Making the invisible visible

My Epson SX115 is old and due for replacement so before dumping it I decided to see if I could fix it or if not then to know why not. When I run it there are synchronised grinding and tapping sound so I want to get a look at the gear movements. But because of the very short lengths of the ribbon cables between the top assembly and the lower one it can't easily be done. So I'm in the process of extending each of the 3 cables and then I'll stand the top assembly on a bench next to the lower assembly and connected by about 400 mm of extension ribbon so as to be able to see inside. The gears are driven by stepping motors so there may be a fault in the motor drive circuits or the gears may have missing teeth. If anyone's interested in this I'll come back when I have more to tell you. And before everyone shouts "it's not worth repairing, get a new one," I know. I'm just interested in how it all works and in seeing if I can repair it. And as it happens I've already got another printer. Of course if anyone can help me with the study/repair I'd be grateful. I have Epson's parts list and exploded diagram but it isn't much help with what I'm doing.

OK, so my investigation is now complete and my printer works again! The extension wires did help but not as much as I'd hoped. In the end it took a new chip to make it work. How and why chips occasionally die I don't know but they do. Was it worth the effort involved in finding the fault? Yes if you are interested enough in doing the job yourself but no if you have to pay someone. It took me many hours to diagnose the cause of the fault. But I've been doing similar work all my life so it wasn't too difficult for me. Would I do it again? Probably not. Once is enough for me, just for the interest. After that it can become boring. Now that it's working I can use it with the OCR software that came on the Epson installation disc. The problem I've been having with Abbyy Finereader 6.0. 9 or 12 OCR software is to get the result of a scan sent to my Word program. It also refuses to go into Wordpad. But the version 6.0 that came with the Epson printer goes into Word with no problem when I use it with the Epson SX115. So I'm satisfied.