My R3000 was doing well in August 2017, but when I returned from a vacation of 3 weeks I was getting little ink out of the C channel. I tried several cleanings but was not able to improve it past about 10% of the nozzle pattern. I emailed tech support and Jon wrote back. He thought that since I was running ink that was several years old I should probably get new ink and carts. Even if I succeeded in resolving the immediate problem, I should stop running the risk of fouling the printer with deteriorating ink. Made sense.
Today, after an Amazon-like response to my order on Tuesday, I replaced all the carts and filled with new ink after cleaning the heads with the shoeshine technique, something I’ve done in the past to good effect. The C channel looks good, but now I’m getting poor output on the VM and PK channels. I’ve cleaned x3, which first got me some improvement in the VM but after the 3rd cleaning I lost that.
Since I’m having a problem with a channel that was ok, I’m wondering if I might have not properly shoeshined. I did try it again with no effect, however. What are my options at this point? Thanks.
I suggest cleaning or re-cleaning the wiper blade and capping station. Then do your “head shoeshine”. Some people lay paper towels saturated with Windex under the head for several hours, so that the solvent evaporates into the head and loosens dried ink. However, your mention of the partially clogged nozzles changing channels makes me think there is crap on the wiper blade recontaminating things after each attempt to clean.
Ok, but is it alright to use Windex? Search led to a post by Jon re ammonia + small copper parts = bad. Does the R3000 not have copper parts in the print head? If it does, should I use Piezoflush? It doesn’t seem as volatile as I’d guess you’d need for the evaporation you described.
What Jon will recommend are certainly best practices. That would mean either the shoeshine method as the IJM video describes or cleaning the head with flush carts with Piezoflush in them. Before you do either, clean the capping station and blade.
As it happens I do have a flush cartridge that came with a head cleaning kit I bought to do a shoeshine a while ago. I never used the cartridge. Is that technique, as outlined in the instructions that came with it, still recommended?
bhiles’ original suggestion was on target. I had not cleaned the wiper blade thoroughly enough before. This time I did several times as many wipes with piezoflush and discovered that previous inadequate cleanings had left some buildup that only gradually came off. I then did a shoeshine, and then a couple more regular head cleanings brought all the channels back full on, except for a few line breaks on the magenta. A trial pic looks good. Thanks for your help on this.
Re the print head cleaning kit, I haven’t noticed people referring to its use. Since it targets a single channel, it seems like it would be much more efficient. Is there some difficulty in getting ink back into the line once it’s been cleaned out this way?
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