Dirty cleaning station

1400
1430
#1

Hello,

The cleaning station of my 1430 won’t stay “clean” for long. The wiper blade especially gets messy very fast and spread ink instead of wiping it off. Hard to keep a perfect nozzle check…
Is this a know illness of aging 1430 printers?
Is there any tubing going to the wiper blade somewhere underneath that could be detached? There is only one tube going to the waste ink bottle (lot of ink, the pump is working), but I can see two inside the machine with unknown destinations.
Thanks for your help.

Stefan

#2

OK, now it seems the cleaning station gets messy just because I do a lot of cleaning cycles. I emptied a whole set of Piezo ink only doing that… not omitting several cleaning maintenance actions as shown in your video.
Also I noticed troubles affected mostly the LC channel, so I put a cartridge with Piezoflush here and it suddently printed just fine.
I don’t have Piezo ink in the printer for more than a few weeks so I don’t really suspect a clogg, rather ink not flowing freely from the cartridge.
Is it possible the LC cartridge’s vent hole was defective (I have the recent “9800 internal exit valve missing” in mind), and [U]is there a way to test a cartridge before use[/U]?
Please, I’m just wasting ink and can’t progress with PiezoDN for a week now and need some support.

Regards,

Stefan

#3

Hey Christiansen. You are using the MyInk capsule cartridges yes?

Or are you using the normal re-fill cartridges?

You could have a bunk cartridge. You could have a bit of gunk in your head inlet spike that the Piezoflush is able to get around but not ink.

First thing is to get a different LC cartridge.

I’ll PM you with details.

best,
Walker

#4

Walker,
I’m using normal re-fill cartridges from InkjetMall.
I just put a new one in the printer with shade 3 again (I get 7 cartridges for the 6 channels 1430…)
Waiting for your mail, thanks!

[U]Stefan[/U]

#5

Hi

You may want to check your printer’s left side ink pad. If the ink builds up on this pad it will affect nozzle checks after cleaning cycles and additional cleaning cycles will not clear missing nozzles. In my experience with both my Epson 1430 and 1400 the lower the humidity the faster the ink builds up on this pad even though the humidity may be around 40% in my work room.

Sometimes after a cart refill and subsequent cleaning cycle the LC will be missing nozzles on the 1430, but I’ve found that if you let the printer set for an hour or so and then run a small test print the LC nozzles will print ok on a nozzle check afterwards. I try to avoid cleaning cycles on these printers unless absolutely necessary.

It would be interesting to see if the left side ink pad on your printer is prone to ink build up. The build up appears as a tall thin line toward the very left on the pad.

Best regards, John

#6

Hi John,

Thanks for bringing my attention to this point. I don’t believe the print head could touch those left pads, unless a lot of “gunk” has build up.
I cleaned them anyway, which I don’t think is mentionned in the maintenance video.
Removing the foam pads, cleaning them and putting them back was easy, but you should be carefull not to pull the thin felt pad underneath that I suppose drives the waste ink to a bigger pad, or you won’t be able to put it back…
Maybe Dana could dis/confirm this and give a better advice, like simply putting some Piezoflush and soaking it up a few times.
Looking again at the video, my dirty wiper blade looks just the same, and I’m reassured my printer seems to work normally.

It’s strange you mention the LC nozzles, I wasn’t aware of a specific weakness here. It seems changing the cartridge solved my problem instantly, with the help of one cleaning cycles (I hate to do them too).
So printer or cartridge issue?
My guess is that all cartridges are made the same (same mold?) with different stickers and chips. Why would there be troubles with LC?

I have to add that Walker generously offered some compensation off forum.

Thank you all.

Stefan

#7

I had been having all sorts of issues with nozzle checks with my Epson 1430 (international version) especially Magenta.

I tried

  1. Cleaning the nozzles with Piezoflush.
  2. Cleaning under the printhead.
  3. Replacing the cartridge.

After doing these and running head cleans I would get a decent nozzle check and then it would descend into a poor one again within a day.

I finally found the problem.

It was a very dirty

  1. spit pad (at the very left of the printer) and
  2. wiper blade.

You can find instructions to clean these at the bottom of the page at the following link.
http://www.marruttusa.com/printer-maintenance/inkjet-printer-purge-files.php

This was due to doing head cleans. I will now do the equivalent by printing a purge page of any of the solid colours I need cleaned.

I am very happy I finally found this.