Major leak or what...?

[dadu007]

Hello,
I recently moved to Marrutt inks for my Epson R2400.
I was printing out some nozzle checks this evening and then some test prints...Now I'm seeing pools of ink on the prints now...Ghastly. Is this fixable? Any ideas what is causing it? I have not taken apart the printer yet (not that I know how!).

 

[mikling]

If Marrutt has not helped, you have ink dripping out of the nozzles during print. DO NOT TAKE THE PRINTER APART.
If you are using refillable cartridges the overexpansion/overpressure valve valve is not seating properly. You can try to fix this by removing the ink, inserting a syringe into the refill hole and quickly drawing out air to create a suction, this suction might be able to seat the overpressure/expansion valve and that will then allow the cart to retain some level of negative pressure inside the ink chamber. Without this negative pressure, ink will slowly seep out even as you are not using the printer. You'd never know it because it would empty slowly even when not being used.

But do not take the printer apart. Yes there is quite a bit of engineering inside those refillable carts that most sellers do not understand.

 

[dadu007]

Thanks for the reply. I let the printer set overnight and came back to it the next morning. It is printing fine now. I will remember your tip if this happens again. Thx!

 

[websnail]

Just out of interest. @dadu007: Do you have a picture of one of the cartridges from the side profile? It would be useful to confirm which of the refillable cartridges you have (assuming that's what you have and not a CIS).

Aware that the refillables for the R2400 were predominantly of the much older design that required vacuum refilling rather than the newer self-priming variety... and my apologies for all the technobabble on this @dadu007, but this sort of thing is important when trying to understand what variables were in play. I'm sure there will be plenty of additional explanation once we've a clearer idea as to what sort of ink delivery system you are using.

 

[dadu007]

Thanks, webnail. I've attached some photos of one of the cartridges that came with the refill kit (Matte black, which I'm not using).

 

[websnail]

Thanks for those pics...

The type you have are actually the "Self-priming" type in that they don't require any special tricks to get rid of the air in the outlet unlike many previous designs.

TBH I wasn't expecting that as the R2400 stock that was available for the last decade has usually been the type with a circular chamber that required vacuum priming.

Anyway... I did a little digging backwards and remembered that there was a report about the fill hole plugs and how the double wall in the cartridges could cause problems with air ingress via the fill hole so you may find that was a contributing factor... There's a thread here that goes into more detail.
https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/which-refillable-cartridges-for-epson.4942/

If you continue to have problems though I still have the old type of carts available (and doubtless some other retailers closer to home may too) so that may be an option with a bit of judicious chip swapping (if necessary).