PGI5 ran out and now no pgi5 in nozzle check

[jru]

Hi all,
I have been refilling for a while without problems.
My pgi5 cart on my ip4300 was still printing, but when I checked, the reservoir was completely empty.
I refilled but when I printed out the nozzle check the pgi5 section is completely missing.

Can you please outline steps I should take? I tried several nozzle checks, and a deep cleaning of the pgi5 but still nothing in the nozzle check section.


I was using inkmon but something went wrong...

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

 

[on30trainman]

It sounds to me like the cartridge is not delivering ink to the head. I have had a few problems with refilling the pigment cartridge (BCI-3eBk) in my ip4000. First let me state that I don't use the German method to refill, but fill through a top hole in the spongeless chamber. The sponge doesn't seem to absorb much ink and seems to starve the printhead. I don't think filling via the German method would make the sponge absorb ink any better. Try removing the cartridge and squeeze the sides of the cartridge hard and see if any ink drips from the outlet hole. I have been able to get them working by forcing air into the fill hole (outlet capped) and thus ink into the sponge. Doing this slowly several times seems to get the sponge to accept more ink and work. Also, it seems I have more problems with cartridges that have been purged and let to completely dry. I never have any problems with the dye based inks.

Steve W.

 

[jru]

Thanks for your reply.
I tried switching to another pgi-5 cartridge that I had refilled and still no pgi-5 in nozzle test.
When I had refilled the empty pgi-5, I did my usual nozzle check, and saw all the color bars solid, so assumed that all was ok.
However, unfortunately, I did not notice that the pgi-5 segment was COMPLETELY missing.
So I resumed printing until I noticed that the black print in the text was weak, and in draft was missing.
I redid the nozzle check and checked my old nozzle check pages and that's when I noticed that pgi-5 was completely missing.
It's rather recently that I noticed the black text being lighter.

So I have a feeling that I ran it dry and the printhead pgi-5 may be clogged.

By the way, to answer your question, when I squeeze the sides of the filled pgi-5 ink does drip out.

I'd appreciate any suggestions...

Thanks!

 

[jru]

I put some distilled water on the screen over the printhead of the pgi-5 as well as on the 2 foam rubber park pads and did repeated clean/nozzle check cycles and I am starting to get the beginnings of the pgi-5 section beginning to appear in the nozzle check.

One thing I noticed is that when I remove the pgi-5 cartridge the screen is wet with ink, whereas the other cartridges are not (you can see the white screen without ink on it).
Does this mean that the clog is at the pgi-5 screen over the printhead (rather than the park pads -- i.e. ink not being sucked through the screen)?

I'm don't have any windex w ammonia, so I have just been using the distilled water.

I've tried 3 different refilled pgi-5 cartridges with the same results, so it does not seem to be the cartridge that is the problem...

 

[on30trainman]

You may very well have a clog in the inlet screen or printhead. I am not sure that distilled water will clean it out. Any chance you can get Windex or an equivalent. Don't know your location - I second the comments made in another section of this forum about everyone putting their location in their profile.
I know that you purge cartridges from your reply to me in another topic. If you can get Windex or equivalent, fill a purged, empty cartridge with it and run a series of heavy cleanings on only the pigment PGI cartridge. Maybe even let it set over night with the Windex filled cartridge. Put a regularly filled cartridge in, run a clean cycle to clear the Windex and check the results by printing. Running cleaning cycles shouldn't be a problem to the printhead - if I'm wrong somebody jump in and let us know. If you can't get a Windex type product I'm not sure what else could be used.

Steve W.

 

[jru]

I will try to get some windex and do as you suggested.
Yes I did purge and refill all 3 of these pgi-5 cartridges, and I also sensed that it was not a good idea to let it dry completely after purging before filling.

When I purge, I got a small piece of the tubing that fits over the exit port and cut a a hole in a yogurt container lid so that the tube pushes through and then taped around the tube where it went through the hole to make an air tight seal. I then put my vacuum cleaner on one end so it grabs onto the bottom of the lid so that all the vacuum goes through the tube and I apply to each cartridge until no beads of water are pulled into the tube.
I let it sit a couple of hours and then filled. I think you are right, particularly with the pgi-5 cartridge, it should not be dried completely.
I too have had no problem with the dye based inks, even in totally dried out purged cartridges. With those, once the reservoir tank is filled, I continued pushing ink slowly pushing it into the sponge. I can fill most of the sponge this way.

On this pgi-5 clog, I have gotten about 30% of the pgi-5 pattern to emerge with the distilled water, so the windex hopefully will dissolve the rest.

Thanks again!

 

[jru]

Trainman,

Just thought I'd let you know how this complete clogging of my PGI-5 cart was resolved.
Last night I continued to put distilled water on the pgi-5 printhead screen and the 2 foam park pads, doing repeated pgi-5 clean cycles and nozzle prints.
As I reported last night, this cleared up about 30% of the pgi-5 pattern from the nozzle check, but it did not seem to go any further.
So I decided to quit for the night, but left some drops of distilled water on the screen and park pads overnight.
This morning, I turned the printer on, did a clean cycle on the pgi-5 and printed the nozzle check and it is 100% cleared!

Thanks to on30trainman for your suggestions, and also to ghwellsjr, whose post I saved in a folder where he wrote:

I also have used a technique described numerous times on this forum to unclog nozzles which does not require removing the print head from the printer. I believe the printer is the best machine to unclog your nozzles, mainly by helping it along with Windex (or similar glass cleaner with ammonia). I just don't worry anymore about clogged nozzles. I have many printers that are in storage and I have removed the print heads from them. Some have been sitting idle for over a year and I have never had a problem bringing any of them back to life.

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=17937#p17937


I'm so glad I saved your post, ghwellsjr.

I have some observations on our assumptions on when pgi-5 ink is being used from printouts I did along the way which I will put in another post.
Appreciations for this great forum!