Knowing when to do a 'deep' clean

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
1

Hi Dana,

I’ve had to do quite a few head cleaning cycles on my R3000 because I let the carts get too empty. Why did I do this? Because I never realized that the low ink warning doesn’t always come on with Cone carts. Why is this? Is there a fix for this coming out any time soon?

Anyway, all’s good now. But what I want to know is how do you tell if you need to do a deep clean (wiper blades, capping station, etc.) of your machine? Should it be done regularly no matter what, or only when certain things have happened?

Finally, all that flushed out ink from cleaning cycles has to go somewhere. When or how do I know that the collection tank is full or about to overflow?

Thanks,

Chris

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Hi Chris~

I see you bought products from one of our resellers, so I can’t look up your order history. Please tell me, when did you purchase the R3000 refill cartridges? Have you noticed ink levels going down during printing and cleaning cycles? Have you ever refilled the carts and/or reset the cartridge chips? Have you been removing the carts for regular agitation to maintain in-suspension pigment? What ink are you using?

We have discovered that R3000 chips occasionally reset themselves, though we’re not certain why, but believe it has something to do with the reset points of the chip being touched, which can sometimes happen when carts are removed/reinstalled, and/or possibly related to the age of the chip battery. The cartridge manufacturer has recently made a new chip design that doesn’t use batteries, and we are waiting to receive them for testing. We recommend keeping an eye on the physical ink level in the carts to avid running empty, and only resetting when carts are refilled.

You can find a lot of helpful printer maintenance and cleaning information here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance
As per our maintenance page, cleaning internal parts should be done every few weeks (depending on use), or as needed.

Best regards~ Dana :slight_smile:

3

Hi Dana,

I bought the cartridges and some of the inks late 2012, with other inks being bough through the first few months of 2013 as the original Epson inks ran out.

The answer to all your other questions is “yes”.

I didn’t used to check the ink levels because I thought the low ink warning (illuminated droplet) would come on when it was time to change them or re fill. But now that I know that this light doesn’t work with the Cone cartridges I won’t let them get as low as i have done. I bet I’m not the first person who was relying on that light to tell me that it was time to refill!

Anyway, it seems that the printer’s well due for a proper clean as it’s not been done for 18 months.

Chris