Epson R2400 using refillable cartridges bleeds

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
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1

Hello,

I have a technical support issue with my “Refillable cartridges only for the Epson R2400” using “InkThrift dye ink for Epson Ultrachrome K3 or K3V compatible printers - Set of 9 - 220ml bottles”.

I believe I followed all of the instructions correctly, but ink seems to be bleeding onto the page in drops. These seem to be coming from the Magenta cartridge and the adjacent yellow cartridge now prints red as well with what I assume is ink bleeding from the magenta cartridge.

The only thing I can think of off hand is that the “Air Vent Plug” on the top of the cartridges should not have been left unplugged at the end of the refilling process. I left them unplugged. If that correct? Do you have any other suggestions? Is the Magenta cartridge defective?

Regards,

Sam.

2

Sam,

Foregive me for joining your thread but I took delivery of a set of R2400 refillables last week and leaking ink was the second of my problems. The first and the third were getting the ink to flow at all - or at least on the eight nozzles simultaneously. Sadly I am back to my Epsons!

On day One I did eventually get a full set of cartridges to run and the prints I made were lovely. The next day I went to the printer and the head must have been swamped with ink as it dropped blobs on the white margins of my print. The image itself was like an oil slick.

Day Three I never managed to get all eight heads to run at the same time and I have reverted to my OEM cartridges. I’ll start another thread on ‘blocked nozzles’ to make life more organised for Dana.

In the meantime I’m eagerly awaiting Dana’s advice to you. My R2400 will be as old as any as I bought it when they were first released. Jon questioned whether it had been regularly cleaned. The answer is an honest No. A few nozzle cleans from time and that is all. I work on the basis of “if it ain’t broke leave it well alone”. Maybe that was my error. But Jon also pointed out, in a private email, that these cartridges do work on slightly different principles to the OEM ones and this could be your/our problem.

I have said enough for a total amateur. Over to you Dana!

Tony

3

Sam and Tony~

I checked your order histories and see you both bought the R2400 refill carts and PiezoFlush print head cleaning kits last month, Sam using Ink Thrift dye and Tony using Cone Color Pro. Since you are both having similar problems, I have the same questions for you both:

  1. Did you fill the cartridges from the bottom fill hole (next to the exit valve), or top fill hole?
  2. Are the circle exit chambers of all carts at least 1/2 filled with ink for proper flow?
  3. Did you tap the filled cartridges exit valve down on a folded paper towel a few times before installing into your printer?
  4. Are air vent plugs removed and vent holes open on all carts?
  5. What inks were installed in your printers before installing the refill carts?
  6. Did you use the print head cleaning kit before installing the refill carts?
  7. If so, why- were you having clogging/flow issues?
  8. Open the Epson Status Monitor in the utilities to view the ink level readings (based on the cartridge chips), then push the ink change button on the printer and remove the carts to check the physical ink level- are they similar to the status
    monitor readings?
  9. Do any of your cartridges drip ink when removed from the printer?
  10. In your printer’s life- how often do you usually use it, vs. how long has it sat unused?
  11. When did you last use your printers (before installing the refill carts)/when were they last printing smoothly?
  12. Did you also clean the capping station, wiper blade and bottom of the print head as per our video and instructions?
  13. What paper(s) are you using?
  14. Do you have an external waste ink bottle installed on your printer?
  15. Do you have the full set of refill carts installed, or mixed with Epson/other style carts?

Regular cleaning/maintenance is important for the best quality output and longest life of your printer (as with any machine). Depending on frequency of use, we recommend cleaning the capping station and wiper blade every 2-4 weeks, and the print head as needed if you experience missing or mis-firing nozzles, or ink smears on the paper during printing (from waste ink build up on/around the bottom of the print head, which is often transferred from the capping station). The bottom of the print head should always be cleaned after using the print head cleaning kit, and I always cleaning the capping station and wiper blade after cleaning the print head.

Please let me know, so I can help you get back to happily printing~ Dana :slight_smile:

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Dana,

Thanks for your interest and concern. I’ll answer your questions.

  1. Bottom hole by vacuum. The vent plug was in situ until I had finished filling.
  2. Yes.
  3. Yes.
  4. Yes.
  5. Standard Epson cartridges.
  6. No. I never needed to.
  7. n/a
  8. Cannot do now but I saw the levels going down.
  9. No.
  10. I use it about two or three times a week.
  11. The previous day, with Epson cartridges. Over the period I have owned it did need a nozzle clean but rarely one that needed repeating. Your’s is the first cleaning fluid I have owned.
  12. Not until I started to have problems getting your cartridges to work. After that I spent almost all my time cleaning.
  13. Ilford Smooth Pearl and Harman Lustre.
  14. Not until I started to use your cartridges and had to do so many cleaning cycles. I’d bought one but never bothered to fit it. The repeated cleaning that I was doing to get your cartridges to flow worried me. I have now fitted the waste ink bottle.
  15. I started with a full set of your cartridges. I never mixed them with anything else.

I am afraid that, to a degree, all this has become academic to me. The flooding incident seemed, to me, to be solveable. When, on my third day, I found it impossible to force ink through all eight heads at the same time (one would go good and another would go bad) I gave up the thought of getting the refillables to work. I must have tried for between two and three hours. Judging from the answers to all your questions there is nothing I did not try. I’d never cleaned the capping station in all the time I owned the 2400 but, golly, it had a lot of cleaning last week. (I even bought a pack of six kitchen towel rolls and six bottles of flushing fluid in case the one I bought from you ran out!)

I took all the refillables out, replaced them with the Epson cartridges and put the printer on to eBay. When it sells this weekend I’ll buy a 3880.

I have offered to send the R2400 cartridges back to Jon. Sadly they are no use to me. I’d love to try Cone refillables on the 3880 but clearly my R2400 and Cone never saw eye to eye! Better to cut my losses and move on.

I hope you have better luck with Sam.

Tony

5

Tony,

Thanks for your input.

Dana,

Thank you for the questions. Here are my answers:

  1. Yes.
  2. Yes.
  3. Yes.
  4. Yes.
  5. Epson Inks.
  6. Yes.
  7. I thought it would be best to clean out the old ink first and my LLK printhead was spotty.
  8. I will check on this when I get back to the office.
  9. And will check on this as well…
  10. Intermittent use. several prints every month.
  11. I last used the printer just prior to installing the carts and they printed normally.
  12. Yes, I watched your video and used the kit I purchased form you.
  13. I use several different types, but I have only used Epson Presentation Matte Paper since I changed to your refillable cartridges.
  14. No.
  15. A full set of your cartridges.

I will check on #'s 8 and 9 on Friday.

Let me know what you would suggest as the next steps.

I can post some photos of the printing problems if that will help in the diagnosis.

Regards,

Sam

6

Thanks for the additional information Sam and Tony, what did you discover after checking the ink level (question 8), and Sam- are any of your carts dripping ink when removed from the printer?

Tony~ Jon forwarded me your original email from 2/7 explaining your good and bad experiences with our carts and inks in your R2400 printer.

Printers (like any machine) require regular maintenance to produce consistent high quality and stay in good working condition for a long time. Preventive maintenance is important, and not waiting for problems to occur before starting a cleaning/maintenance routine is always best (as you maintain your car to help keep it working well, lasting long and avoid serious damage/problems). The R2400 printer model is several years old, so its hard to find any good working ones still around (we have two, because I’ve maintained them well over the years). It has been a very popular printer model over the years, for both our ConeColor and Piezography inks with our refillable carts. Lack of cleaning will cause waste ink and dust build up on the capping station and wiper blade, which gets transfered to the bottom of the print head, and can cause problems such as clogging, mis-firing nozzles and/or smearing or ripping of ink on the paper during printing. Regular cleaning of a desktop printer should take about 30 minutes, and if hours were spent cleaning the printer, then I suspect it was very dirty after years of not cleaning, and/or cleaning was overdone, which can also cause issues. If I accidentally leave a printer sitting unused with ink installed for too long (we have too many printers to keep up with all the time), and am dealing with a clogged print head, this is my workflow:

  1. Install a set of carts filled with PiezoFlush and do 2-3 cleaning cycles, then print a nozzle check to see how things look. NOTE: I always check to make sure the cartridge body is at least 3/4 full, exit chamber is at least 1/2 full, and air vent plugs are removed from all carts before installing them into my printer. If needed, I refill carts that are low- and tap the carts exit valve down on a folded paper a few times before installing into the printer.
  2. Clean the capping station and wiper blade with PiezoFlush, then gently clean the bottom of the print head with a Bounty paper towel moistened with PiezoFlush
  3. Do another 1-3 cleaning cycles, then print a second nozzle check
  4. If there is improvement, but not perfection in the printed nozzle check- I will often wait an hour or so (let the printer sit- either on or off, but with the flush carts installed), then after some time for PiezoFlush to work, do another cleaning cycle and print a third nozzle check to see how things look.
  5. At this point, if any positions still have stubborn missing or mis-firing nozzles, I will use the PiezoFlush print head cleaning kit to flush the specific channels that need extra cleaning. I always absorb any extra liquid in the print head and wipe the clean of the print head after using the print head cleaning kit, before reinstalling the set of flush carts and printing a nozzle check. After using the print head cleaning kit and reinstalling the set of flush carts, do 1-2 cleaning cycles before printing a nozzle check (to get fluid flowing thru the head channels).

Please keep me posted, I hope this helps.
Best regards~ Dana :slight_smile:

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Dana,

Good to hear from you and some sound advice for owners of R2400s that have been in use for some time. This will be a long and slightly Off Topic one but your dana@ email address forces me to use this forum to speak to you.

I have learnt a lot about printers and inks over the last three weeks.

I know you ink experts are servicing conscious but Epson make little of it to their owners. Until I met you folk three weeks ago I had never heard of a capping station let alone cleaned one. I also discovered that I’d bought my R2400 in 2005.

It has thus run for eight years on OEM ink with total disregard for maintenance and it failed as soon as it had to deal with third party cartridges. I realise that this makes it a real problem for people like yourself, Wells and Jon.

Chumps like me buy your kit and expect it to work ‘out of the box’!

I’d already guessed that a set of flush carts might be the ultimate cure and ordered them from you. Wells told me that you were out of stock at the time. They are on Order Number SO30735570, as is extra flushing solution and some more inks including one magenta and two light magenta. That represented around 164 USD of supplies which would probably increase by about a third when I paid UK import taxes.

I then had to accept that, even if I followed all five of your recovery steps, my aged R2400 might still not support your cartridges. My 140 UKP would have been money down the drain.

Wicking is also a new hazard I had never met before. Only two days ago one of your customers started a thread on DPReview and told how he had put “about 2ml of Windex on top of each purge pad and turned the printers Off On and back Off. This was two days ago. Tonight I went down to the print room to print a few things for a friend only to find all four printers had all their inks wicked from their refillable carts.” Again not your fault, but a danger once one moves from OEM.

I decided that spending more money trying to get the R2400 to work with refillables could be throwing good money after bad. I have bought a 3880 which, even staying with OEM ink, will drop my ink costs by 63% according to my crude maths. I’ll buy a second set of OEM’s to let the machine run enough time to hopefully identify any teething problems. As long as the sums look favourable I’ll probably then buy a set of 3880 refillables from you plus the ‘vivids’ I need to update my Cone ink palette. The existing magentas I will give to one of the folk who have been helping me. If anyone wants my two sets of R2400 refillables they are welcome to ask!

I have been looking (tell me where I have not looked over the last two weeks!!) at InkJetFly and what appeals to me about your cartridges is that one can feed them into the system one by one. IJF seem to want the full set to be inserted at the same time and unless one is prepared to drain the dregs from the OEM’s (which I am not) the unused ink will go to waste.

A long reply I am afraid – but one that at least confirms that you have not lost me as a customer. Can I also ask you to get Linda to remove that order (SO30735570) from the PayPal system as I will not be needing it now.

Tony

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Epson doesn’t offer information for maintaining printers, because they prefer you just buy a new one instead of taking care of one to make it last many years. We have learned a lot about inkjet printers over the years of working with many different models, and over the years have developed maintenance/cleaning procedures to help us keep our printers in good working condition and lasting for many years. We have some written procedures and a desktop printer maintenance video to help people learn how to take care of their printers like we do.

We have tested at least a dozen different cartridge designs for the 2400 over the years. Many had very poor results, but the model we sell tested very well in our printers, and based on customer feedback over the past +/- 2 years since we’ve carried this cartridge deign, they are working quite well- but the printers are getting old, so there can be several factors in supporting old model printers.

I will let Linda know to cancel your order for the items you no longer need.

Please let me know if there’s anything further I can help you with.
Best regards~ Dana :slight_smile:

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“Please let me know if there’s anything further I can help you with.”

Yes please Dana.

Can you answer the question I wrote in the Pro section?

I have bought a 3880. How can I maintain it to your standards so I can reliably re-invest in some refillable cartridges. The Epson engineer, who came round to cure the 150c problem, gave me some tips. I’d like yours please. I have a full set of Cone inks and it would be lovely to be able to use them in my brand new machine - and buy more…

I maybe have looked at the wrong place in your website but I have not found any instructions specific to the 3880. If they are there all I need is the URL.

Tony