Horrible gooey disaster (R200/R300/R220/R340)

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Well I've always been aware of this issue but casually ignored it like I'm sure most people do, but... what do you do about the left hand waste sponge? These models flush ink on the left hand side of the printer... not as much as the right hand side but there's no way to make a waste tube for it, and in this case I don' think that would have helped. The ink builds up on it, since I use pigment refills. I've pulled it out and rinsed it (with about 100 gallons of water each time... not very eco friendly) a few times but I don't do heavy printing (I print heavy for a consumer, not for someone who, say, uses a CIS) so I'm sure it's even more of a mess for others. Well I've forgotten to do it for awhile and this time the sponge was basically a giant brick of plastic. I'd been wondering where the ink on the printhead was coming from (the edges of the paper would get dirty) and now I know. I was able to pull it out, but not in one piece, and scrape away the rest of the ink (there's not enough Windex in the world!) and soaked what was left of the sponge in ammonia. Now I have a ratty little piece left. Anyone have any suggestions on what to replace it with? I'm sure I can find some kind of insulation or packing foam for this... Anyone have any ideas on how to avoid this issue or make it easier to deal with?

 

[websnail]

If you have some dimensions for the pads you want to replace I can probably help... I've a source for some of these things but no idea as yet how good the source is in terms of larger orders.

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Hard to get a ruler in there and the sponge is too ripped up to measure now, but it's about 1 3/8" x 3/4". Not sure whether there'd be a market for this since I rarely see the left hand sponge mentioned at all. I wonder how essential it is, and what exactly is under it. It looked to me like there was a waste sponge below it, and I do wonder just how much ink goes in here. Is my printer going to overflow even with the waste tank mod done? On the other hand there was still white on the waste pad so I don't know if the pigment ink goes down so much as just builds up on the top pad.

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Wow. Okay. I found some sponge material that might work for the thing on the left hand side, but now I have a new problem with my R220. I started printing and something started hitting the paper. I thought maybe I'd put some used sheets in the printer and there was a corner or edge turned up so the printhead was colliding with it. Nope. I try to get a closer look, but I finally have to use the SSC utility to move the printhead around. I finally find something stuck underneath it so I manage to pull it off with tweezers. Another sponge. I thought maybe the remains of the left hand sponge had come loose, but nope. So I look on the right hand side... the purge station is fine. So I look at my R340 and see there's a sideways thick T shaped piece of sponge to the right of the purge station. Apparently this dried out enough to stick to the print head. What is this, anyway? A "parking pad"? Will my printhead get all scratched up if I don't replace it? On the R340 there's a plastic piece sticking up through it to hold it in place so I'm assuming the print head doesn't actually sit on this pad, so it must just be there to catch drips. Maybe. Anyone have any idea?

I see people using these printers for a very long time. Granted, it's probably about 4 years old now and my printing volume has gone down so it has more of a chance for the ink to dry out but I still think it should have a good amount of life left in it. I still have a backup but I'd rather not use it... can I keep using the printer without that sponge there or do I need to find a new one? It seems to be made of thicker, more rubbery sponge than the piece on the left hand side so I don't have any material that would work well for it.

It's like my lawn mower, every time I look at the damn' thing another piece falls off of it.