I pulled my R2000 out of hibernation last week. I had a perfect nozzle check with piezoflush. I removed the piezo carts, wiped piezo from the nipples, then installed the piezo carts. I am now losing nozzles randomly in selenium shades 7, 6, and 3. 7 is the worst.
I figure the capping station and wiper must be in good condition because it was stored with piezoflush, and has had selenium piezo ink installed only for about a week or so. Because the dropped nozzles are random, I’m assuming that it’s air. I’ve also noticed small amounts of ink puddled in the bottom of the ink cart holder. Removing and replacing the carts seems to have helped, although there still seem to be missing nozzles in shade 7.
I recently replaced my EPSON cartridges with ConeColorPro K3 Vivid Ink using their refillable cartridges.
I have probably printed about 30 or so 7’ * 5” high quality prints.
I was very happy with the results but……
About 2 weeks ago I wanted to make a few prints,
At first the printer started okay but did not print.
The ink out warning came on but all the cartridges were full.
I tried restarting a few times and eventually removed all the cartridges and replaced them.
Suddenly the printer worked and I successfully made the prints.
Yesterday I wanted to make some prints.
The printer showed the Epson logo and indicated that all cartridges were full.
When I tried to print it gave me a Printer error message and the yellow Ink Out light came on.
When I tried again the power light and ink out warning light came on, nothing on the printer screen.
After trying a few times I resorted to taking the cartridges out and replacing them.
Unfortunately it did not do the trick.
I have cleaned the ink cartridge chips with alcohol
I switched the printer on, the menu window remained blank
The power light came on but remained flashing
The yellow light on the ink warning lamp remained flashing
There was absolutely no start-up mechanical noises from the computer.
I have checked the Printing preferences
Utilities not working
Status Monitor not working
I have checked ink levels, all columns greyed out
I have checked Printer Properties
Under general it shows the Printer name Epson Stylus Photo R3000
There is nothing under location or comments
I checked the Properties
Device Status : This device is working properly!!!
Under Version Info it indicated Epson Colour Printing System 6.75 AF_C1
[QUOTE=LarryB;12405]I pulled my R2000 out of hibernation last week. I had a perfect nozzle check with piezoflush. I removed the piezo carts, wiped piezo from the nipples, then installed the piezo carts. I am now losing nozzles randomly in selenium shades 7, 6, and 3. 7 is the worst.
I figure the capping station and wiper must be in good condition because it was stored with piezoflush, and has had selenium piezo ink installed only for about a week or so. Because the dropped nozzles are random, I’m assuming that it’s air. I’ve also noticed small amounts of ink puddled in the bottom of the ink cart holder. Removing and replacing the carts seems to have helped, although there still seem to be missing nozzles in shade 7.
Larry[/QUOTE]
Oops, my bad. I was using non-IJM carts. I have two types of carts, IJM and one other. They look identical except for the exit port seal. The IJM seal is ribbed and has a circular orifice at the cart end. The non-IJM cart seal is smooth and has “tabs” at the orifice. I will transfer my ink to the IJM cart and report back.
I may have found the reason for some leaky carts. I took a picture of the exit port of an IJM cart that did leak some piezoflush:
If you look carefully, the cellophane extended almost into the orifice. This could put pressure between the seal and the nipple, allowing piezoflush or ink to seep out, and air to come in.
I took a second picture of the same cart after trimming the excess cellophane. This requires a very sharp knife so that you don’t tear the cellophane off and cause other damage.
Larry’s suggestion is plausible. It’s been a while since I’ve had such a cart and I can’t recall whether I checked that aspect. I’ve always been suspicious of the little rubber seal in leaking carts. In fact some years ago I had a new (non-IJM cart) that was leaking badly, until I discovered that the seal / exit port valve was rotated 90 degrees and was in fact in sideways. Once I fixed that the seal was fine. It’s a pity that you can’t buy large bags of these little rubber valves, because were I to have a leaking cart again, I’d like to be able to replace the seal until it stopped leaking. (Especially given the price of some of these cartridge sets, esp R2000.) So it’s plausible to me that an excess of the original protective plastic could cause the seal not to seal correctly.
Regarding Nigel’s problem, do you have the older style R3000 cartridges that have small batteries behind the chips powering them and with two little contacts at the top of the chip to enable manual resetting, or do you have the newer style chip that has no battery and is auto-reset only? You say that you “recently” replaced which implies the newer sort, but it’s possible that you bought these a while ago and only recently got around to using them, in which case they could be the old style. If the old style then replace the little battery. If the newer style it’s possible that you have a faulty Y chip and IJM will need to reply. You can verify that it’s the chip and not a damaged chip reader in the printer by briefly putting in the OEM cart back in and seeing if that works. If it does then that suggests a faulty chip, although with these style of refillable carts there’s always the possibility that it’s just a loose fit, and so you’d also need to try jiggling it and using small cardboard shim to ensure that it’s in tight before finally concluding that it’s the chip.
I’ve looked in the seal of several of my non-IJM carts and found lots of inconsistencies. Brian’s right that it’s a pity you can’t buy replacement seals. I’ll bet that besides the chips, the seal is the main wear item. I just installed the piezoflush carts after trimming off the excess cellophane. After the 2nd cleaning, I have a perfect nozzle check.
Of the non-IJM carts, my Selenium 6 cart has a number of “tabs” at the orifice of the seal. I believe I had the most nozzle dropouts on this one. My Selenium 3 had several random nozzle drops before. As soon as I trimmed the excess cellophane, I got a perfect nozzle check. It could be luck, but I’m seeing a pattern here.
I’ve heard people say that all carts are the same, or they can’t see any difference between carts. I have expressed the same opinion about the R2000 carts. That is, until I inspected the seal after suspecting it was leaking.
I was having difficulty with shades 2 and 3 dropping random nozzles. I still hold that the cellophane may have been a factor, especially where IJM carts are concerned. Perhaps buildup of pigment as well could be a problem. However, when comparing the seal of an IJM cart, and another cart from a leading competitor, I now see why I was dropping nozzles.
First, the competitor cart:
Note the “tabs” I was referring to. Not all carts from this company had those “tabs”. Some carts only had 2 tabs, some had no tabs. I’m now convinced that this seal was letting air in, and perhaps ink out.
Now the IJM cart:
sorry about the focus, but you can tell that the orifice is circular, no tabs. All seals in the IJM carts appear the same, so are consistent.
Just to follow up with the IJM carts:
When I installed the Selenium K7 and did my nozzle checks, I was still getting random dropped nozzles, especially in shades 2 and 3. I’m not sure about shade 7 because that’s so difficult to see. I trimmed off that excess cellophane, and got a perfect nozzle check. I now convinced there’s something to this.
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