R3000 print head carriage stuck after cleaning

1

I may have broken my printer. I hope not. After carefully removing the printhead carriage and carefully cleaning it by extra carefully flushing out the nozzles with a syringe and flex tubing, I reassembled it (also with extreme care) and now I’m getting a generic error message telling me there is a printer error and to turn off my printer and turn it on again. Well, that doesn’t do anything. Basically the print head seems stuck in it’s starting position. I’m wondering if maybe I did something wonky to it when I cleaned the wiper blade, capping station, etc. (basic cleaning maintenance that I had watched on many videos from both the inkjet mall and on youtube in general). I haven’t yet cleaned the lines with piezo flush because I haven’t bought an extra set of cartridges yet. I did replace the chips on all my refillable cartridges, install a waste tank and then downloaded the WIC app and bought a reset key. That was working just fine until I got over-ambitious and tried to clean the print head nozzles manually. I did this because my printer sat in a hot apartment for four months during a construction mess after there was an apartment fire above me. The contractors ran those hot room dryers and ever since then the print head checks were sometimes showing 6 out of 8 with broken images or clogged nozzles, then 4 out of 8 with clogged nozzles. Do you think I killed my printer? Please tell me I can fix it.

2

Most likely the capping station is simply mis-aligned and making your head get stuck on bootup. Check it.

best,
Walker

3

Thanks for getting back to me. I took off the cover and checked the capping station alignment. In order to do this, I had to gently lift the printhead carriage then slide it forward about an inch and a half. After checking the capping station, I put the cover back on the printer and turned it on. The same error message appeared immediately. Nothing else happens now. There are no sounds of any kind of operation (whereas before this, the printer started up and the print-head cart moved, but it just got stuck at the gate). It now seems dead. Before I start grieving, perhaps I should ask if you know where I can get my hands on the R3000 service manual?

4

I just PM’d it to you

best,
Walker

5

After several days of reading the service manual, I realize that I may be over my head here. I could have damaged just about anything that I touched when cleaning it. The general error code says “check your documentation”. The printer registers power but no longer cycles through the start-up. I see air in a couple of lines. The printhead leaves no ink residue (as if it’s dry) when sitting on a paper towel with Piezo flush. The printer worked prior to this but had clogged lines or nozzles. Even though I thought I was really careful when cleaning everything (including disassembling the print-head), I now realize I may have “contaminated” and or pressed too hard on it. I now noticed that the C1 and C2 cables to the front panel seem a little warped on one edge (like baby ruffles) and the connector of C2 had a little bend in the corner (it still worked though). I chatted with a technician who said I needed to replace the mainboard. Is there a way to find the problem? (like replace a fuse or whatever). I can’t afford to replace a mainboard only to discover it to be something else. Any help or comments are appreciated. Thanks!