Purge (priming) Pump quick test

[Tom Hock]

There is a lot of discussion on this forum regarding the testing of the purge pump when the printer fails to print some colors, especially after an ink tank has been replaced. Placing Windex on the parking pad and seeing if the purge cycle sucks it away is a good way to see if the pump itself is working, but may not confirm that ink is being drawn through the print head nozzles. Other conditions, such as failure of the purge unit to make a seal with the bottom of the print head when it creates a vacuum, would render it ineffective. If all the air introduced by replacing an ink tank has not been drawn through the print head the nozzles won't do their job.

I have an i560 now that won't print any colors at all, except the pigment black. The purge pump has passed the Windex test, but still no colors. I came up with a simple test to see if there was any air in the print head that could be causing the "no-print" problem. I ran a piece of paper half way into the printer and pulled the power cord. I then moved the print head to the center position. One end of a 3/8 inch I.D. tubing (9.5mm), about a foot in length, was pressed over the vent of one ink tank and blowing into the other end of the tubing forced ink to move through the print head, and onto the paper below, forcing out any trapped air. This was repeated for the other colors also. It was necessary to lift the ink tank lock-down lever to reach the ink tank vents. The ink spots on the paper told me ink was where it should be. Unfortunately, I still have the "no-print" color problem. Must be some electrical problem since I know the print head is primed and ready to fire but is not getting the signal.

 

[embguy]

Is the ink level of your color cartridges go down after a few cleaning cycles? If yes, the ink was sucked from the cartridges through the inlet screen, internal ink channels and nozzles down to the purge pads.

Put some Windex on the inlet screens and do a nozzle check. If you still do not get any color, it is the time to take the print head out to do some soaking. You have nothing to loss at this point unless you want your i560 as the B/W printer. Those i series printer keeps on printing with only the black cartridge installed.

 

[Tom Hock]

Thanks for the reply. I know the print head channels and nozzles are all open and clean as a whistle, and am almost certain there is some electrical problem. It's good to know the i series printers will work with only the BCI-3e pigment ink tank installed. Since I do black only printing about 90% of the time I'll just keep using it. The pigment ink is more tolerant of high humidity and I always preferred it for letters and especially for addressing envelopes, which could get wet. Now the problem will be to find some room to set up this fourth printer to complement my three photo printers.

As a retired engineer I'm fascinated by these ink jet printers. When you consider the fantastic photo quality they produce by spitting ink onto paper, and the speed at which they do it, and the low cost and reliability ...absolutely amazing.

 

[leo8088]

The purge pump has passed the Windex test, but still no colors.

This is telling you that the C, M and Y nozzles are very likely clogged. I once unclogged an i560 that would not print anything at all. Actually it printed a few dots out of the BCI-3eBK but no colors whatsoever. By the way I would leave the purge unit alone. I have never seen any printer with a defective purge unit. But I have seen a few broken one that were damaged after being tampered by human hands.

I used a set of empty cartridges completely purged and filled with some glass cleaner which contains some amount of Ammonia. I soaked the print head for about an hour to clean out all remaining ink in it. Then installed the print head and the home made cleaning cartridges. 3 days later all color channels were unclogged. The nozzle check was perfect. The i560 worked like new again.