Epson CX4600 clogged with Epson Durabrite ink.

mikling

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I got one of these as a "throwaway" someone didn't want it anymore. It came with some epson cartridges so I said. OK, these are known to be bad boys but can I tame it?

First check. Totally no output. Four colors.....nada. Head cleanings..... Nada not even one drop.
OK, I said time for some invasive experimentation. Got some silicone tubing and a syringe. Filled some water and started to flush the heads. I put about 10cc of water through each nozzle and collected it with a super absorbent systhetic chamois underneath. Next, I soaked the resting pad and gently used my syringe as a vacuum to suck up the water "thru" the pad.

Left it overnight.

Next day, did the initial prime etc.....got some banding. All colors are flowing thru but "certain" nozzles appear blocked.

Did some head cleanings, it got worse. Some colors are going for the worse or starting to get clogged again.

So I say to myself, I wonder if the pump is working? I remove the rear cover to view the waste ink tube and watch it as it goes through a head cleaning. Absolutely nothing.

So I yank out the tubes and separate the elbow arrangement. First I check the rearmost tube. it is plugged with solidified ink. I compress the silicone tube throught the length and some particles fall out. I attached the syringe and try to blow through the tube. It is so plugged the silicone tube stretches a bit. So I then add water and start toppump into the tube, finally, the clog comes through and there is this "booger" of dye ink that come out. It is like jelly.

Next I attach the elbow to the tube and this one is also totally clogged as well. No amount of syringe pressure will release this clog, so what I do is put some water into the syringe and pump it back and forth, dissolving the clog. Finally a soldified piece of ink come through.

Looks like this Durabrite pigment ink is really a bad thing. No wonder Epson has so much trouble with these. I decide I'm switching this baby back to dyebase ink.

So I start emptying the cartridges with a bottom fill adapter. The black ink comes out like mud, and is really viscous. As i dilute it in water. you can actually see particles and it is out of the original epson cartridge! The other colors are not speckled with particles but the ink is very viscous.

Next step is to refill the cartridges with water, flush it through and then refill with dyebase ink.

Do you guys think it will work with dyebase ink?
 

mikling

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The CX died with a grinding noise and all lights are flashing. When I was just about to print a nozzle check, the machine grinded like it didn't know how to shift. No loss except for some time.
 

Manuchau

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Interesting conrtibution..thanks.Most people wouldn't go through the agony of dealing with a clog this severe, but I did learn a thing or 2.
 

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mikling said:
The CX died with a grinding noise and all lights are flashing. When I was just about to print a nozzle check, the machine grinded like it didn't know how to shift. No loss except for some time.
I'd check you haven't dislodged any flat cabling and/or the sensor strip (on the springs)... I'd also have a look to see if the problem is the waste ink counter too as it's likely that will have kicked in too given that this probably got put through a lot of cleaning cycles when it first started playing up.

As to the whole experience.. I went through something less severe with a CX6600... It'd gone the "service required" route with the waste ink pads filled up and the owner had obviously left it to sit before returning it to a shop from whence it was eBay'd for 25 and I got to play with it.

I had to reset the waste ink counter but thankfully never hit your problem with the waste tube being clogged (useful nugget of info that by the way, one for my memory hopper!). Oh and because I couldn't be arsed with replacing or cleaning the waste pads I worked out how to add an external waste ink tank (instructions on continuousink.info) The main problem after that was the time it'd sat idle with no cartridges installed..

My approach was to put 4 spongeless carts filled with cleaning fluid (I bought mine from MIS) into the printer and then just leave them for a day. I then ran a single cleaning cycle before running a purge pattern print of 4 colours.. That immediately pushed some of the clogged ink out as colour on the page... Did one more purge pattern print and then let it sit again for another day (it was really hard not to keep trying to rush things but it paid off being patient).. Repeated the cleaning cycle and purge pattern again and noted that there was no more colours coming through but a quick look at the page showed that the fluid appeared to be getting through... So I installed 4 refilled carts with MIS ultrachrome inks in the printer and ran a cleaning cycle before printing a nozzle check pattern..

Amazingly it all worked fine after that with only one more cleaning cycle required but I still chose to put the cleaning carts in for one more night just to be sure...


Thanks for sharing your experience though Mikling, it was useful to know the pump tube could get clogged too and part of me wonders if the issue wasn't so much the Epson original ink but more of an issue with a compatible being used before hand that reacted badly with Epson ink and adhered to the tube... I can't see why Epson would use a tubing material that their ink might adhere so readily to... but hey, who knows :)
 

mikling

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The cartridges were original and it looked as if the printer never made it through its' first set. The waste ink pad was hardly blotted.
The sensor strip is fine and the print head will do a move to the left and right and rest properly, indcating to me that it has "found" its way before resting.
It was just about to feed some paper and make a really bad grinding noise. I think some gears or something was stripped.
After I decided it was due for the junk anyways, I decided to dig a little deeper.
It appears that more clogs were under the rest pads. Now this is the first time I've dealt with pigment inks in so deep. But the stuff was encrusted all the way up the tube. I totally attribute this to low usage exacerbated by poor design.
It appears that during the cleaning process, the passage between the rest pad and pump was clogged and the pump was never able to vacuum the head. Thus I doubt now that the head ever got a good prime and clean.
The elbow design at the rear window make a very sharp bend and is a great place for ink to settle and clog.... bad plumbing design. Even Epson makes mistakes... and I suspect this was one of them.
 

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Yikes.. does sound like it was a combination of bad "luck" factors doesn't it..

You can almost hear the printer complaining of being used once, left for months in a hot room al unused and then someone probably tried to print with it and it just didn't like it... cleaning probably just created the nice little clog and the whole thing was just so much sludge thanks to evaporation from the carts... and in the waste tank...

Nice!.. and you did this for fun!!? ;)
 

Endmukbud

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ok ....first download the Epson ssc program which is very2 usefull
2nd using dye based ink is allright. i've use it on my c67 and it cost me no trouble....
3nd do wait to refill until the cartridge is empty....remember this is very important......
refill when it's reach a half or quarter to end...because there was a vacuum system inside the cart
which will not work when it's run out of ink.......
4th using the syringe to blow up the nozzle port is nice idea but 1st do it with the empty syringe to push the clog ink
then fill the syringe with the alcohol to clean the ink pipe, then put the cartridge back...
according to my experience it doesn't need a day sleep to wait until the printer works
5th mixing a dye and pigment based ink is trouble

Maybe Mikling u got your vacuum systems inside the cart damaged so it won't flow an ink at all

i've ever put my c67 for 2 month not printing because i can't find a way to refill the black ink cartridge....
then when i refill it back it was totally clog...i blewthe port with syringe.....then it's all fine
one thing to notice is there "must" be an ink inside the cartridge or the printhead.....

To nifty or somebody else......could you tell me a way to put a picture on our post so i can show something very - very important for epson users
 

mikling

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Get a free account at photobucket.
Load the pic into photobucket.
When you load your pic there, you will see a choice a choice or url, tag, image
copy either the address of the tag or image to the message on this forum. When you bring up the message, the picture will be shown. If the Tag doesn't work, then use the Image.
 

mikling

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I didn't want to mix up the pigment and dyebase and that is why I began a process or sucking out the dye ink and refilling at the same time with water until I was comfortable I got most of the pigment out.
I was sorry to see it die myself, but when it is a mechanical failure on a printer I give up.
I did enough of the cartridges that I can confidently refill any of the newer Epson originals. Once you figure it out, it's really easy. Since then I found out that the printer was stored during the winter in an underground unheated garage that dips below freezing.
 

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