New Epson 3880 ink not drying and blurry prints

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
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This is my first post on the forum. I have reviewed quite a few of the previous threads here, and I couldn’t find anything just like this problem.

I received my new carts and ink, encapsulated pigment ink, for my new 3880. I as I understood it from one of Dana’s videos, The 9 carts do not need to all be installed at once, and you can replace the Epson carts one at a time as they get low. So, wanting to get going with the new carts and ink, I used the LC cart which was the lowest at about 50%, did the chip exchange, everything went just right per the printer’s ink recognition screen.

My first print was blurry, real blurry. Ok, I’m thinking some ink is in the lines to the print head, but it’s not better yet after about 10-12 prints. So I’ve eliminated that as the issue.

The prints won’t dry, and the prints are so wet, they all stick together at the printer exit point. I’ve never experienced that “won’t dry” issue before on any printer. The prints I ran for testing were still wet after a day and a half, easy to spear the ink with just a light touch of my finger anywhere on the print. Just for the record, I’m fairly experienced with refilling on all 3 of my existing Epson printers, but this is my first time with Inkjetmall products, and I’m new to the 3880 and pigment inks.

So, I’m guessing I have done the something wrong, but everything seemed quite easy, including chip transfer, priming, and cart recognition by the 3880 . Hopefully there is a simple solution to this problem.

To get the printer back up and running, I reinstalled the original LC Epson cart after changing the chip back to the Epson original cartridge. After going back to the original LC cart and then running some LC out on plain paper to get the lines purged, everything is perfect on new prints after the original LC cart was re-installed.

I sure need some help on this.

Thanks, Bill Oxley

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Hi Bill~

I haven’t heard anything like this! It’s certainly NOT normal with 38xx refill carts, or ConeColor inks- so I have some questions to help me figure out what happened, and how to resolve it.

Please clarify: immediately after installing the LC refill cartridge, your print output was blurry and excessively wet?
Did you do any cleaning cycles after installing the LC cart, before making prints?
Did you print a nozzle check before making a print?
Did you shake the LC ink bottle before filling your LC refill cart?

When you install a new cartridge in a pro model printer, such as the 3880, it takes a while for ink to flow thru the internal ink line and reach the print head- so if your output changed right after installing the LC cart, then the ink hadn’t even made it’s way to the print head, and Epson ink from the line was still printing.

Please let me know so I can help you get past this and back to happily printing.
Best regards~ Dana :slight_smile:

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Hi Dana, thanks for the quick reply.

I’ll address/answer your questions the best that I can in the order asked:

I can’t answer your first question exactly, because, the first thing I did is run 2 or 3 “plain paper” 8 color test charts to purge the lines. They looked fine, but they were just what I meant them to be, so I didn’t examine them closely.

Yes, after the purge above, I ran one regular, not power, cleaning cycle.

No, I was so sure it would be perfect, I did not do a nozzle check, instead ran a letter size test print on Epson Prem Gossy.

Yes, I did shake the LC ink bottle, not aggressively, but just like you did in your video.

Ok, and yes, I do understand that it takes some time to get the ink to the print head, but after 1 “regular” cleaning cycle, I ran the next print with the Epson paper, which exposed the problem. I somewhat expected that there may be some additional print flow needed to change from the Epson ink to the new ink. Then, rather to do more cleaning cycles, which uses ink for all the other colors, I had plenty of extra Epson paper around, so I ran about another 10 or so high resolution prints out, and they all came out bad, and stuck together as per my original post. I have 4 of the same beautiful Colorado snow photos and I have not separated them at this point. I’m sure they will separate, but it’s like they have a light layer of glue between each photo. I pried the top photo about half way off and there is ink, about 15% coverage, on the back side of the prior photo.

And even now after 3 days, I can easily make a fingerprint on any of the photos, (the ink still transfers to my fingertip from the photo paper) so, it’s still not as dry as I would expect it to be within seconds of exiting from the printer.

I, like you, but with nowhere your expertise, have never heard of this sort of occurrence. It may just be some sort of aberration, but I couldn’t see any point in continuing with blurry wet prints.

Now, here’s the hard answer to one of your questions. After I saw the negative results, did I do a nozzle check then? I think the answer is yes, and it came out find, on copy paper of course. But, being a little frustrated at the time, I can’t honestly remember if I did the nozzle check before or after I put the original Epson LC cart back in. I’m pretty sure I did it before, but then I was just trying to get back to a useable printer, so I don’t remember for sure. I know the more accurate information I give you, the more you can help, but, that’s what I think I did.

One thing I can say for certain, the 3880 printed very nicely before the LC change, and again after the re-install of the original Epson LC cart. I’ve run several photos I needed to get out this afternoon, and they’re perfect.

So anyway, I’m very comfortable that you guys will help me get this resolved and I very much appreciate your time and effort. But, like you said in your first sentence, I, as well, have never heard of anything like this before in my 4 or 5 years of refilling. It’s probably some quirk thing, and with your help, I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

Again, thx for your time.

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Hi Bill~

Thanks for all the detailed information, it’s very helpful for me to figure out what the heck happened to cause the strange results you experienced.
In order to better understand what happened, and how to resolve the issue, it would be very helpful if you could please mail me some printed examples showing any nozzle checks printed with the ConeColor refillable LC cart installed (and EP inks for comparison), and prints showing the fuzzy and wet results you experienced. Please also supply me with the lot# on your ConeColor LC ink bottle for reference.

You can send samples to me at the following address:
Inkjetmall
Attn: Dana/testing
17 Powder Spring Rd
Topsham VT 05076

I will examine the prints when they arrive and let you know my thoughts.
Thanks and best regards~ Dana :slight_smile:

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Hi Dana, I got your latest response late morning and have read your request for mailing nozzle checks and fuzzy photos to you in Vermont.

I’d be happy to do that, but, to me, it seems we can narrow down the issues somewhat more quickly than snail mail.

First, the lot # on the LC ConeColor ink bottle: Batch 130115 with an expiration date of 12/20/15.

The other 8 ink bottles all have similar expiration dates ranging from Nov ’15 to Dec ’15. All other ink bottles, other that the LC, are unopened, as well as the other 8 carts, all still as received from Inkcartmall.

As far as the nozzle checks, as I mentioned in my last forum post, I’m not sure if I did or did not run a nozzle check during the time the ConeColor inks were in the LC position on my 3880. I have a stack of them, I just routinely (daily runs) in a corner of my shop I put all nozzle print outs, but they are not time stamped, so I would not be able to assure you which one was which. However, I can tell you that if there was anything less than a perfect nozzle check, I would have held it separate from the others to resolve the problem before continuing with any other printer functions.

However, with the information I’ve provided in my previous posts, haven’t we, by the process of elimination, ruled out any problem with my new Epson 3880 printer? Before the LC cart change out, the 3880 prints were perfect. And after the installation of the fully primed LC ConeColor cart and subsequent removal of the said cart, and re commissioning of the original Epson LC cart, (with some flush out of the LC channel, the 3880’s photos are again perfect.

It seems like to me that this process has narrowed it down to the new inkjetmall carts or the inkjetmall ink.

And I will, if you still want them, send you all the prints you requested, but it’s kind of like the dog chasing its tail. I have little or no interest experimenting with my new printer by putting any more of these inks into my brand new 3880 after I’ve seen what’s occurred.

Then I had another thought. I could do a high quality scan of the blurred photos I have, but they are still, now after 3 and a half days, too wet to put them on my scanner glass without making a big mess. I took some photos of them with my Canon 60D to send you, and that was difficult. The subject photos were so blurry, the 60D would not even permit an autofocus shutter release, so I had to manual focus on the photos the best that I could, and that I have done. I can attach them to the forum or email them direct, but as a 20 year experienced photographer, what’s that going to tell you? I will do that if you’d like, or per your “send by mail” request, I will do that if you prefer. But why? When I said “real blurry”, that’s less than the proper description. They are totally distorted, messy wet from over 3 days ago.

So, I need to get something done here, which may not include your need and desire to “troubleshoot” some anomaly with your highly praised ConeColor Inks. While I agree your reputation in this industry/field is good, I just need to get something done sooner rather than later. I don’t particularly want to be part of the trouble shooting process for something that and I quote you: “I haven’t heard anything like this! It’s certainly NOT normal with 38xx refill carts, or ConeColor inks”.

I don’t have the time for that, as I’ve got schedules to meet, etc.

So, all that being said, do you have a quicker solution to the problem?

Thanks, Bill

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Hi Bill,

From what you have written is seems like a very bizarre and strange anomaly. With what you are saying - that pushing out the Cone Light Cyan and printing with fresh Epson ink remedies it - then we will just send you a fresh bottle of ink and a new cartridge. We won’t know what happened or what is causing it - as much as we would like to by continuing the support topic.

But, there are no other reports and we manufacture our own ink and we bottle our own ink. So, any mishap would be wider spread than just one customer. From what you are describing - it almost sounds like the ink came into contact with Lyson ink which is incompatible with many other inks. And some strange chemical compound was formed. But, you are working only with Epson and Cone ink. So we will put you out of tech-support misery - replace the LC and cartridge and then just put this to some isolated strange anomaly - and close this topic.

I’ll have the ink and cart sent to the same address as before. Please discard the cart and ink. The ink is non-toxic.

Jon

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[QUOTE=jon;3294]Hi Bill,

From what you have written is seems like a very bizarre and strange anomaly. With what you are saying - that pushing out the Cone Light Cyan and printing with fresh Epson ink remedies it - then we will just send you a fresh bottle of ink and a new cartridge. We won’t know what happened or what is causing it - as much as we would like to by continuing the support topic.

But, there are no other reports and we manufacture our own ink and we bottle our own ink. So, any mishap would be wider spread than just one customer. From what you are describing - it almost sounds like the ink came into contact with Lyson ink which is incompatible with many other inks. And some strange chemical compound was formed. But, you are working only with Epson and Cone ink. So we will put you out of tech-support misery - replace the LC and cartridge and then just put this to some isolated strange anomaly - and close this topic.

I’ll have the ink and cart sent to the same address as before. Please discard the cart and ink. The ink is non-toxic.

Jon[/QUOTE]

Hi Jon and Dana,
Thanks for your timely response to my earlier post today.

I’m not sure replacing the LC cart and LC ink bottle is necessarily the best approach for either one of us, but clearly you are trying to accommodate one of your customers, who, in my last post, probably sounded a little frustrated. I do understand your response and compliment you on using the forum to past along all learning issues with your whole customer base rather than jsut a single customer. That does make a lot of sense.

So, after giving it some thought, I think I should continue this thread which may end up helping you, me, and many other customers as well.

I’ll need to make some adjustments to my schedule of printing projects that I had planned with the 3880, as I will mostly run out of the factory ink if I continue at the pace I had planned. I’ve decided I can work around that with a few telephone calls to some customers and take the time to mail out all that I have available in the prints that you and Dana can review as time permits, and hopefully, the problem can be resolved to everyone’s liking.

Needless to say, I’ve have been apprehensive to try an additional cart and color on my brand new 3380. I just bought it brand new in the box on Feb. 11th, commissioned it with all 9 carts, and the printer has been amazing, clearly the best of the 3 others that I own. But, I had an additional thought that maybe you would like to comment on. Before sending me any replacement items, maybe I should try another color cart and ink of the remaining 8, maybe excluding the matte, as that’s not a common usage that I anticipate. If you are comfortable that I will not damage my new printer with trying another color install if the same problem were to occur again, maybe we could all learn from that. My hesitation is that although you and Dana are way over my expertise, it is my belief, that for some reason, ConeColor ink is not compatible with the printer’s original Epson ink. To be honest, I focused in on that right away from some other experiences that I’ve had with refilling process a few years back.

That event, to be specific, was switching out all of the original Epson ink carts on an Artisan 810 with refillables. Knowing the flex ink lines to the print head would be an issue, I did a couple of head cleanings, then went right to a test print I use. It’s the same test print you have on your site with the 4 young children in the bottom row, on an letter size glossy. That print came out very similar to what we’ve experienced here. It was very blurred and the ink didn’t dry properly. So, I’m thinking, there was a little more ink in the lines than I thought, so I did some more plain paper test charts, another head cleaning, and tried the same test print again. It came out perfect! Quite frankly, amazing quality on a printer that I consider a “utility” printer for the back room. What I think I learned here is that the two ink types were not compatible, but my other refiller had always said the inks were not compatible, and that all carts would have to be changed at the same time, and the ink lines would have to be flushed before I should expect any quality printing.

So, that’s where I get my bias that we have an ink incompatibility problem here.

Now, to take a step back. My two primary reasons for choosing Inkcartmall for my 3880 were these: 1. The carts could be replaced one at a time as various original Epson carts were expended, thereby getting good utility from the 80 ml of ink that all of us purchasers of the 3880 experience. I tend to overuse some colors in the work that I do, and throwing away some percentage of $500 of ink didn’t seem like a good business decision. And, 2. My other supplier only offered the carts that extend beyond the ink cabinet of the printer, and I had decided that was less appealing to me than carts that fit in the printer more like the originals.

So, what all of this is saying, or I’m trying to say, is that I will continue to help us and your customers sort out this problem. I will mail in the items that I have available from Dana’s post to the address supplied, and I will slow my production needs down some to give everyone here a chance to catch their breath, and see if we can figure out what’s going on.

Installing another cart, primed and ready to go, in my new 3880 may help us determine what other issues may be occurring, but most importantly is that I want to feel comfortable that the inks, if by some chance are not really compatible, that I’m not doing permanent damage to my new printer.

So, please consider the options that I’ve thrown out, and advise me as how you would like to proceed.

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I would not do anything further at this point with a different cart or ink.

Because, there are no other issues like this reported, and because we sell a lot of ConeColor PRO ink, we will treat it as an isolated bottle or cartridge. You can return both of those to us if you like. I would definitely like to analyze both of those as a further study. But, you mentioned that your printer works with the Epson inks and we have countless customers even on this forum using both together. So just wait for the new cart and bottle to arrive. Do not pour the new ink into the old cartridge. Please discard both.