air bubbles in the "feed tube" of epson 710

[lacuna]

Hi there,
This is my first message. I am having a spot of trouble with my Epson Artisan 710. I've tried looking around for an answer here, but having trouble understanding the jargon enough to know if the answer is out there and I've missed it. I appreciate your patience and help.

I have an Epson Artisan 710. About 3 months ago, I got non-OEM cartridges and Image Specialist inks from Precision Colors. Worked beautifully and I was happily using this for a month. I refilled each cartridge at least once during that period, taking the cartridges out of the printer, alternating the plugs on top of the cartridges and using a syringe.

About 2 months ago, I had to pack the printer up for the summer. I have just returned, and in doing a nozzle check, the black ink was coming out "sketchy" and the yellow was completely gone. I did a few print head cleanings (maximum 3 a day for about 3 days) with no results.

So I purchased a print-head cleaning kit, that consisted of some liquid, and a syringe with a tube attached. Ok, I could have used Windex, but I couldn't figure out the whole "tube" thing required for my Claria ink type and I wanted to be safe for 6 bucks. After I got it, I took out the cartridges and "injected" the cleaning liquid into the black and yellow ink inlets. The black cleared up but the yellow continued to be missing.

So I decided to try repeated head cleanings. For the past 1 week, I've been doing 3 head cleanings a day, and also printing colour pages - same results.

Ok, here's where I stuffed up big time. After a week of this, all my ink tanks were low except for yellow. I decided to try filling the ink tanks "in place" i.e. without taking the cartridges out of the printer. Yes, I did "alternate" the two plugs on top of the cartridges. After I had done this, the next nozzle check i did, ALL the colours were gone except for cyan!!! I had a look inside, and the feed tubes that go from the inlet ports where the cartridges are attached to the print heads have air bubbles or are completely empty. The only explanation was that I somehow I introduced bubbles into the system.

Can someone please tell me what to do next? I am afraid to do anything in case I cause more damage. Or is my printer stuffed? One of the problems I have with some of the instructions here is all this talk about taking the print heads out and putting liquid on the printer pads. I can't figure out the equivalents on my printer, where the print heads are effectively "separate" from the cartridges by this system of feed tubes. It could be that I just don't understand. The videos on youtube don't help me much in this case.

Once I've figured that out, I also need to figure out why my yellow is still stuck.

If there is a good chance of saving my printer, I'm prepared to purchase some spare ink cartridges, fill them with Windex and keep printing till the air comes out and the "jam" on the yellow gets fixed. But if it is too late, then I'll have to start saving my pennies for another printer

Thank you again for your help!

 

[qwertydude]

Epson print heads are very durable, highly unlikely you destroyed them even running them dry for a bit they can withstand more abuse being piezo, but are not removable so ignore the Canon specific advice or removing the print head, you can't. Just sounds like you've got some stubborn clogs on top of bubbles in the cartridge. A good way to remedy this is to set the print head to ink replacement, so the park pad is visible, then unplug the printer this way you have access to the park pad. You then flood the foam with windex till you can see the liquid just top the foam. Then manually move the print head all the way to the right which will automatically raise the flooded park pad to the print head. Let this soak overnight. Then the next day turn on the printhead, run a couple cleaning cycles which should, drain the park pad, remove the now dissolved dried up ink, and also prime your cartridges again.

Also a good idea with all this cleaning is to wipe the rubber squeegee inside the printer next to the park pad. This can get rather inky and grimy over time especially if you let it dry and can re-clog your print heads. Now that the majority of the clogs should be dealt with using the syringe and tube to gently force windex through the print head and this should get rid of any stubborn clogged print heads.

 

[mikling]

Ouch.

1. There are a few things that you need to do different with these printers. First there is no change cartridge switch to release the printhead for manual movement.

2. Because the printer has feed tubes, you should not have injected pressure into the tube system. ...still not should have hurt it.

3. Also because of the feed tubes any changes you undertake in the cartridge area will take a while to get to the printhead, which as you have discovered is remote from where ink enters.

I will also outline a trick for you to try and get more "action" in the yellow line.

What has happened is so strange that it sounds like the capping/priming/head cleaning station is not doing its thing properly.

On this model, what was a bunch of levers and cams on older printers have been replaced with sensors and motors!

So when the head goes into rest/park position, a sensor senses this and then another motor raises the capping station to seal the nozzles from the air.

If the capping station does not work properly, the nozzles will always dry out, ink recede into the printhead and in the worst situation a physical clog deep inside. When a head cleaning is performed, the capping station needs to move up against the printhead and then a vacuum is produced through this seal that pulls ink out of the printhead. In other words, the capping station becomes a suction cup. The capping station applied vacuum to ALL colors at the same time.

Here are pics of the capping station.

Here is the underside of the printhead that the capping station goes against. Note Printhead is shown INVERTED or UPSIDE DOWN.

Like the Canons, we need to ensure that the capping/priming station is functional. It is trickier to do on this model because there is no change cartridge position. So to get access to the cap station, we will need to get the printer printing and while printing, we pull the plug. This will hopefully have the printhead out in the open where we can peek to the right side of the printer where the printhead normally is parked. You should see something like the third image. What we will do there is fill that with frame with windex or water. Then start the printer up again and start to print something. Then pull the plug again. Check to see if the capping station is drained of ink. If the priming pump is working, it should be drained. That only test for the pump!

Next we need to confirm that a vacuum is being drawn across the pad and that the motor that raises and lowers the capping station is working.
Now because the cartridges are remote from the printhead, we need to try and refill the tubes or reprime the tubes with ink at every opportunity. The system is simple, the cartridges lead to the tubes that lead to the printhead. So remove all the cartridges and check that they are full and there is no round chamber that is empty on the side. If this chamber is half full, that is OK but it should not be empty. If it is empty, Put some ink in the syringe and removing the refill plug, shoot some ink inside by sticking the syringe tip through the outlet and push ink in. The refill plug is removed to allow air out. If you do not remove the refill plug, the pressure will buildup and shoot the ink back to you. So you are warned.

After this put the cartridges back in.

Now normally when the printer is working, you will keep the refill plug on and the vent plug will be removed. I would like you to put the vent plugs back on on four colors ( the cartridge should be fully sealed). The two colors the vent plugs are to be off are going to be Yellow and say Magenta. Now start the printer back up and do a couple of head cleanings. After that, remove the yellow and magenta cartridges and see if the ink levels have come down. By fully sealing the other four colors, we concentrate the vacuum and potentially triple the pull from the two colors. So if the capping station is working, then at least the ink level in Magenta will drop.

If neither color registers a drop in ink level, then the printer motor or control scheme is defective. Specifically the capping station.

So I will continue and assume the ink level drops. If the yellow drops, then that is good. then we seal the magenta and then perform a head cleaning.
then we remove the remaining vent plugs from all the other colors and continue to perform a head cleaning.

Judging by the symptoms, experience leads me to believe that the capping station is defective as it is not rising to meet and seal the printhead.
These models should be able to withstand weeks of non use without clogging. I've put pigment ink through these not use them for a week with no problem.

When the rubber on the capping station does not seal the nozzle plate, the nozzles will dry out and ink will recede back up the printhead. When you injected cleaner through the cartridge ports, you were able to reprime the black but did not do so on the yellow for some reason. When you tried refilling in the printer, while pulling the plugs out of each, that little vacuum when the plug is removed was enough to remove the ink from the nozzle chamber. Normally the cap station would reprime the head with a little vacuum action before print. Without this vacuum, it cannot get going again.

If you determine that the capping station is not working through the tests outlined, then call Epson for warranty if it is still under warranty.
Working on these new models looks to be difficult and even I would not try it,and I am in possession of a service manual.

 

[mikling]

Epson 2 or 3 years ago had a breakthrough with producing higher density nozzles on their printheads. With the newer models, I am not so sure that the heads can withstand much pressure like the good old days. So you might need to be a little more judicious with the pressure on the heads now. I'm leaning towards not using strong pressure anymore actually,

 

[lacuna]

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for your lengthy and detailed replies. They were both really helpful, especially the images.

It took me a while, but I slowly and laboriously followed the instructions and I think I'm making progress.

The summary status at the moment is this:
I think I have established to my satisfaction that the capping station is working. However, the yellow is still not working.

So I did this. Firstly I followed Mikling's instructions to establish that my capping station was working.

(1) Confirmed that the pump was working. I did this by:
(a) Start the printer.
(b) By experimentation, I discovered during the startup and warmup sequence, the printhead travels across the printer. By unplugging at the right time, I could unlock the printhead from the frame. So I just listened until I could hear the correct "whirring" sound and unplug. This unlocked the printhead.
(c) I pulled the printhead to the side and found the "frame". I filled this frame with a printhead cleaning solution. Then I turned the printer on and printed something.
(d) Unlocked the printhead again. Confirmed the frame was drained.

(2) Confirmed that a vacuum was being drawn across the pad and the motor raising and lowering the capping station is working. I did this by:
(a) Checking every cartridge. All the "round chambers" in the cartridges were either full or half full.
(b) Plugging up all the vent plugs on each cartridge except yellow and magenta.
(c) Run the head-cleaning cycle twice.
I could see that the "level" on the magenta cartridge was going down. But the yellow one still didn't go down. Thus I determined that at least the capping station was working.

At this point, I was still getting a really "sketchy" pattern on my nozzle checks for all colours except black and dark cyan.

So at this point I followed qwertydude's suggestion. first, I took the vent plugs off all the cartridges. Then I "unlocked" the printhead and filled the frame with cleaning solution. I pulled the printhead back, and let sit overnight. Then over the next three days, i ran three head cleanings per day.

Eventually to my joy, I found that I was getting clean nozzle checks on all the colours EXCEPT for yellow. So now I'm in a much better position than I was originally. (At least now the black works as well.)

So here is what I'm going to do now. I will fill the frame with cleaning solution and let it soak overnight for one more time. Then I will put on all the vent plugs except yellow and do repeated head cleanings. If this finally gets yellow back, hooray. if it doesn't, I'll just take it back in on warranty. But at least I'll know it isn't the capping station or pumps or any of those complicated things.

Thanks guys!

 

[MostlyCarbon]

I'd like to thank Mikling for his informative posts here.

I recently puchased an Epson Artisan 810 and bought Auto-Reset carts and Claria specific ink from inksupply.com (w/very good results).

At one point my black cart came slightly unseated, such that the contacts for the chip were no longer touching. I pressed on the ink cart to reseat it, no prob. Except that the chip had reset so now the system thought the cart was full when it was actually only about %20. This allowed me to run the black cart dry.

After refilling it I had a hard time getting the system primed again. I remembered it priming itself when I first got the printer. A few head cleanings and trying to print many "purge black" pages it finally started to work again. At one point I tried to apply pressure to the vent of the black cart. Not sure if this helped or was a good/bad idea.

You post here was very informative.

Thank you.
Carbon, Mostly.

Not only this Mikling.. but I see your store on e-bay and notice that you are located in North York! I'll DEFINITELY be buying my next ink order from you! (wish I'd found you before InkSupply.com) Also you use ImageSpecialists Inks. Sweet.

 

[printfan1138]

My experience with cleaning Epson printer heads is pretty limited but having said that, I just had a bad clog in yellow on an Epson C-88+ that didn't respond to the usual head cleaning utility.
Fortunately I did send for one of those head cleaning kits that includes a liquid designed to safely do the job of cleaning and it came with a special damper designed with a hole that lines up with a small syringe. I overcame my usual lazy attitude and carefully pulled the yellow damper and lined up this kit and pushed it down on the yellow post and injected a small amount of cleaner liquid and following the instructions I added it slowly and when I noticed back pressure I stopped and let the fluid do it's thing. Then over about 20 minutes I added a bit more and a bit more as the post allowed without forcing anything.
Finally I removed the cleaning kit and cleaned up a bit and reinstalled the yellow damper. I made sure that the tube was pinched off during this operation and un-pinched when done. I did a nozzle check and was pleased to see it was showing on yellow but the color was more like green mud. I then ran a purge page that ran a lot of ink through the head and all colors were perfect except the yellow and that was full of lines and printed that weird color.
I was feeling a bit down but decided to give it some time so I walked away for a short time then came back and printed several more purge pages and wow. The yellow was back and not yet perfect but getting there. I'm very thankful and happy to say that since then have printed the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen on this printer so I guess the message is. don't give up and be patient. By the way this printer is for pigment based inks but I am using dye based inks in a cis and the pictures are great! I sent away for another kit from InkJetCarts that has empty dampers and a clog buster type liquid that makes it even easier to clean an Epson head so I think I have most of the tools now. The guy that runs that site says to avoid the Epson head cleaning utility and just go with nozzle checks and purge pages because that keeps things humming. Then If, as in my case something plugs up he has a ton of good head cleaning tips in his site. The more I read the tutorial in here and other sites the more I feel in control of most of the inkjet pitfalls and the more beautiful are the photographs we love to take. Happy printing all! Printfan1138! ...PS! OK 2 days have Passed and the yellow clog is back, what do they make yellow from...glue??? I have run the same drill and am letting the printhead sit overnight on a clog buster soaked parking pad so we'll see...goodnight! ...Printfan1138.

 

[printfan1138]

I had an Epson C88+ stop working on yellow so I sent away for a kit with the empty carts that you use a syringe with to directly inject special head cleaner. The idea was to do the very best job of cleaning I could do with exactly the correct materials that were formulated for head cleaning without doing any injury to the Epson heads. I guess I went through 4 or 5 of these head cleanings with some results but not really solving the problem and I was getting ready to chuck the whole thing out. Finally I remembered I had a brand of Windex type window cleaner under the sink and while it was not the Windex brand it was the same type of stuff. I have the stuff with me as I type this and the label just says Western Family Glass Cleaner, ingredients: An Aqueous solution consisting of water, isopropyl alcohol, grease cutting solvent, ammonia, surfactant and colorant. ( it's blue). I sucked some of that into a tube attached to a small syringe and freed up the Cart carriage and soaked the sponge that the head parks on. Then I pushed the carriage over the sponge and just forgot it until the next day. I was not expecting much so you can imagine how delighted I was when after a few purge pages my Epson worked better then when it was new. That was a week ago and I have some beautiful full page photographs I printed using that machine. I'm hanging onto that glass cleaner.