[Leica] Another failure of Epson 3800 printer

[reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)]

I'm currently on my third Epson 3800 printer.

The first two 3800's died while under warranty and were replaced free of 
charge by Epson after I spent entirely too long on the phone to their 
customer support line convincing them that the printer was really broken.

This 3rd unit has just died. Naturally, it's on a weekend when their 
customer-support line is closed. So I get to waste another half a day next 
week convincing their customer support people that it's broken, and then 
another half day installing the replacement printer that they will hopefully 
send me and shipping the broken unit back to them.

I bought the extended warranty (Deus gratia) and it seems to cover me until 
December 2009, so who knows? I might reach 5 printers before it's over.

I think I've figured out what the meta-problem is. Every time they replace 
it, the new printer is a  refurbished unit of the same revision number. I 
bought one of the first 3800 printers available, and each of these 
replacements has had the same design, construction, and model number. I 
think I'm running into a design flaw in what the customer service people 
call "the board", i.e. the electronics.

If they replace this one and I ship the broken one back, Epson will have 
spent more money on Federal Express fees to ship me new printers by Priority 
Overnight and on my return shipping than it would have cost them to just 
give me a new, non-refurbished unit.

I wish the damn thing didn't make such great prints. If it wasn't such a 
great printer I would drive to Half Moon Bay and throw it into the ocean.

Brian Reid