R2400 works with OEM carts not so well with Cone carts

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
,
1

R2400 – no 100% nozzle checks since installing Cone carts more than six months ago.

This printer has worked very well over the years with sporadic heavy use and many long periods of idleness lasting up to six months. It’s always been able to recover with one or two cleanings. My clients stopped wanting prints so I’ve just been printing for fun and gifts. Haven’t enough need to buy a new printer and have access to well-maintained R3000s during winter months.

Have read directions and followed them, watched videos, purchased and used the flush kit, printed purge files and the Qimage “head un-clog patterns”. Nothing seemed to make much difference.

Most of the time it’s been the two magentas that have the problems but it’s a bit like the Whac-A-Mole game – one gets better two others act up. Have used a full cartridge of some inks in this process.

(During the middle of this, the “Your printer has reached the end of its useful life” message from Epson appeared and I reset it with the Epson software.)

On two occasions I’ve had instant cures of LM and M from bad patterns to perfect ones.

One came about for logistical reasons – ran out of LM so traded a bag of carts to a local refill store for an OEM LM cart with ink from the “2nd largest ink maker in the country”. The other was a recent test replacement of the Cone cart with a brand new OEM one. On the first nozzle check the M was perfect but C lost a whole line.

During a refill session I recall having the impression that the M ink seemed more frothy than the others but it did look normal after awhile. I’m not a technician and there’s scant evidence here but it seems to indicate that if I buy a full set of OEM carts or refilled OEM carts, I could again print with few problems. Any other suggestions?

2

I have a couple of questions to start:

1.Have the ink cartridges that were installed while the printer was sitting ever get agitated before trying to get the nozzles to clear?
*This is very important, because Pigment settles quickly, if your printer sat for an extended period of time with settled pigments in the carts, then you performed head cleanings, this would have sucked that settled pigment into your head causing worse clogs then to begin with

2.Did you clean the bottom of the Head, Capping Station and Wiper blade when you started having these issues?

3.Do/did you shake your bottles of ink into suspension before refilling the cartridges?

3

  1. They get a bit agitated by the movement of the print head before it begins printing. I’ve never removed them and shaken them before use, even after the long periods of non-use – 3-7 months at times.

  2. Not at the beginning but in the middle.

  3. Yes, but don’t remember how vigorously.

News: As often happens at the auto service place and the Dr.'s office – Sudden Symptom Disappearance – I got a perfect nozzle pattern last night and another just now. But with the OEM M still in place. Before I reinstall the Cone cart – after a light and brief shake, the top half is very frothy including in the circular area. Is that normal?

4

[QUOTE][/QUOTE]1. They get a bit agitated by the movement of the print head before it begins printing. I’ve never removed them and shaken them before use, even after the long periods of non-use – 3-7 months at times.
[B]This is your answer, you introduced settled pigments into your head when you turn the printer on after sitting for a long period of time.

It’s a small miracle that your printer has lasted this long with this kind of “neglect”, it must be one tough cookie! We always recommend storing printers for more then 3 weeks with Piezoflush carts installed to ensure the head doesn’t dry out. Newer printers will NOT tolerate this kind of neglect due to head design, so when upgrading keep this in mind.

Yes, it is normal for your ink to have “froth” after shaking, it is more noticeable with the M inks.
[/B]
To ensure the printer will continue to perform 100%, take out all cartridges, shake them, top them off with ink that’s been shaken into suspension, reset the carts and run a cleaning cycle.

5

When I need to refresh the inks in the carts I do more than just top them up, I carefully drain them as best I can back into the bottle, gently shake and then refill.