HELP!---Epson R3000 Cartridge Disaster

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
21

I certainly understand financial struggles, and not having enough $ to do everything you need or want…

We are not Epson techs, but based on our experience and the information you provided, it seems likely the damper is causing your problem, but it may be the print head, and there’s no way of knowing without being at the printer, and taking it apart. Lack of use is the worst thing for a printer, or any machine for that matter. For example, if you buy a new car and don’t replace the oil and filters like you should, then park it for a year, when you go to use it again it will have problems that it didn’t have when it was parked. Machines need to be exercised and maintained to work well and last as long as possible.
I’m sorry I don’t have a “quick fix”…

Warmly~ Dana

22

Does anyone have a photo of the ink tubes in an Epson R3000? Or, a diagram, showing which inks are in which tubes? I ask because, upon removing the cover, to check the ink supply system, I noticed that at least one of the lines appeared to be empty. The one at the top, appears particularly empty. Of course, this could be the LLK line—which could fool the eye. But, if it’s the PK or MK, this could explain my total lack of any black ink. A good, clear photo of the ink tubes might be very helpful. There is nothing on this, in the Epson service manual.

23

I have an update, on the black ink problem. It seems that the heads really were clogged. Apparently, when I flushed the black ink channel with Piezoflush, the solution suddenly caused a lot of coagulated ink pigment, to flush out of of the damper. These ink blobs abruptly clogged the heads, in a way that normal cleaning cycles could not clear.

However, the other day, I again decided to open up the printer. While I had it apart, I let the print heads sit on a paper towel, moistened with Piezoflush. Then when I put the printer back together, I did a routine nozzle check. Surprise, surprise—the black channel started printing again! And now, it is coming out the distinctive pink of Piezoflush. This printer may actually have a second life.

But first, I am going to try to flush-out the rest of the ink lines and dampers. This great headache with the black, may have been only a warning. If I use the ink priming/flushing utility. do I need to put Piezoflush carts in both blacks, or only one?

Thanks for everyone’s help.

24

This is a very good question! When you are running a ink prime on the R3000 it will draw out of which ever black cartridge is selected through the control panel on the printer itself. IE. When the printer in in PK mode and you run any prints, cleaning cycles, init. fills the ink will ONLY be drawn out of the PK cartridge. The 2 blacks share the same head channel, but have 2 different ink lines. So, the ink that’s being drawn out of the ink line is the ink that is selected on the printer.

25

This printer has separate ink lines and dampers for MK & PK, doesn’t it? So if you suspect that all the dampers need to be flushed, then my assumption is that you’ll need to flush both blacks, but you need to do one at a time, since you can only use one at a time. Which may mean two power cleans as I see it, which would be a pain, but at least it’s only flush.

26

The BEST way of doing this is to install ALL Piezoflush Carts at once and run the Initial Fill through the adjustment program (WIN only application). And yes, you will still have to select different black modes and run another Init Fill. Depending on what style chips you have, there is a bit of a different workflow to complete this task. If you have the old style Battery Style chips on hand, this will be easier, if you do not have battery style chips, then you will need two sets of chips reading FULL (otherwise the printer won’t allow for 2 initial fills, only 1 because of the chip read).

27

Actually, both blacks in the R3000 use the same damper. They just have separate ink lines.

  Dustin
28

Actually, the two blacks have two separate lines and dampers, then go into one from the black ink selector, and they both share the same print head channel. For the R3000, the ink selector unit contains five dual dampers, and one channel of one damper isn’t used, equalling 9 different channels.