Empty spaces in CISS tubes

[Emilianox94]

Hello,

i have an Epson Stylus Photo 1430W, which i bought about 7 months ago.
Today i realised that the Y tube has a small blank space.

When i tried to print, although there were no problems in the quality of the image, i realised that the ink from one side tried to reach the ink from the other side without luck. It's like they keep the distance.

If someone didn't understand my explanation, here is a photo of the issue:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44185149/IMG_20150105_130740592.jpg

Is this normal?
Will it affect my printer if i don't do anything?
What can i do in order to "fill that empty space" ?

Thanks in advance for any of your answers.

 

[websnail]

...here is a photo of the issue:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44185149/IMG_20150105_130740592.jpg

Is this normal?

Yes... It's just a small bubble of air that has ingressed in for some reason... The key bit of diagnostic info you need to know is that there doesn't appear to be any other bubbles in the line so you should be ok.

There's some caveats though (see end)...

Will it affect my printer if i don't do anything?

Not really.

What can i do in order to "fill that empty space" ?

You could re-prime the yellow loop but as it stands it's not looking too bad.


Now, for the caveat part of the deal.
1. If that bubble is remaining in a consistent position in the line (ie: not moving towards to the cartridges then it's unlikely that the affected colour is feeding properly.
2. If the bubble is slowly migrating back towards the reservoirs outside the printer then there's an air leak somewhere at the cartridge end.

Either one isn't ideal so it may be worth checking the affected cartridge contains a reasonable volume of ink and also the various seals, connectors, etc... at the cartridge end to make sure there's no plastic flashing (rubbish left from the moulding process), leaky seals (either in the plug, the elbow connector sleeve or the outlet (in the base of the cartridge), etc...

That said, unless the ink flow is particularly bad, you will probably be able to get away with just re-priming the cartridge using the process that should be in your CISS instruction manual.

Be interested to see how this develops but none of it is end-game... Just keep an eye out for the affected colour dropping out of prints if you choose to do nothing.