Cleaning the print head on an Epson Stylus Pro 3800

[fenix159]

I've got an Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer with a clogged magenta (and light magenta) print head. There is obvious banding with the magenta color, and when I do a test nozzle check print, it shows many of the lines of magenta are missing.

I've tried the built-in head cleaning and power head cleaning, but they've done absolutely nothing. There's a local print shop that's claiming to be able to fix the problem, but they charge $150 to just take a look at it, and said it could cost something upwards of $500 to fix!

Does anyone here have any experience cleaning the heads themselves for this printer (or any others)?

I've found some articles/posts on other sites (http://www.inkjetart.com/tips/cleaning.html, http://www.pixalo.com/community/tutorials-guides/cleaning-epson-printer-heads-3751.html), but they're for different models and don't have any pictures of the process.

Any help/ideas?

 

[rarebear]

I have cleaned some really cloged heads on smaller machines buy filling and empty cart or refillable cart with cleaning fluid. Or just adding Windex to them.. Have you tried Hot Water on a paper towel under the cart and wiping adding some windex can also help..

If you change the cart it can take a few days for clog to soften..

 

[pharmacist]

Actually the problem is not real clogging, but most of the time bad ink flow (cartridge problem) and air inside the internal CISS tubing system. You could try to soak the printhead over a piece of folded paper tissue and drenched with Windex (or my standard conditioning fluid, enhanced with 20 drops of strong ammonia per 100 ml). Just execute a manual nozzle check print check and when the printhead moves to left, pull out the power cord immediately. Place the folded paper tissue soaked with Windex or my solution on the overspray strip and move the printhead carefully over the paper, so the solution can do its work to dissolve dried up ink. After some while (1-2 hours) you can move the printhead to its right parking position and plug the power cord back into the printer. Execute an cleaning cycle and see if this has solved the problem.

 

[cls]

Hello fellow members
i have a issue with my Pro3800 its still missing nozzle and i Cant really get rid of them.

I bought the machine 1st hand from a photographer whom upgraded to an 3880 after some failure of the nozzels,
he did ask epson service for a repair after the warranty ended but they said a local service will be at least 300,- € incl. 1,5hours of servicing plus spare parts or he could send it in.

since he had many jobs waiting to be print he just went and bought the 3880 since you cold use nearly all his catrigdes anyway but the magentas.

then the 3800 sat for ~10 month in the cardbox and the I bought it for ~50€ incl. two sets of empty cartriges

I bought refillable fired them up with ocp inks and did my cleaing routine:
underneath the printhead
cleaning assembly wiper
borderless printing porous pad

also bought a reseter for the maintenance carts it work but the printer accepts is as "not geniue" epson which is a PITA since EVERYtime I have to click acknowledge to proceed with printing

anyway I did a full inital charge
various power cylces and what not but only with the OCP K3 ink
but I wasnt able to get rid of those missing nozzles in Magenta
as shown with the attached print.

after todays cleaning magenta did get so far down to 19 missing nozzle, but i cant print on faster rates for a preview without getting streaks
also yellow has some issues

all other channels are perfect

to be menitioned I did print over 1.000 A4 , 700 4x6 and at least 200 A3+A2 size paper sheets just to get the ink flowing
but magenta still has this issue.

What should I do?

1.) fill another set of refillable catriges for yellow and Magenta with a cleaning solution and run a powercycle until all ink has been flushed form both channels
2.) further extensive printhead cleaning (without removing the itself or opening the housing)
3.) I already asked the epson service located in hamburg germany (its like 9 min drive by car) they suggested to change the whole Ink System Assembly
http://www.sdott.com/product.php?productid=19406 this is the whole part, it includes the ink cartriges bays
they would charge me ~240€ plus taxes plus serivce per hour for the repairs.
4.) I found the original Damper http://www.ebay.de/itm/Ink-Damper-f...108?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4168dcd0ec as a single part, if there is a clog this is the part that has to be replaced. I dont really know if the service workshop would swap single parts like this or only whole parts provided by epson itself.


Do you guys have any suggestions?

I have so much print job lately I will definitelly get another 3800/3880 in next month since there is no succesor 17" printer anounced by epson.

the 3800 is small in its footprint at I could have two of them side by side on one desk.

sometimes even clients that buy ink and cartriges from me ask me to print something, since they dont own a 17" machine .

thanx in advance

serhat