Was given two broken Epson stylus 500 inkjet printers. Both had been
sitting unused for over a year in the basement of a friend. One had a note
indicating it would not feed. This unit did not have either the Black or
the Color cartridge installed. Second unit had the cartridges in place, but
note indicated it would not print Black.

Decided to take a look at the paper feed problem first and found a pencil
had fallen into and jammed the paper feed mechanism. Removed the pencil and
paper feeder appears to be working properly. I immediately moved the
cartridges from the other unit to this one and was disappointed to see that
I had problems printing Black, and Red (Yellow and Blue appear to be working
although somewhat streaky). I subsequently read a small note on the inside
printer cover that if a cartridge gets removed prematurely, it cannot be
reinstalled ... Oh well, wish I had seen this first as I would have worked
on the other unit.

Decided to use a cartridge refill kit to refill these, but did not see any
different result. Does anyone have any experience with this model of Epson
printer? I am guessing that by having it sit idle for so many months that
the printer's ink distribution tubes or heads got clogged. Any advice to
try to get these working again? I am reluctant to spend $50 on new
cartridges before I can demonstrate that this investment would make the unit
operable again.

Bob

PS Have not looked at the other unit yet since I did not want to remove the
cartridges again. Help is appreciated.