MooreDesignLabs
Getting Fingers Dirty
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2022
- Messages
- 86
- Reaction score
- 19
- Points
- 45
- Location
- New England
- Printer Model
- 1430|3800|3880|P800|PRO-100
I hope everyone can enjoy this story because it just happened. I got my hands on a 3880 with some mileage on it but overall in excellent condition. Even including the original box.
I got it home and started it up. Everything looked good on the LCD panel for ink amounts. I reset the maintenance cartridge because it was full but that was all. The inks were all 50-80% full. I performed a nozzle print expecting weird results before cleaning anything. To my surprise, every color worked fairly well. I could tell after one head cleaning it should be a 100%. Except the first row of black was missing, completely. I performed a head cleaning operation once and it was still empty. The other channels restored a little better. So I decided to service the printhead from inside the printer without removing any panels. I flushed every channel for the hell of it because I was there and then reassembled it. The colors were much brighter and new looking again across the board, except the first one again which is Matte Black.
I started to get the feeling I just picked up a dud with a broken switch from Photo Black to Matte Black. I looked into how much that would be and the repair would be close to $175-$200. Not something I wanted to do. I did also read that sometimes the ink dries in the rubber lines itself or at the cartridge. Or even the printer is reading the ink levels wrong. I thankfully have another 3800 about ten feet away. So I grabbed the Matte Black from that one and immediately knew I was on to something. The original cartridge only weighed 62gms, my other partially used one was much much more. I installed that cartridge, ran a head cleaning operation, and then a manual nozzle check. I was so relieved to see a perfect row of all colors including black.
If anyone is facing this issue with black inks, ignore the LCD display ink levels and swap it out for a preferably full cartridge. I'm just relieved that I don't need to find an out of production/stock part and risk turning it into a brick.
I got it home and started it up. Everything looked good on the LCD panel for ink amounts. I reset the maintenance cartridge because it was full but that was all. The inks were all 50-80% full. I performed a nozzle print expecting weird results before cleaning anything. To my surprise, every color worked fairly well. I could tell after one head cleaning it should be a 100%. Except the first row of black was missing, completely. I performed a head cleaning operation once and it was still empty. The other channels restored a little better. So I decided to service the printhead from inside the printer without removing any panels. I flushed every channel for the hell of it because I was there and then reassembled it. The colors were much brighter and new looking again across the board, except the first one again which is Matte Black.
I started to get the feeling I just picked up a dud with a broken switch from Photo Black to Matte Black. I looked into how much that would be and the repair would be close to $175-$200. Not something I wanted to do. I did also read that sometimes the ink dries in the rubber lines itself or at the cartridge. Or even the printer is reading the ink levels wrong. I thankfully have another 3800 about ten feet away. So I grabbed the Matte Black from that one and immediately knew I was on to something. The original cartridge only weighed 62gms, my other partially used one was much much more. I installed that cartridge, ran a head cleaning operation, and then a manual nozzle check. I was so relieved to see a perfect row of all colors including black.
If anyone is facing this issue with black inks, ignore the LCD display ink levels and swap it out for a preferably full cartridge. I'm just relieved that I don't need to find an out of production/stock part and risk turning it into a brick.
