was able to fix this by cutting out a slice of the Epson ribbon and sticking the two ends back together with superglue. The problem was that the Epson ribbon was significantly longer than the Canon part, and thus was getting jammed inside the cartridge housing. The ribbon wasn’t advancing properly and there was a rather horrible noise. With this done, attempted a test print, but found results to be poor. With that done, the Epson ribbon could be looped into the Canon cartridge and wound in using the built-in winder. The first step was to crack open the Canon cartridge to dump out the old ribbon.
Thankfully, the FX80’s ribbon is the same width as the one used in the Canon printer, even if the cartridge is of a completely different design.
With replacements unavailable, he instead turned to the more popular Epson FX80, for which new ribbons can still be found. was hoping to find a new ribbon for his Canon PW-1080A after the 33-year-old ribbon had been hammered to bits. What do you do when your dot matrix printer’s ribbon is torn to shreds after decades of use, and no new cartridges are available? You might like to attempt a ribbon transplant from another printer’s cartridge, and that’s just what did.
