How to go about flushing all ink out of a 3880?

[W. Fisher]

I think my era of playing with sundry B&W inksets and using QTR with one 3880 is over. I'd like to revert it back to a color dye ink printer instead.

Given the price of Piezo Flush is so expensive to throw down the drain for a full lfush, anyone got a formula to clean out the tanks and lines? Pure distilled water perhaps? Add a bit of alcohol, Simple Green, Etc?

I have the maintenance cart re-setter and can toss in sponges in a tray to flush the system so nothing needed there.

Might try cutting the Epson long-life dye with clear ink for their upper-end printers to go into the 3880. I.e. Lt. Magenta, Lt. Cyan, Lt. Black, Lt. Lt. Black, and maybe use Cone' High-Density Photo Black instead in the mix.

Tia.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you may use something like this cleaner

https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/...n-for-the-inside-of-printer-cartridges?c=1295
I use it as well as a dilutant to make LC and LM from C and M.
Ultrachrome D6 inks are dye inks usable in all Epson printers, and this ink has a pretty good fading resistance or
you may use the Fujifilm dye inks for their Drylab printers .

 

[W. Fisher]

Thanks for the info.

Do you have a recommended cut or dilution ratio for the LC, LM, Light Light Black, and Light Black?

I think I used the Fujifilm black dye inks prior which held up pretty well. The cut ratios were pretty big for the lighter blacks with a clear ink, i.e. lots more clear ink than black was needed.

I might look into the Ultrachrome D6 inks as well. The K7 B&W inks didn't allow for much of a tint control and on some papers were pretty awful in color. I think I'll let the color inks do B&W now since I can control the tint better for more papers.

W.F.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm doing 2 parts dilutant and 1 part ink for LC and LM for an L800, and 1 part thinner and 1 part ink for LC and LM for the pigment Pro 7600, but since I'm doing my own profiles the ratio is not so critical. I'm not mixing LK at this time, I still have enough from the last purchase.
Tints in B/W prints - theoretically you can profile for a neutral look only for one illumination condition, any shift of the color temp of the viewing light can create a visible tint in the grays - it's not just the paper or the inks but the light as well causing that effect.
I'm not familiar with the functionality of Epson's advanced B/W driver options.

 

[berserk]

Just a thought....
While You are at it and if You are somewhat handy. Take out the ink tube-set and wash it.
Afterward clean it with the fluid that Ink Stained Finger suggested or similar from another provider.
A little search and You will find howto change dampers.
As You have used I suppose carbon-inks the filter-grids in the dampers might have started to clogg.
Another advantage is - new dampers are totally clean and the dreaded black ink-switch will be new.
Then also i think there is no need for heavy flushing - just prime the system.

Youtube and Epson Service manual are Your friends.
Gloves on!!

I bought dampers here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-New-Damper-Switch-for-Epso-n-Stylus-Pro-3800-3880-3850-3890-Printer/253484631282?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-High-Quality-Printer-ink-Damper-for-EP-Stylus-Pro-3800-3850-3880-3890/253548276989?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

[W. Fisher]

Been using a 30:70 ratio of 70% isopropyl alcohol to distilled water to flush the carts and printer out. Lots of power cleanings and switching between the PK and MK ink carts too.

I had to do a maintenance cart switch and pulled out the old cart which had some odd debris in it. One had a rectangular looking piece of hose looking stuff in the end of the tray, and another tubular looking bit in the middle of the tray. The tubular one in the middle of the photo below looks like it might be old ink that came off the drain pump's hose insides maybe?

I've been using nothing more than about 5-6 feet of blue shop towels in the trays since I had a chip resetter for the maintenance carts and first thought it was the towels, but looks more like it came off the insides of the printer tubing beneath the tray the head sits on that also has the pump and drain hoses under it.

The switching part seemed stubborn at times initially not having used it much at all for the MK tank. It now sounds a bit better and is switching again with the 30:70 alcohol to distilled water flushing. I put in some Piezoflush in the MK and PK and hoping it eventually unclogs a few nozzles. Then I'll have to flush it out was it is colored red/magenta in those lines.

Afraid to use ammonia as it reacts bad with copper which looks like the underside of the print head. I may add some detergent (Photoflow 200) as I have some of it leftover from film era.

 

[berserk]

Take it easy man - flushing/cleaning the printer that very hard ends up with printer parts in the the waste pad.
Now I also see that you get blue worms out of that printer (Epsonus Hidenesis) - they live in a secret place well hidden in Epson printers. They increase the Vivaldi gamut - so take it easy.

 

[W. Fisher]

Take it easy man - flushing/cleaning the printer that very hard ends up with printer parts in the the waste pad.
Now I also see that you get blue worms out of that printer (Epsonus Hidenesis) - they live in a secret place well hidden in Epson printers. They increase the Vivaldi gamut - so take it easy.

Lol! Epsonus Hidenesis!

Either that printer is gonna get better, or it's gonna die!

Or as another printer said, "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing" - right up until the time where it pukes its parts.

Odd some of that tubular stuff that was in that tray had a bit of a cyan cast to it given it has had the K7 inks in it for several years.

W.F.

 

[The Hat]

The tubular one in the middle of the photo below looks like it might be old ink that came off the drain pump's hose insides maybe?

That debris looks like a small piece of a plastic drinking straw that the printer chewed on before depositing it the waste tray..

 

[berserk]

Yeh...That damned 3880 needs a "white month" after all that alcohol consumption and a heavy treatment on horse pharmacological dewormers. After that sending it to holidays on the Maldives and at most use plain copy paper once a day to at least keep up, with diluted LLK. New liever transplant is too late.

Today It could die of a simple profiling.