My R3000 has recently started leaving thick lines of magenta ink on my prints. See a photo below or here
It is an intermittent problem, but has become more frequent recently. It first happened last month, and after cleaning the printer and replacing my magenta and light magenta refillable carts with store-bought ones, the problem went away, so I thought I needed to replace my refillable carts which were nearing the two-year old mark. After replacing with new refillable carts, though, the problem has returned.
These are not smears, like you might get if the underside of the print head is dirty - they are thick lines, about 1 inch long and maybe 1/16th inch wide. On either side of the print, sometimes near the top, sometimes near the bottom.
Can anyone give me an idea of what is going on and how I might remedy this?
Thanks for the detailed information, and attaching an example of what you’re experiencing. Based on the cartridge and printer design, and from my experience with many printers over the years, I believe you may be experiencing ink buildup on the bottom of the print head, which drips off during printing and leaves the ink line of your print. This can happen if the printer is dirty, wiper blade is damaged or worn out, if the cartridge is under too much pressure (though these carts aren’t pressurized, so that’s unlikely), or the humidity is very low or high.
Have you cleaned your printer’s capping station, wiper blade and bottom of the print head? If not, I recommend you clean these parts by following our instructions, here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance
What is the average humidity level and temperature in your printing environment?
What paper(s) are you printing on?
How have your nozzle checks been- have you had issues with frequent nozzles or channels dropping out, or have all channels been printing well on nozzle checks?
Do the ink drips/lines occur when printing nozzle checks?
Does ink drip from your refillable VM or VLM cartridges when removed from the printer?
Please let me know and I will try to help you resolve this issue.
Best regards~ Dana
I have done the cleaning you mentioned, with the exception of the wiper blade. I have not cleaned that.
I have a collection reservoir.
I have recently had some more frequently occurring nozzle blockages, but mostly in black channels.
The ink does not drip from either the old or the new refillable carts.
These drips have never occurred during nozzle checks.
They seem to occur when I am printing on photo papers (Epson PPP Lustre, Inkpress Pro Silky) not matte papers, both of which I have used for years.
They are pretty consistent in their size, and they are almost never smeared.
The humidity varies, but nothing out of the range I have been printing in for the last two years.
I find it puzzling that when I replaced the old, refillable carts with OEM carts, the drips stopped. Then when I replaced the OEM carts with new refillable they returned.
I have never had any previous issues with the ConeColor inks or carts.
If I can provide you with any other information please let me know.
Ok, so today I also cleaned the wiper blade. It definitely needed it. I will run a few prints off and let you know how things go. In the meantime, if you have any other suggestions or comments, please feel free to make them.
Thanks for the additional information. Please do let me know how things go now that you have cleaned the wiper blade.
It is puzzling to me that the problem went away after installing OEM carts, then returned after reinstalling the new refill carts… this does sound cartridge related, though this is not something I’ve heard of before, and doesn’t make sense considering the carts seem to be working fine otherwise, and you have tried a second refill cart. It’s also interesting that the problem only occurs on photo papers, and not matte.
Have you replaced both VM and VLM with OEM, then new refill carts? It’s hard to tell for sure, but from your attachment it looks like full strength VM on the ink line.
Please keep me posted (I’m crossing my fingers that cleaning your wiper blade resolved the issue).
[QUOTE=Dana-IJM;2826]Thanks for the additional information. Please do let me know how things go now that you have cleaned the wiper blade.
It is puzzling to me that the problem went away after installing OEM carts, then returned after reinstalling the new refill carts… this does sound cartridge related, though this is not something I’ve heard of before, and doesn’t make sense considering the carts seem to be working fine otherwise, and you have tried a second refill cart. It’s also interesting that the problem only occurs on photo papers, and not matte.
Have you replaced both VM and VLM with OEM, then new refill carts? It’s hard to tell for sure, but from your attachment it looks like full strength VM on the ink line.
Please keep me posted (I’m crossing my fingers that cleaning your wiper blade resolved the issue).
Best regards~ Dana :)[/QUOTE]
Hi Dana,
I replaced both the VM and the VLM carts, because I wasn’t really sure which was doing it.
It seems cartridge related, but like you, I couldn’t really think of what it could be. Its entirely possible that it was just coincidence. Who knows? What I do know is that this printer has been used hard - it gets used nearly every day, sometimes many many prints a day - nearly 4000 prints through it in two years.
The wiper was filthy. I went through a ton of q-tips cleaning it. The cleaning edge of it seems kind of marred up - is it supposed to be smooth? Can the wiper blade on a R3000 be user-replaced?
I have made about a dozen prints since cleaning with no problems. I will keep you updated.
I’d appreciate a further update as well, as I have the same problem (different printer, worse dripping, PK cart is the problem), and also found that the problem went away with an OEM cart. I am considering my next steps. While the problem is essentially the same, the lead-up was different and so might be the solution. Even so, the experience of others is very helpful.
After thoroughly cleaning the wiper blade it seems that my drip problem has stopped. I have made a few dozen prints with no gloppy lines as before, so I am hopeful, cautiously optimistic. I will post another update in a week or so, as I have a very large batch of prints to make next week.
Recently, I have been having the same problem, with my R3000. Only, in my case, it's the gloss black. Apparently, from research that I have done, this appears to be a common problem with R3000's, that are any more than 18 to 24 months old. After fighting it for a couple months, I now suspect that the damper has become clogged with ink pigment. So, I am going to try to flush the entire ink system, with Piezoflush. Hopefully, this will fix it. If not, I will have to replace the inking system assembly---a $180 part.
If it helps, I have a thread going on this same problem, under “Printer Maintenance, 13” and Under". My thread is “HELP—Cartridge Disaster!”
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