3880 black ink leaks into yellow channel

Open Discussion
1

I wanted to ask about a problem that I recently had with the 3880 — I rarely print with matt black ink, but recently the printer switched to MK when I printed on plain paper. After that, I noticed that the colors were “messed up” — and after spending some quality time with Google, I discovered that this is a problem with 3880 printers. I’m sure you know more about it than me, where PK ink leaks into the Yellow channel due to old MK ink causing damage to the damper - which is shared by the black and yellow channels. The issue seems corrected (I hope) by having the printer switch between MK and PK a few times, followed by some cleaning cycles. Pretty soon afterwards, I discovered that the PK cartridge was empty, although it was fairly new — and the printer didn’t think it was empty. I am not certain that the leaking issue is resolved — maybe it seemed to resolve when the PK cart was empty. I guess that I am stuck buying another PK cart to test the printer and see if the leak remains.
Anyway, my questions are:

1. Is it possible that the leak into the yellow channel resolved with a few cleaning cycles?

2. After reading on the internet, to fix the problem required that the ink system assembly be changed out — seems a bit complex, but I have good mechanical skills. Any feed back from anyone who has changed the ink delivery system would be appreciated.

3. Over the years that Ive owned the printer, ive mostly printed digital negatives, and only in the last year or so have begun printing images on paper. Until this issue, I have never had any problems with the printer, but I am guilty of never performing any maintenance on the printer. So what is the advice about maintenance for a 3880? I typically print 2-5 items every week.

Thanks,

Johnny Brian

2

I reposted my questions as some odd formatting prevents seeing all of the text above.

Is it possible that the leak into the yellow channel resolved with a few cleaning cycles?

After reading on the internet, to fix the problem required that the ink system assembly be changed out — seems a bit complex, but I have good mechanical skills. Any feed back from anyone who has changed the ink delivery system would be appreciated.

Over the years that I’ve owned the printer, I’ve mostly printed digital negatives, and only in the last year or so have begun printing images on paper. Until this issue, I have never had any problems with the printer, but I am guilty of never performing any maintenance on the printer. So what is the advice about maintenance for a 3880? I typically print 2-5 items every week.

Thanks,

Johnny Brian