R3000 Print Head Overflow

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
1

Hi,

Some background and history of my Epson R3000

  1. Printer is about 4 years old, I am the second owner for about 2 years now
  2. Started using ConeColor inks about a year ago
  3. About 300 various size prints made to date
  4. Regular cleaning of caping station, wiper and head using paper towel method (also shown here)
  5. About year ago developed a single missing nozzle in light cyan, didn’t show much on prints so I disregarded
  6. Couple days ago loaded fresh carts with PiezoFlush to clean out the system, used ink charge method and left it for 24 hours
  7. Nozzle check came out good but black channel was still printing black not light magenta (PiezoFlush) so I ran about 8 cleaning cycles after

Decided to clean under the print head and saw what looks like ink above the print head (on the print head mounting plate) see attachment. Performed nozzle check and looks good.
Looks like overflow to me but no idea why this would happen.
What should my next step be?
Is it safe to take apart the top portion of the print head to clean out overflown ink?
What could be the underlying problem to this?

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

Konstantin


2

I can’t tell from this picture but it looks normal to me. Just normal ink damper.

You’re ok. If all the nozzles are firing well than you are ok. Don’t fix something that is printing ok. I would look at getting a spare damper assembly as backup for future though. Your printer is due one.

black ink channels don’t always clear as fast as the other channels so doing extra cleanings after was the correct procedure.

best,
Walker

3

Thanks for quick reply Walker!
I will post a better photo tomorrow.
I ran couple of black channel only prints and saw black ink smudges on paper which might be the ink overflowing from the base.

4

Ok quick update:

The issue started when I saw black ink splatters on prints, after investigating I found the problem; the print head plate was somehow flooded by back ink. If I left the printer long enough or didn’t print anything large than the prints were fine so that narrow down speculations to dampers (also reading post here helped a bunch).
After some pondering weather I should scrap it or try and rescue this fine printer, I decided to take head apart completely. After taking the dampers and ink selector motor off I think I found the leaky ink spot which was right under the connection of ink selector damper and PK/MK damper.
I also disassembled the print head. Carefully flushed each damper separately including the ink selector damper with distilled water mixed with isopropyl. Soaked the head in the red stuff (Piezoflush) for couple days and also flushed it using a syringe to try and break one stubborn LC nozzle. The head connection cable was covered in ink so that also got treated.
After all dried up I reassembled the dampers and tried to see if I can reproduce the leak in the ink selector damper but couldn’t to my surprise which was good news. So its possible that the ink selector damper was not properly seated on top of the PK/MK damper. Photos attached.
Head/dampers reassembly completed and back in its original place. The printer booted up and did its thing. After running 3 cleaning cycles to flush out the clear cleaning solution with Piezoflush I printed a nozzle check and was disappointed to see the same LC nozzle missing but haven’t seen any leaking from dampers. Disappointing result since I was looking to convert this printer to Piezography : (
If one nozzle is missing what to expect in terms of print quality?

Cheers!
Konstantin

5

Glad to here you found the cause of and fixed it.

Re the 1 nozzle out, it’s actually in a spot that is not ideal. If it was the K channel than possibly one nozzle would be fine. What you can do is do a re-map and use K6 inks. The R2000 uses a Dx5 printhead so should work with our P2(K6) curves.

LC would have to be mapped to another channel. This is not a supported printer/method but please read through this thread:

http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?1983-P2-and-the-R1900-R2000

best,
Walker