If you have an Epson Artisan 1430 printer and are having trouble getting it to turn on, this blog is for you. As you may assume, the most likely suspect is your power supply. Today I’ll go over how to test your printer’s power supply after you remove it from the printer, and I’ll go over how to remove it and repair it in a different blog later.

To start with, you’re going to need a multimeter. I prefer AutoRange. Throughout this process, you need to make sure to handle the board extremely carefully. It’s very fragile, and breaking it would be bad. When you pick it up, only hold it by the edge.

You’ll see that there are some really big capacitors. While the board is fragile, you must be careful because those capacitors can be dangerous. They still hold a charge even if the board isn’t plugged in. The black capacitor is the most dangerous one you need to look out for. It’s 200 volts, which is a lot.

Pay Attention to the AutoRange

When using the AutoRange, you need to pay attention to whether it measures in millivolts or volts. The first board that I tested in the demonstration video was 48 millivolts. Sometimes when you measure them, they won’t have any charge at all.

The second power supply I tested in the demonstration video was from a printer I had had problems with just that morning, so it was nice and fresh. It read at a little under 104 volts when I tested that one. If you were to test something with that much of a charge with your bare finger, you would definitely get shocked.

After testing that big black capacitor, you should check the two smaller 50-volt capacitors. If you bought your power supply board from me, you’ll see it came with a warranty seal, meaning I’ve already tested it.

I also showed a good power supply in the video at the 1-minute and 40-second mark so that I could show you how to test if it went bad or not. I’ll reiterate that you’re working with really high voltage here, and humans are conductors for electricity, meaning that if you touch the capacitors, the current will run through you and cause a shock.

I don’t recommend doing this if you have no experience dealing with electrical currents. When you look at the power supply, you’ll see that one of the three wires is a different color than the others. Looking at the plug, you should see a tiny piece of metal corresponding to that wire. Put the red prong in there, then use the black wire to touch that piece of metal, allowing you to get a reading from the multimeter. The one I tested in the demonstration video was 42 volts, so it was a pretty good one.

Bad Power Supply?

If you get an insufficient power supply and need further troubleshooting, you can go to BCHTechnologies.com and type “workflow 1430 power” into the search bar. You should see a worksheet pop up. Alternatively, you could just click here, which will take you directly to the worksheet.

In this sheet, you’ll find a schematic diagram and a drawing of which components correspond to which parts of your PCB. You’ll also see a front view and a rear view of the PCB. There’s a part list if you need a reference of which parts should be on the power supply.

I tested another power supply in the demonstration video to show you what it would look like if faulty. If you’re watching along with the video, you’ll see that when I tested it, the multimeter read all zeros, indicating that there was no output whatsoever. It was a dead power supply. The capacitor, however, still reads at 103 volts, which is enough to shock you. Be careful even when working with a dead power supply.

Looking at the diagram linked above, you’ll see two fuses. The first fuse is red, and the other is on the board’s hot side. Both fuses seemed okay, which is good news because often when the fuses blow out, they take a few other components out with them.

There are a few other components that could be causing the problem, then, and I’ll make a separate video checking those. I’ll also make a video explaining how Epson makes these and how they work. I hope this was helpful. For other helpful printer-related content, visit my YouTube channel, Kevin at BCH. You can also find the demonstration video by clicking here.