Tribulations

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
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been bringing my printer back to life with some success as follows:

last time, last year, removed carts, shaken a bit, and all but three had to be replaced with new as the chips would not read and replacing with new chips was not working because the little plastic nubbins locating he chips were swollen.

now, six or 8 months later, tried to resurrect after a major hiatus; bad nozzle print (7 not visible); did a couple of power cleans, got better, made a print, but it was not right, so again, removed carts, shaken, re-installed, ran test print, not much better. part way through power clean, got bad cart warning; so put in a new one, alerted the printer to non-standard cart, ran power clean, test print, several times, now nozzle 7 is good but 4 is bad. figured i had a bubble in 4 (the new cart, primed of course), tried another power clean, said not enough ink, so used the chip resetter on all carts (they have plenty of ink) test, another power clean, now getting main tank full msg.

so i can get another tank; but is there a way to dump the contents of the tank, put in the paper towels and rest the tank chip?

i probably blew through a considerable volume of ink, but so be it. did not like the fact i had to get new carts, but the newer ones seem to survive being pulled and shaken.

also, some of the nozzle patterns are quite light, due to the lighter ink color, of course, and that misled me for a bit (se. gloss optimizer

epson 4880

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Hi jmilich~

After reviewing your order history, I see you bought a set of 4880 refillable carts and Piezography inks in May 2013, then in June 2014 bought new C + LC carts, along with Selenium shade 1 and Gloss Overprint. Based on your order history, I assume your printer has been sitting unused for the past 1yr+ with Piezography ink installed, is this correct? If so, your inks are settled in both the carts and printer’s internal ink system, and you may also have issues with pigment build up in your dampers, and/or dried print head.

At this point, my recommendations for moving forward is as follows:

  1. Remove all the ink cartridges and install a set of PiezoFlush cartridges
  2. Do an Initial Fill Cycle to flush ink and get flush thru the internal ink system (instructions here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?151-Initial-Fill-Procedures-for-Epson-Pro-Model-Printers)
  3. Print a nozzle check to see if all ink is flushed, and all channels are printing pink PiezoFlush
  4. If ink is still present, and/or not all channels are fully printing, then wait a few hours or overnight, then do a second Init Fill and nozzle check.
  5. If you’re able to get all channels fully printing with PiezoFlush, then to reinstall ink you will need to decide if it’s worth reinstalling old ink that has settled and evaporated over the past year (so, may never print correctly), or if it’s best to get fresh ink that you know is good, and will print correctly.
  6. Reinstall ink, then do an initial fill cycle to purge flush and get ink from carts to the print head.
  7. Print a nozzle check to see if all positions are fully printing
  8. Print a gradient or test image containing the full range of tones, and examine to check if all PiezoFlush (pink) is flushed. If pink is visible, you will need to do 1-2 power clean cycles, or possibly another initial fill.

To avoid this situation in the future, you will want to regularly agitate the ink cartridges and make at least one print every week. If the printer is not used in a few weeks, then know your inks will have settled to some degree, and your output will be effected. If the printer won’t be used for a month or longer, remove ink carts and install a set of flush carts, then flush inks by doing an initial fill cycle, to safely store the printer with PiezoFlush until you’re ready to start printing again.

We have helpful printer cleaning and maintenance information here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance
and flushing instructions here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?140-Flushing-Epson-Pro-and-desktop-model-printers-for-safe-long-term-storage-or-when-switching-inks

I hope this helps.
Best regards~ Dana :slight_smile:

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Also, are you printing from Mac or Windows?
What operating system version?
If Mac, are you printing from PrintTool or another application?
If PrintTool, what version are you using?
What version QuadTone RIP are you using?

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and here’s information for reusing your waste ink tank: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?141-Reuse-Waste-Ink-Tanks

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Hi Dana.
I have a similar problem with a 4800 I got second hand last weekend.
The history of the printer is that it has had Epson gloss inks in it and has had no Matt inks used in around 18 months.
The expiry dates on the cartridges range from 2008 to 2015/2016 and all were low in remaining volume
The printer had been used “for a print or two” every few weeks, but not regularly.
The cartridges had not been shaken on a regular basis, even with the printer not being used

All nozzles of installed inks were printing fine
After a swap to matt black, I found that that line was totally blocked-no pattern on a nozzle test print
After two power cleans ( and having to install a new yellow cart as the old one ran out ) and with fresh matt black ink, the yellow and matt black are printing fine, BUT ALL other colours are now blocked, no pattern.

I have installed spare carts with my last Piezoflush ( yes, I have just ordered some more) and both yellow and matt lines are printing correctly, but either no or very little out of the others.

Looking at the ink line to the print head, it seems that the blocked lines have no Piezoflush coming through And/or have small bubbles in them.

So, where to from here? Replace the dampers in case the old ink has blocked them and then a couple of power cleans with the new Piezoflush then let it sit overnight?
If the nozzles were printing correctly a couple of days ago and then stopped after the power cleans with two colours still OK, I would assume that this is a blockage and not the print head frying itself.

See you in October at the workshop-all the way from Western Australia!

Mike