T007/T009 Spongeless Refillable ink flow problems

[Clinton]

Hello folks!
I have a set of T007/T009 refillable cartridges for my 1280, and filled them for the first time, then primed the exit ports with the bottom fill adapters I have.

My problem is that a vacuum develops in the cartridges, and starves the printhead. It doesn't seem like the air vents are working properly to equalize cartridge pressure.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with these cartridges, and could give me some insight on how to solve the problem, and get printing. Removing the fill bungs relieves the vacuum and allows some printing, but then it gradually fades out as the vacuum increases again. A cleaning cycle will compound this issue as well.

Thank you!

-C

 

[The Hat]

This might help you get to grips with some of the ways you can prime you cartridge to get it to work for you;
it may not be the same as your own but have a look at it anyway.

Compliments of jtoolman..

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...=fB8QspjBbhk&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13662291674792

 

[crenedecotret]

I'm looking at different pictures of these carts.. they seem to have one plug for refilling, and a second plug that need to be removed while the carts are in the printer. On some of these carts the "air" plug is just clear plastic. If you didn't remove that, you might have the problems you are mentioning

 

[Clinton]

Aha! I have the clear plastic plugs. I'll see if I can't remove those and get it working. I didn't want to pull them in case I wound up with too much air going into the cartridge, and letting the ink drip out the bottom when not in use,

I'll post back when I've done testing!

Cheers!

-C

 

[jtoolman]

You ABSOLUTELY need to removed the air vent plugs!

 

[Clinton]

Okay, I've removed the rubber plugs, here are a couple photos, of during and after:

Above photo is during, showing some plugs removed, some still in place.

Above photo is with all plugs removed, just to illustrate rather gaping holes left.


A test print showed ink definitely flowing through the nozzles. A little -too- much ink.

Above shows the purge pattern I printed, with inksmears all over the place.


I suspect that in removing the air plugs, I eliminated a necessary partial vacuum from the cartridges, allowing ink to dribble through where it should not, and get dragged all over the page.

Any ideas on how to mitigate this? I was thinking about hot-needling a hole through the rubber plugs (some of which are visible above) to give just a little bit of air flow during printing, but not enough to let it dribble.

-C

 

[jtoolman]

Unless you carts are now truly leaking, this looks like ink build up under the head, the wide blade and the purge pad.
Physically check out those areas for ink.
If you know how to use the Windex / Paper towel cleaning trick, go ahead and use it to sop up the excess ink on the head nozzle surface.

Can I ask you why you are using refillables T07 and T09s when the original OEM carts are easily refilled and reset.
They work a lot better than any refillable.
I used to have a Stylus Photo 1280 and refilled my original carts with great performance.

 

[Clinton]

I'm using the refillables because I've swapped from OEM dye to pigment inks, and I didn't want to use OEM carts with dye residue in them. an empty refillable would be a good place to start with pigments.

I'll see about the ink buildup. This just started since I popped the air vents, and was not doing this previously, when the head was starving last night. I'll see about cleaning up and go from there.

Cheers!

-C

 

[Clinton]

Cleaned up the squeegee and it printed well for a single purge pattern on plain paper. Then I switched the driver to Premium Presentation Paper Matte, loaded in a sheet of ultra premium presentation paper matte, and sent a test print through. Toward the end of my test print, I encountered light banding, and then more of the same smearing.

Any ideas?

Cheers!

-Clinton

 

[jtoolman]

Well, you are obviously leaking ink. As you have gathered around here by the models we quote, the 1280 is ancient by comparison. So current direct experience will be somewhat sparse.

I would not have switched over to pigments myself on this printer but hey, I know people who have switched Epson 6 color printers to pigment with not problems.

Other than getting different carts for it and retrying, I really don't know what else to tell you. Sorry.

Joe