Peter F. posted something on how to fix them awhile ago. I have an Epson that won't go so I saved it off.
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 23:32:56 -0500 From: Peter Frederick <psf...@earthlink.net> To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Subject: Re: [MBZ] Testing apple times Message-ID: <e7d8117d-40ae-4932-81bd-1eaccda63...@earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Here are some tips for cleaning Epson printer heads (I've done more than a few, just finished up reviving an old R800 head for use in an R2880). First, the dye inks do NOT dry out in the printer. They become very viscous, but do not dry. Pigment inks do indeed dry down, but are readily resuspended. Second, cleaning cycles are only good for removing air, they will NOT fix plugs, and paradoxically, make things worse by applying a vacuum to the whole head. When the head is moved off the seal, gumming ink results in a vacuum still inside, and air is sucked up from the bottom, preventing the ink from being fired. Third, the clogs from sitting unused are almost always ink collecting on the bottom of the head and plugging the nozzles. You can suck in through the print head forever, and if you don't remove the collected grunge it will not print. It DOES drip ink all over, but the droplets will not "fire" onto the paper. To clean one in this condition: Install cartridges filled with ink -- aftermarkets with third party ink is a best choice, you may use quite a bit and Epson cartridges are expensive for cleaning. If you want, once you get it cleared out you can switch back. Turn the printer on and press the ink cartridge button. Once the carriage parks in the cartridge replacement station, unplug the printer WITHOUT turning it off. This leaves the carriage free to move by hand. Fold a paper towel to fit in the channel the printhead travels in over the paper. It needs to be thick enough to actually touch the prinheatd but thin enough to push the printhead over. Saturate the paper towel with Windex or other spray glass cleaner. I'm not sure I would use 409, it might be too strong. Lay the towel in the channel and wipe the printhead over it. Likely it will instantly turn black with gummy ink. Remove the towel and replace with a fresh one, adjusting thickness as necessary to gently wipe the bottom of the printhead until you get obvious traces of the correct ink colors. Get a spray bottle of windex or other glass cleaner and carefully fill the sponge and seal of the cartridge cappping station. Use a dry paper towel to blot up the dissolved ink until the station is mostly clean. Wipe down the rubber seal, make sure it is not gummy with dried ink. Fill the sponge in the capping station with Windex and push the carriage over it. Briefly plug the printer in until the carriage drops onto the seal and unplug it again. You don't want the pump to suck the Windex out, you want to soak the bottom of the head. Leave it at least a couple hours. Overnight is better. Next day plug the printer in and turn it on. It should do a quick cleaning cycle. Print a nozzle check. If you are really lucky, you will get at least most of the nozzles firing. Ignore the fact that the ink colors are likely wrong, you have been mixing the ink with cleaner and it will wick up into the nozzle chambers randomly. If you have a decent number of clear nozzles, print a purge page (marruttusa.com has a selection). By the end of the page, you should be able to tell if you have decent ink flow or not. Drips of ink onto the page means you have Windex in the nozzles, it causes ink to leak. This is not a big issue a this point. Print another nozzle check. Should be better. If not, do a clean cycle but unplug the printer when the wiper blade is up -- it's beside the capping station, watch for the printer to flip it up to wipe the printhead. Crap built up on the wiper simply plugs the nozzles by wiping gummy dried ink into them, hardly a way to clear them. Wipe it down with windex, make sure it's quite clean. Plug it back in and do one clean cycle, then print a nozzle check. With some luck, a dye printer will be working pretty well by now. Pigment printers require more work, usually. If a couple cycles of soaking and printing purge pages doesn't do the trick, you will have to find some syringes and plastic tubing that will fit over the spikes the cartridges connect to on the printhead. push the ink button and unplug the printer when the carriage is free. Remove the cartridges, and fold up a dry paper towel to fit under the printhead. Heat some windex in the microwave -- you can add some glycerin if you have it to raise the viscocity, it helps later -- and fill a syringe with the hot windex and attach some tubing to allow you to connect to the spike. Push the tubing over the spike for whatever color isn't working right, and move the carriage over the dry paper towel. GENTLY press on the syringe plunger to force hot windex through the printhead. If it won't move under gentle pressure, pull back on the syringe to suck the gummy ink up out of the printhead. Don't pull too hard, you don't want to blow any seals. You may have to repeat the pull, release, press, release, pull, etc cycle a few times to get the dried ink moving. Once you can push Windex through the head, repeat with fresh until no more color appears on the towel. Change as needed, you don't want to flood the guts with windex. If you have not added glycerin, you need to suck all the windex out of the spike and fill a new syringe with the correct color ink and gently push some through -- otherwise it takes forever to get the ink working right. Windex makes the ink leak and drip all over, causing strange colors and "nozzle plugs" that are really ink spread all over the bottom of the printhead, which traps the fired droplets. They are working fine, but no ink hits the paper. Once you have cleared all the colors that remained blocked, REMOVE ANY PAPER TOWELS (I forget this all the time, have to take one printer apart and unjam it, something slipped due to me stupidly leaving a wad of paper in the capping station), re-install the cartridges, and plug the printer back in. Very likely you will get decent nozzle checks. If you have funky colors, print some purge pages and run nozzle checks after each page to see what's going on. Mixed inks usually clear once you have decent flow and decent nozzle checks. If you have on again/off again nozzle checks, let the printer sit on but with head parked overnight and try again. Ditto for drips -- Windex makes the ink run through the nozzles and the only way to clear that up is print with it. It will stop, but it can take several pages. If none of this works (and I've only had one head that required more), you will have to remove the printhead, soak the bottom surface in windex overnight -- have a care to keep the windex well away from the electronics!, and then next day use a syringe and plastic tubing to suck windex up through the head from a pool of it. This will definitely clear any blockages, although it may take some time. You will then have to pull water through the head to get rid of the windex and re-install the head and try again. Needless to say this takes a while, but Epson printers are definitely worth the effort for photo printing. Nothing else touches them for pure quality of prints, and I'll gladly put up with the clogging and cleaning for that. A few other hints -- do NOT turn the printers off, ever, unless you have to. All Epson printers do a short clean cycle when powered on, and will put 90% of the ink into the waste pads if you only print a few things at a time. This is greatly reduced by never turning them off -- the head is capped the same off or idle, why waste the ink? Also, NEVER let them sit weeks or months without use. They always clog if you do. Print a purge page at least once a week and you will rarely if ever have clogging problems. Peter who just raised an R2880 from the dead and is looking at a clogged 4880 in spite of not needing it. ________________________________ From: Randy Bennell via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 5:12 PM Subject: [MBZ] OT printers Canon inkjet printer - multi ink tanks type Has been sitting for a year or more Likely to be dried up ink etc Any way to ressurect it? Or is it junk? Randy _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
