Hardware · Troubleshooting

Epson TM-U220 error lights and what they mean

Read the blinking ERROR light on an Epson TM-U220 kitchen printer to tell which faults clear themselves, which clear after you fix something, and which need a replacement printer.

Updated 27 October 2026 Version 1 2 min read

Epson TM-U220

Reading the ERROR light on a TM-U220 kitchen printer

When something is wrong with an Epson TM-U220, the printer stops printing, goes offline and blinks the ERROR light on the top of the case. The pattern of the blinks says what is wrong. Use it to tell whether the printer will recover on its own, whether you can clear the fault yourself, or whether the printer has to be replaced.

On this page

Faults that clear themselves
Faults you can clear
Faults that cannot be cleared
Need help?

An Epson TM-U220 kitchen printer, with the paper slot on top and the small panel of status lights at the front — The status lights sit on the panel at the front of the printer.

Faults that clear themselves

These stop the printer until the condition goes away, and then it carries on by itself. Nothing needs resetting.

Roll paper cover open. The paper cover was opened while the printer was printing. Close the cover and printing continues.

Print head temperature. The print head has become extremely hot. The printer starts again on its own once the head has cooled.

Epson's table of self-recovering errors, showing the roll paper cover open error as a fast even blink and the print head temperature error as a short double blink, both on a 160 millisecond scale — Epson's blink patterns for the two faults that clear themselves.

Faults you can clear

These stay until somebody fixes the cause, and the printer then recovers.

Paper roll cover open error. The cover was open while printing. Close it.

Autocutter error. The cutter is not working, usually because it has jammed part way through a cut.

Home position detection error. The print head cannot find its home position, which almost always means a paper jam. Clear the jam.

If the printer does not come back after you have cleared the cause, turn it off at the switch, wait a few seconds and turn it on again.

Epson's table of recoverable errors, showing the paper roll cover open error as a run of fast blinks, the autocutter error as a single long blink and the home position detection error as a double blink — Epson's blink patterns for the faults that clear once the cause is fixed.

Faults that cannot be cleared

These are hardware faults. The printer will not come back, whatever you do to it, and it has to be swapped out.

Memory or gate array error. The printer fails its own memory check.

High voltage or low voltage error. The supply voltage is out of range.

CPU execution error. The printer's processor has faulted, or an interface board is not connected.

Print head temperature detection circuit error. The sensor that watches the print head's temperature has failed.

Epson's table of unrecoverable errors, listing memory or gate array, high voltage, low voltage, CPU execution and print head temperature detection circuit errors, each with its blink pattern and all marked impossible to recover — Every fault in this group needs the printer replaced.

A printer in this last group is not worth troubleshooting

Power cycling will not clear a hardware fault. Log a job with Triniteq support so a replacement can be arranged.

Epson's own TM-U220 Technical Reference Guide has the full list of patterns and timings.

Help

Need help?

Triniteq support

Our support team is here to help.

Call 1300 784 276 or email support@triniteq.com, and include your venue name so we can find your setup straight away.

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