Officejet L7580- air in ink tube?

[SuperareTech]

Hello. I not-so-recently acuired an HP officejec L7580 for free. It sat in the basement for about a year, and now I have dug it out again to fix it. The first problem I noticed is that the tubes had air bubbles in them. I thought this was normal, so I bought some remanufactured cartridges off of ebay for it. When I first put them in, it printed a test document that looked almost perfect, but it was missing black. I ran some cleaning cycles which got the air out of the Cyan and Magenta tubes, as well as black, but, now it only prints cyan and magenta (no black, either). I noticed that the yellow tube still has excess air in it, even after heavy cleaning. The printer now thinks the cartridge is almost empty, and I can't get the air out of it (see pictures below).

I have also cleaned the printheads with windex, but nothing really seems to be helping. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[SuperareTech]

Anyone? I really could use some help!

 

[websnail]

@SuperareTech, I'll help where I can... Key thing here is that I have similar printers (L7680, L7780, K5400, K8600) but all have effectively been retired due to switching to the Pro-X551DW so I don't have direct experience of what non-use over time will do however some educated guesswork based on the 6+ years I was using them extensively.

1. Air in the tubes is bad news no matter which way you look at it as it indicates either a fault/leak along the internal CIS system, a cartridge was poorly primed or (if using a CIS) the CIS was allowed to run out of ink.
   
   Re-priming the tubing is easy enough... You just install a full ink cartridge/CIS system then take a syringe and blunt needle (around 20 gauge is good) and where the printhead is normally installed, gently push the needle into the receiver then draw back on the syringe to pull air out of the loop and the ink into it. Repeat until you get no more air coming through then dump the ink.
   
   If the issue returns after the repriming above then you have a leak in the internal CIS system and it's time to just dump it or take it on as a project (in which case good luck!).
   
   
2. The printheads are effectively small capacity cartridges with integrated printheads it's just that they draw in new ink from the external cartridges so it's really easy to assume it's all fixed, when in reality you're just using up that initial ink charge. As a result, you assume nothing and watch your tubes for signs of air, etc... like a hawk!
   
   
3. It's entirely possible your inks have expired in either the cartridges, the printheads or both so given that the loop also contains potentially expired ink I'd think seriously about manually purging all of the lines then installing new printheads and new cartridges... But only after you've confirmed that the lines aren't damaged and suffering an air leak obviously.

Last thing to note is that the ink in the black cartridges/printhead is normally pigment and you will want to think very carefully about what compatible cartridges you use for it. We spent a lot of time trying to find a replacement ink that was a of either type and never really satisfied ourselves with anything as issues with drying would always crop up. So on that front you're on your own... Just be aware the ink choice is one you want to check out on the black side, very carefully.

Hope that's of some use anyways...

 

[SuperareTech]

Thanks. Is it messy to re-prime the tube? I will probably try that. Also, the printheads working as small cartridges explains a bit more (I was pretty confused as to how this happened). Do most remanufactured cartridges use dye ink? I have noticed on printouts from them that it looks more like dark gray them black, which leads me to think so. Thanks for your help!

 

[websnail]

Thanks. Is it messy to re-prime the tube?

Not really... Each end of the tube has a rubber receiver that has a hole in it that auto seals closed or around the outlets/inlets of the cartridges/printhead so a blunt needle easily pushes in (just be gentle doing it) and you avoid a lot of mess.

Do most remanufactured cartridges use dye ink? I have noticed on printouts from them that it looks more like dark gray them black, which leads me to think so.

A lot do as it's cheaper than pigment ink... The problem is that dye ink in the case of the black channel ends up mixing badly with the pigment in the printhead and creates clogs very quickly.

I've learned recently that there are dye black versions of the printhead available if you look around. These are the best option along with a compatible dye ink which in the case of Image Specialists would be WJ1008..

Just as a note the pigment version we used to get from Image Specialists (WJ1021) regularly caused clogs when the weather got warmer so my experience was that it was better to go with the dye alternative albeit properly prepared.

 

[berttheghost]

I ordered a kit that has the proper size needle, etc to reprime the ink tubes and printheads. Search for

"HP 10 11 38 81 83 88 90 91 940 Printhead & Cartridge Recovery Priming Kit"

Be careful to use the correct size needle (thus the kit). Too large a needle will damage the ports on the ends of the ink tubes.

 

[SuperareTech]

@websnail Where can I find the black dye printheads? (Sorry, I don't know how to quote) and how much would it cost? I don't have that much money to spend on this, so how much do they cost?

 

[websnail]

@websnail Where can I find the black dye printheads? (Sorry, I don't know how to quote) and how much would it cost? I don't have that much money to spend on this, so how much do they cost?

Best person to help with that would be @Patrik as he put me on to these when he was asking about the VP485.

I've not found them myself..

 

[SuperareTech]

Well, I was able to suck the air out of the yellow ink tube, and now yellow prints fine. However, I hear pigment black is nasty stuff when it comes to clogs, so that is probably why black won't print. (The nozzles are firing, it just is severely clogged.)

 

[websnail]

Well, I was able to suck the air out of the yellow ink tube, and now yellow prints fine. However, I hear pigment black is nasty stuff when it comes to clogs, so that is probably why black won't print. (The nozzles are firing, it just is severely clogged.)

Depends on whether your black printhead is b**gered or not... Remember it has a certain amount of ink in it so if the head is clogged you won't get anything.

The printhead is also designed in such a way that the printhead doesn't actually need to be physically able to pull ink into the head properly for it to print.. If the printhead is trying to print and there's nothing on the paper then the immediate issue is the printhead itself, not the internal tubing.