Printing comes out faded and uneven

SOURCE: Black ink print failure after cartridge replaced

The Edge, -Clean the electrical contacts on the printer where the cartridge connects with alcohol. After it dries clean the same contacts with a regular pink, non-abrasive pencil eraser making sure you remove all the debris when done. -Its also possible there is an air bubble preventing the flow of ink. You can try inserting a full cartridge of ink in the printer and letting it sit overnight then running a nozzle clean job or two. Another alternative if you have a syringe you may want to try gently forcing ink into it. If you?re really desperate you can try drilling a small hole into the cartridge to give gravity feeding a hand. BE WARNED the air hole will let ink flow pretty well and you run the chance of making a mess. Before you pull the cartridge out of the printer make sure you cover the hole with tape so the ink doesn?t make even more mess. -Check the cartridge alignment making sure the contacts are mating to the printer. -If it still doesn?t work I would try cleaning your nozzles. Even though I doubt you have clogged nozzles its worth a try because of the following: If you search the Internet you?ll find that this specific model is know for failing to print some or all colors after about 1 ½ to 2 years of use, even with Epson inks. Most of the posts I?ve seen blame it on clogged nozzles but I suspect a good number of them, like yours, have another explanation for their failure. Ink jet printers use resistors to create heat to create a bubble in the ink to eject it out of the nozzle (Bubble jet) or in the case of Epson, vibrating crystals push ink into and out of the nozzles (piezoelectric). We?ve already cleaned the electrical contacts and cleaned the nozzles so what remain are defective nozzles, short between the nozzle and the controller board or a defective controller board. Since the printer is only worth 1 or 2 hundred dollars repairs at a shop or buying these repair parts can easily exceed ½ its cost. Hope something here works for you, I just recently had to toss a great printer too. Let us know what happens and please don?t forget to rate the posting.

SOURCE: Printer will not print black, but will not let me replace black cartridge

Had the same problem but this worked for me. To force a cartridge change, press and hold down the PAPER FEED button for at least 5 seconds as suggested here:

http://esupport.epson-europe.com/ViewArticle.aspx?lng=en-GB&kbid=313630&data=qBjAbS6NcI3fNMgp8+fHGGs5vImpFwyM

I then changed the black cartridge, even though I hadn't used much ink from the old cartridge and the computer was showing it as three quarters full.

SOURCE: printing in black & white when color cartridge ran out

One of the possible reason why you can't print black in white because Epson ink jet printers require all of the ink cartridges to have ink in them in order to print any color, black and white, or grayscale images. More than that Epson printers contain a permanent print head that needs to be charged with all colors to work. Even when users are printing black text only, a small amount of color ink is used to keep the print head charged for color printing and prevent air bubbles from entering the color print nozzles which can damage the print head.

SOURCE: Printing in just black and white

My Epsom DX8400 Produces a printed Black and white photo with a Green or Blue colour in it. Can the modern Printers print the old Black and White photo's?

SOURCE: My Epson Stylus NX 400 is not printing.

Thats not true... IT CAN BE CHANGED... you will have to change the settings to MONO from AUTO in the printer settings