Epson 7880 Magenta damper charges neighbouring inks but no Magenta

[Vogler]

Hi All,

I’m trying to revive a 7880 that I got as surplus from work. It came for free with 7 (expired) cartridges and two rolls of paper, so it’s worth some time and money in trying, especially since my photography is screaming for some nice big prints.

The first nozzle check turned out reasonably well: perfect grid except for Vivid Magenta which showed nothing. Better than I expected, since the machine hasn’t been used for two years. I did put a paper towel with some mild pharmacist’s solution under the head for a night before starting though.
Since the grid was perfect for the other colors, I assume that the head is nog the problem, although I could be wrong. Online research pointed me to a damper problem, so I changed it using Epson's Field Repair Guide, performed a Power Clean but to no avail. Instead of charging magenta, the damper was filled with dark green ink, it seems as if the neighbouring yellow and cyan are pushed or sucked into the damper (magenta sitis in the middle of both). This happened twice, so there's clearly no magenta getting to the damper.

Stuff used:
- OEM inks, although expired
- digiprint supplies dampers (non-OEM)
- pharmacist's solution (mild)

I’m only just coming to grips with the basics of the machine. I guess there are two options next:
- apply some more pharmacist's solution to the head, since the magenta grid is blank and not green
- look for a syringe next and try to draw ink from the tube above the damper.

Other ideas someone?

Thanks for your time in reading and hopefully replying.

 

[Vogler]

All,

I managed to solve the problem. Who knows it might help someone in the future, so here's what I found.
I detached the ink feed line from the damper and tried to remove ink with a syringe. The ink turned out to have dried into a paste, blocking the line. Next I flushed the elbow that connects the line to the damper with distilled water and removed as much water as possible by sucking/blowing with a syringe. Reassembled everything, did an auto nozzle check instead of a power clean and all was well!
So the green most probably was the cyan and yellow pushed in during previous power cleans.

I also discovered by accident that a power clean can be interrupted. I defeated the cover sensor (the contact which feels that the cover is open) with a small block which accidentally fell out halfway a power clean. The printer started a normal clean cycle once the contact was closed again. The right hand side cartridges contained less afterwards, so the power clean was executed to those colours only. Might save you some ink when you have to tackle a problem on a specific colour.
Mind that I might have been lucky with the moment when the contact was interrupted; I can't tell if it would damage the printer if it happened on another moment. The printer wasn't making any noise on the moment and no mechanical process was taking place; probably it was waiting for some ink to have effect on a blockage

Now some new problems await: defeat double profiling by colorsync profiles in OSX Mavericks and the fact that CS4 won't print whereas other applications do... I'll start a new thread for the sake of clarity.

Kind regards and thanks to the people who took the time to read my post.