Head alignment issues, 7600

Hi all.

This is my first post on LL. I've read the forum for a long time but never contributed, although enjoyed reading some very informative and sometimes comical threads! I'd like to please ask some of the forum members the following question regarding my recently acquired Epson 7600UC printer.

Today I finally got around to replacing the capping station and dampers on tmy printer. Before I replaced these parts the heads were aligning perfectly but the nossels were clogging if the printer was left unused for over six hours. Pulling the old parts out, it was obvious that the sponge in the capping station was dry and hard beyond repair due to the printer being left dormant for a few years. The new capping station and wiper unit has fixed this problem. Brilliant.

After putting the covers back on the printer I performed a power clean to try make sure all of the old ink was purged – I swapped the expired ink with fresh carts – and performed a nossel check. All nossels firing as they should and no gaps in the pattern.

Next I performed the head alignment routine. This is where things got a bit hairy... As you can see by the attached picture from a uni-directional all routine, the alignment pattern is best at position 5 (this is one example taken at random, although perhaps the worst case), but there are some nossels that are dramatically off. Does anyone know why this might be?

I wonder if it might be I need to run more ink through the heads because while off the capping station during repair (about three hours, total,) there are some dry particles in some nossels deflecting the dot spray?

Or perhaps there is a mechanical misalignment caused by during the repair?

Has anyone seen this before?

Thanks all!

Tim