How to read test page for Alps printer

SOURCE: Do you repair Alps MD 5000 printer

Unfortunately, this website is not a repair shop, but I'll give you what help I can....

Printhead problems are not repairable in the US or Europe any longer. You best bet is to upgrade to an MD-5500, which you can find here: http://www.alps-supplies.com

SOURCE: Alps md 1300 only prints in black

First of all, Alps MD inks do not "Dry up". They are dry to start with!

It sounds like you may be running XP, with the Microsoft driver for this printer installed. You need to load the Alps driver, which you can get by joining the alps or alpsdecal group at http://groups.yahoo.com. You can find the driver in the files section of one of the groups.

SOURCE: lines through my md 1300 alps printer

It sounds like the head has been damaged. Unfortunately, there is no fix for this, as Alps stopped production of these printers years ago, and now do not offer repairs for these printers.

If you still want a dye-sub capable Alps printer, the only model available is the MD-5500, which you can find here: http://www.alps-supplies.com

SOURCE: Alps MD 1000 self tests okay, but printing gives "nonvolatile error" (fast blink)

This is a symptom of the following:

You are running XP, and have installed SP3 and, you are using the microsoft driver bundled with XP.

The solution:

The m$ driver will have created a printer with "(MS)" as a suffix. Leave this intact, as it will cause major trouble on every reboot if you delete it.
Download the appropriate driver from the Files section in the Alps YahooGroup found at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Alps/
With your printer unplugged, install the downloaded driver
Shut down your computer and hook up the printer
Reboot
XP will detect the printer, and create a new printer in Control Panel without the "(MS)" suffix
Make the new printer your default printer.

The reason why you do not delete the printer with the "(MS)" suffix, is because every time you reboot, XP will ignore the fact that you have the correct Alps driver loaded, and will create a new printer using the m$ drivers, and set it to default. Of course, the m$ Alps driver is fundamentally broken

SOURCE: Button sequence for head test (to look for banding)

Turn the printer off.
Load a sheet of white laser paper.
Press and hold the "Power" & "Ready/FF" buttons at the same time.
Release the "Power" button, and keep pressing the Ready/FF" button.
Right after you release the "Power" button, count 4 seconds, and release the Ready/FF" button.
Immediately, press and release the "Ready/FF" button one last time.
The printer should start printing a series of letters, numbers, horizontal lines and a black solid bar at the bottom of the sheet.
Once this test page is completed, turn the printer off to stop the test.