COMMON THREAD - Older 2880 Printer - Cartridge issues

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
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                         [B][U]Please use this thread for researching Leaking Cartridges,  Bad Nozzle Checks, Draining Cartridges & Ink Blob on prints for your  Older 2880 printers[/U][/B]

-All common complaints concerning these issues listed will be copied into this thread in no particular order
-Please reply directly on the original thread to keep this thread free of conversation
-Any incoming complaints will be directed to this thread for information to help solve your concerns
-Testing results and resolve will be posted at the end of this thread

Thank you all for your input regarding these issues and for being patient while we come to a solution to get your old 2880’s up and running again
Kindly,
Kelly

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http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?1245-Another-R2880-can-t-maintain-a-good-nozzle-check

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?992-Epson-2880-major-problem-Streaking-after-major-cleaning

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?921-R2880-can-t-maintain-a-good-nozzle-check

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?1228-New-User-Cart-Drained-w-out-Printing-Epson-r2880

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?954-epson-2880-ink-blobs

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?551-Leaky-Cyan-and-Light-Cyan-Carts

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TESTING results - Here is the latest on our end from Kelly in Tech…

1.Filled 1 set of carts with CCPRO-PK (5 different lot#s just in case it was an ink issue)
2.Tested them in “new” Refurb 2880 printer - Printed 40 test prints at 1440 dpi, no issues, good NC’s
3.Installed same cartridges in OLD testing printer, did 3 head cleanings, Good NC
4.Printed 40 prints same as above, everything looking good
5.Installed 2nd set of cartridges filled with CCPRO-PK lot.121106 into OLD 2880, ran 3 head cleanings, BAD nozzle check across the board, lifted cover and found leaking ink ALL over the inside of printer! VERIFIED COMPLAINT
6.Cleaned capping station, wiper blade and bottom of print head, all where terribly gummed up with pigment
7.Re-installed 1st set of cartridges, 3 head cleanings, NC-GOOD
8.Printed 20 test prints, good
9.Re-inserted 2 set of test carts, 3 cleaning cycles, NC-GOOD
10.Printed 20 test prints, all good!

Conclusion-If the capping station is old or gummed up with pigment, as well as the wiper blade then the printer cannot effectively clean the bottom of the print head, leading to “wicking” of ink from the carts and eventually dripping ink onto prints. I feel the common denominator here is older printers, either maintained or not that have dried up capping stations and worn out wiper blades that cannot do their jobs effectively. Once I cleaned the capping station thoroughly and verified it was in deed sucking the fluid out and cleaned the wiper blade, thoroughly and the bottom of the print head 3x, all was good again. I do remember this was one of the reasons I put this machine to rest, in addition to it having consistent missing nozzles on the PK & LLK channels. It was wasting too much of my time and with 3 other refurbs in boxes, it was wiser to switch to testing on a new refurb.

I will let it set over night with the 2nd set of carts that had the leaking issue to begin with (that are working fine after cleaning the printer) to see if they leak out over night. Tomorrow, I will test the 3rd set of carts before cleaning to see if I can get them to do the same thing as the 2nd set.

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My conclusion and the common denominator here is older printers with worn out Capping Stations/Wiper blade and pumps. I am ordering a Pump assembly today to replace in our OLD R2880 to verify the repair (fingers crossed), this is an inexpensive solution to get another year or 2 out of your older 2880 printers. Compass Micro sells these pump assemblies for $48.78 and can be ordered here https://www.compassmicro.com/parts_d…0Photo%20R2880

I will post my progress and results after replacing the pump assembly, until then I would recommend cleaning your printer thoroughly every 100 prints or so, BEFORE you have leaking ink all over the inside of the printer.

Thank you all for being patient as we work this out and come to a resolve and offer our users a solution. Keeping your printers running, clean and trouble free is our goal, same holds true for our printers here in the studio and R&D, without this we wouldn’t have a product to stand behind.

Kindly,
Kelly

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I think a common thread is a good idea, as it prevents the discussion from being scattered around the place. You beat me to it.

Although my threads have become quite long, I wrote a summary of my R2880 a few days ago here and a description of my approach to cleaning here.

I have a question: How would we know that our capping station needed replacing, other than leaking carts? As described in that second link, when I clean mine, I get it to the point where the capping station is white and appears to be in good condition as far as I can tell from a close visual inspection. The seal around the capping station appears to be and feels in good condition. Ditto for the wiper blade. The WIC reset utility suggests that the printer (bought second hand 5½ months ago) is relatively low mileage. What would be the signs?

The fact that you solve the problem of leaking carts in your older R2880 this way doesn’t necessarily mean that the problems with our printers all have the same cause. Granted, it’s probably either that or the print head, and the capping station seems to be much cheaper as an initial solution, although I’d still have to import one and so I’d like a little more guidance if possible first.

Also, I know that you’re not running a printer servicing consultancy, but how hard is it to replace the capping station in an R2880, roughly? I watched several videos on replacing the print head, and I have the service manual. What’s the level of difficulty compared to the print head, which seems like it can be done without too much disassembly of the chassis?

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Kelly, thanks for putting these threads together and thanks for supporting your R2880 customers. It is appreciated.

As I said in another thread, my printer is not that old (20 months and the capping station appears to be in excellent shape after cleaning), and I can get excellent nozzle checks after cleaning. The problem is that is doesn’t last, after a day or two the problems reappear. Looking at the carts, there really doesn’t appear to be much that can out of tolerance: the o-rings and plunger that fit on the printer head nipple, the plug on the fill hole, the cart fitting into the carriage, and the chip attachment. The o-rings and fill-hole plug are probably the most important for leaking, whereas the cart fitting into the carriage and chip attachment are the most important for the carts to be recognized by the printer. There must be something fundamental that I am missing.

Dan

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Dan & Brian, I posted a response here on Brian’s original post R2880 - can’t Maintain a good Nozzle check
http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?921-R2880-can-t-maintain-a-good-nozzle-check

I will have the Pump Assembly on Tues of next week and hope to have it replaced by the end of the week, with a report of my findings. Thank you for your patience while we work this out and come to a solution for all of our 2880 users out there experiencing problems.

Kindly,
Kelly

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Brian, In regards to knowing when the capping station is worn out, our printers capping station looks like the foam is hardened up and has lost it’s “loft” for lack of better term. I flooded it with a squirt of Piezoflush and left it, then started the printer back up to see if the pump would suck the fluid out of it while it was starting up. It took the pump a good try to get the fluid to suck out of the capping station. Then when the head went over to the left of the capping station again to suck the ink down, I squirted more flush in each side, I did this several times until it the pump was successfully sucking the flush down without trouble or resistance.

I have run approx. 80 prints through it, left it sitting for 2 days now without use and the carts filled with CCPRO PK ink and as I expected, the NC looks very bad and it’s leaking ink all over the printer again. I did the resistance test on the capping station again and sure enough, the pump is NOT sucking the ink the way it should be. I put the flush carts back in it to rest until I get the pump assembly.

I believe the pump assembly is not doing it’s job, why would it after years of neglect and abuse? This particular printer has not been taken care of the way the current testing printer has, reason being so we can in fact duplicate concerns such as this one when the time comes. I will be able to advise better by the end of next week, for now keep your printers stored with Flush carts to prevent further ink waste.

Kelly

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A report on my capping station is here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?921-R2880-can-t-maintain-a-good-nozzle-check&p=6492#post6492

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Update- The Pump Assembly has been removed from the OLD 2880 printer, it was a NASTY mess in there! I performed a test on the capping station while it was out of the machine, which I enjoyed thoroughly! Long story really, if anyone wants/needs to know what I did, I do have a write up, BUT to keep things “clean” on this thread, I will spare the details. I thoroughly tested the capping station, which I believe is functional, BUT the wiper blade is in terrible condition! The only way to replace the wiper blade, is you guessed it, to replace the entire pump assembly…Which by the way, is not a terribly hard job, a bit time consuming, but nothing too advanced if you have the service manual ($11.99 at 2manuals.com). I will install the new pump assembly (Capping Station, Wiper Blade & Pump) this afternoon and will be testing her out tomorrow, fingers crossed & prayers sent to the printer Gods it will be FIXED and I can report success! Here is a picture of the nasty culprit BEFORE I cleaned it

Pump Ass-Before.jpg849×849 83.2 KB

After I cleaned it, looks pretty good right?
Pump Ass-After.jpg867×867 83.5 KB

NOTICE the WARPED Wiper Blade
Wiper Blade Warp.jpg992×992 82.8 KB

More to come in the following days…Stay tuned!

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[QUOTE=KellyC;6556]Update- The Pump Assembly has been removed from the OLD 2880 printer, it was a NASTY mess in there! I performed a test on the capping station while it was out of the machine, which I enjoyed thoroughly! Long story really, if anyone wants/needs to know what I did, I do have a write up, BUT to keep things “clean” on this thread, I will spare the details. I thoroughly tested the capping station, which I believe is functional, BUT the wiper blade is in terrible condition!

Here is a picture of the nasty culprit BEFORE I cleaned it
After I cleaned it, looks pretty good right?
NOTICE the WARPED Wiper Blade[/QUOTE]

I’d be interested in your write-up of your testing of the capping station. If you don’t want to post it on the forum then you’re welcome to email it to me.

When you say “nasty culprit BEFORE I cleaned it - After I cleaned it, looks pretty good right?”, which part of the assembly are you referring to specifically? There’s no photo of the wiper blade before the clean, so I can’t compare. The pads in the capping station seem the same before and after. So I assume that you’re referring to the assembly as a whole - is that right?

Let’s suppose for the moment that a new capping station fixes the problem on this printer. What’s not clear to me so far is what aspect of the old assembly would have been causing the problem. The wiper blade being bent? Perhaps, but the surface of the blade doesn’t look too bad otherwise. Or something else? I think we’re going to need a little more guidance on how to assess whether our capping / pump / wiper assemblies are faulty and need of a replacement, other than just the fact that you replaced yours and it fixed the problem. I think that many of us would approach such an operation with some trepidation, even with the service manual and your photos in hand, so we need to be able to calculate that it’s highly likely to work. Hence my interest in your testing. Perhaps it’s best to leave answering this question until you’ve finished the exercise.

Thank you for your efforts.

Finally, how did you determine that your printer is a “her”. What difference does it make if mine is a “him”?

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Kelly, thanks once again for all of your efforts on the R2880 front. I would be interested in reading your capping station write up.

Dan

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Yes, Brian I was referring to the Capping station as a whole, the entire thing was an absolute mess with ink all over everything. The wiper blade was extremely gummed up with old pigment, I had to basically rinse the entire thing with flush, then water until it was clean, then let it air dry. I do plan on presenting my findings AFTER I have the printer back together with the NEW pump assembly and have verified the repair.

As I said here

I thoroughly tested the capping station, which I believe is functional, BUT the wiper blade is in terrible condition! The only way to replace the wiper blade, is you guessed it, to replace the entire pump assembly

I believe it is the wiper blade that caused the problem, but won’t really know either way, and honestly it doesn’t make a difference because you have to replace the entire unit, either way. So, in my personal opinion, there is no need to “split hairs” here over if it’s the capping station or the wiper blade or both.

Dan, I will send you an email with my write up on the capping station and you are very welcome, it’s my pleasure, I get a great deal of satisfaction fixing things!

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You’re right that there’s no point splitting hairs over whether it’s one or the other, but what if it’s neither? In my case the blade looks straight and clean, and using the test you suggested above, the capping station is draining, I’ve cleaned the station a lot. It’s a bit hard to assess visually whether it’s lost it’s loft.

Yes, it’s only $50 plus several hours, but for me on the other side of the planet, it’s not clear whether I can buy this assembly locally (it would not surprised me if Epson Australia doesn’t sell to individuals) or have to import it. Either way, it’s likely to be significantly more than $50. So to do this I need to be reasonably confident that something in the assembly is causing the problem.

But I agree that it’s going to be cheaper than trying out my other theory - which is that there’s batch of print heads out there with one or more ink nozzles sufficiently out of spec to be a bad fit with refillables.

p.s. Thanks for the MEEEEESSSSYYYYYY email. Yuk!

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UPDATE-OLD 2880 findings

Initially I thought this was going to be a straight forward fix, an inexpensive way to get more life out of our older, beloved R2880’s. What I thought was going to be a simple swap out of the Pump Assembly, did not end up being the solution. In the end, I am left with a simply truth that this printer was intended to be “disposable” for lack of better words. The print head has failed from years of use, but works fine with Piezoflush, just as some of you have reported. The head is out of specs and cannot handle pigment inks in the way it was intended too when it was new/refurbished.

Being the print head will behave normally with Flush, this lead me to install InkThrift PRO dye inks. With NO manual cleaning of the bottom of the print head, 3 head cleanings through the utility and 1st nozzle check, you guessed it, perfect across the board, this is promising! I will leave it sitting for a couple of weeks, at which time I will perform a Nozzle check and check the carts for drainage. InkThrift PRO is closer to the viscosity of PIEZOFLUSH than it is to ConeColor Pro pigment inks and I am hopeful that this will be a good way to get a few more miles out of these printers before sending them back to Epson for Re-furbishing.

Conclusion-These older printers (all of them) need to maintained to the highest standards, from day one! If you do not, then you will lessen the life of your printer drastically, even using OEM inks. These print heads just can’t handle being left unused, not cleaned and/or used continuously without any regard to health of the capping station, wiper blade and print head. My favorite modo is and always has been

“An ounce of prevention is worth a of pound of cure” -Ben Franklin

Where to from here-

If you are going to continue using your printer, then you will need to keep them extremely clean, some days will be better then others (for what reason I do not know and never will, printers can be and are temper-mental). Store with flush carts if left sitting so you aren’t draining the pigment out into your capping station, causing it to gum up, making the situation worse.

If you have received the warning message that certain parts have reached the end of life, this doesn’t necessarily mean ONLY your waste ink pads. This message indicate other parts in the printer are at their end of life as well and at this point, it would be wise to send it to Epson for a Re-furbishing. This essentially will keep these printers in circulation for a while longer.

Best Regards,
Kelly

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Please post your responses and discussions here on this thread opened for purpose of keeping this thread clean, for a reference for people looking for information related to their concerns, thank you!

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?1264-OLDER-2880-Printer-Discussion-Post-here-to-talk-about-your-OLD-USED-R2880-s

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