned on and completely booted up.

after

Following the above steps will insure that you will get the most out of your ink cartridges.

3. How does the Stylus 800 handle printing on envelopes and legal size paper?

The Stylus 800 printer can accommodate a wide variety of paper sizes, but only letter size paper
can be handled by the paper feeder. To handle envelopes, legal size paper, and other paper
sizes, you must feed them in the manual feed slot. You can feed paper into the manual feed slot
without removing the paper in the paper feeder.

4. What printer does the Stylus 800 emulate?

The Stylus 800 printer uses the Epson Standard Codes for Printers, Version 2 (ESC/P 2). This
command set allows compatibility with Epson's current 24 pin printers and insure
backwards-compatibility with Epson's ESC/P printers.

5. What options are available for the Stylus 800?

The Stylus 800 does not have any options available.