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Author Topic: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries  (Read 10141 times)

Lessbones

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Alright I've got a pretty harrowing horror story here.

I've got an 11880 at my job that we've had for a number of years-- probably something like 7-- and while it was an awesome printer while it lasted, I think at this point I've just gotta give up on it.

A year ago or so it started exhibiting signs of a clogged yellow channel, and none of the usual methods would clear it (windex et. al).  Anyway, long story short, eventually I removed the head to do a soak, and cleaned it out for a few days.  However, when I put the head back in the printer, I never even had a chance to see if it was cleaned, because now I was getting a "replace cartridge" error on all carts.  I realized that this was likely because I hadn't disengaged the cartridges before I removed the head, and there was probably some negative pressure which created bubbles in some of the cartridges, and they now needed to be "burped" (as I'm writing this I'm realizing that this might not even be true--- the damper assembly is supposed to prevent this exact thing, and I left the damper assembly intact when I removed it.) I tried in vain for several days to get the cartridges recognized, and eventually we called a tech in.  The tech turned out to be amazingly incompetent, he spent most of two whole weeks working on the printer (by working on, i mean simply replacing expensive parts) and finally, about a month later, and $5000 down the drain, we had a working printer again.  Within this repair we had obtained a new main board, and a new print head-- the two most expensive to replace items in the printer.

Fast forward to today--  leaked ink from the first repair seemed to have caused the AID board to become disconnected, and I attempted to reconnect it.  I resoldered the piece that had become corroded, put it back in, and started it up--  all seemed good, then, it just shut off.  Nothing, no life.  The main board had apparently blown some fuses or some BS and now that had to be replaced.  Another tech comes in, replaces the main board, pump cap, and AID board, but never finishes getting the printer up and running.  There was an odd grinding sound during the start up, and he declared that he needed to get another pump cap (which probably didn't need replacing in the first place).  Then he disappears.  Eventually I got fed up of waiting, and I switched it on again to see where we were at.  Started up no problem, no crazy sound, everything looks good.  But now it wont print a thing.  The head runs back and forth as if it is printing, but nothing comes out.  About a week after THAT the tech finally shows up on a random day when I'm not in the office, undeclared, and without a new pump cap, and tells me over the phone that the previous tech had left out some kind of rubber gasket, and when he detached the ink lines (i'm not sure if this was at the damper or not) ink came pouring out all over.  So this was a $3 part, easily replaced, no problem, he'd be back when the part came in.  Meanwhile, I find out the next day, while he had told me it was going to be cheap and easy, he had told my boss it was going to require ANOTHER new print head!  WTF!  So my boss is spooked now, and wants to ditch the machine all together (guess who makes an offer on the "broken" machine) so I decide that since this is a last ditch effort, I need to take a crack at it.

I turn it on, print a nozzle check, and theres a little bit coming out of the magenta and matte black!  Progress!  But I know that since it's been sitting for so long, the head probably REALLY needs to be soaked--  so out it comes, and into the windex.  After a few hours of soaking, I am curious, so I dry the head off, and put it back in.   Aaaaand cartridge error.  on all cartridges.  This is the point in the story at which there is a montage of me taking carts apart, swapping chips, blowing in pressure lines, burping carts, and eventually I end up at a point where I can repeatedly get it to recognize every cartridge except for the photo black and yellow.  I've gone through every combination of manually pressurizing the cartridges, pulling ink through the lines with a syringe, etc. And i've tried many different cartridges, for some colors i've got at least 3 different ones.

Additionally, not only did I get a chip resetter (which works, now I can get the cartridges that ARE recognized to read as full) but I also bought the adjustment wizard from 2manuals to see if there was some kind of counter or whatever that I needed to reset.  Now I'm at a complete loss.  As I write this I'm now thinking that maybe the issue actually could have to do with the head, or some electrical issue, since nothing physical seems able to solve this.

So anyway, the point here is that I wanted to put this out there to see if any other fresh minds might have any instinct--  I could go much further into detail on most of the steps of what I have done-- Including all the research and experimenting I have done on the "Ink-out sensor" which resides inside each cartridge--  nowhere can I find someone who understands how this thing operates-- I have tested it with a multimeter, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how it works.

So thats it for the moment-- If I left anything out I'll try to fill in any other details…
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framah

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2013, 10:31:52 am »

  I had a 9900 that had a stroke in the green channel and nothing was going to clean it out. The cost of a new head and other parts and service time was almost 2/3rds of a new machine.

At some point, it is just better to get a new one and at 7 years old, yours is way past its prime.  Sounds like you have almost spent what a new one would cost or close enough. Cut your losses and get a new one.

I sold my old 9900  for $500 and the guy had it rebuilt and still got a 9900 for less than a new one.

I actually went up to the 11880 and so far have had no problems.
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"It took a  lifetime of suffering and personal sacrifice to develop my keen aesthetic sense."

davidh202

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2013, 10:39:21 am »

Alright I've got a pretty harrowing horror story here.

   The tech turned out to be amazingly incompetent, he spent most of two whole weeks working on the printer (by working on, i mean simply replacing expensive parts) and finally, about a month later, and $5000 down the drain, we had a working printer again.

Seems par for the course...replace everything because we really dont have a clue what were doing       

The head runs back and forth as if it is printing, but nothing comes out.

It was going through a self calibration cycle which eventually finishes and starts to print !    
 

   So my boss is spooked now, and wants to ditch the machine all together (guess who makes an offer on the "broken" machine).




As Framah said give it up it's a lost cause to go any further than you already have
Good thing it was the boss's expense not yours!!!
David
« Last Edit: March 19, 2013, 10:41:30 am by davidh202 »
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Lessbones

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2013, 12:34:55 pm »

yeah, I mean, I realized a long time ago that I was basically flailing around in the dark-- but much like the 7900 from the inside-out thread, I just can't seem to leave it alone-- SOMETHING has got to give-- someone in the world knows how those sensors work-- and a whole bunch of people in china know the secrets to resetting them... so as long as the information is out there... I just wont be satisfied!  I realize cost wize it makes no sense to continue further, but just on a straight up informational level I can't quit questioning it...
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d.day

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #4 on: August 16, 2013, 08:16:55 pm »

Hello,

Can you give some more detail to how you solved replace cart on all carts problem after returning print head back to printer? I am also having this issue with mine 11880. I tried burping carts several times and manually blowing inks trough system but the same problem persists. Also, I put back old set of carts (most below 10%) but they behave the same.

Thanks,
Stefan
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Lessbones

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2013, 08:34:26 pm »

Unfortunately, I didn't solve it.  That printer ended up getting sold for parts.  However, I tried all the carts in another 11880 with no problems at all, so in the end I'm not sure that it wasn't some kind of corrupted main board settings...  My next move was gonna be to order some refillable carts (you can fin a whole set for ~$250 on alliexpress) but the fact that every single real one worked in a different printer makes me doubt whether that would fix the issue...  The first time around when I had that problem replacing the main board fixed it, which sucks because at that point you may as well trash the printer.  It's unbelievable that there isn't any way to re-flash the firmware--- and I say that after having used every utility except the nvram, so maybe that's the secret
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d.day

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2013, 06:03:23 pm »

What about second time? I thought you managed to recover all except 2 carts. I tried with one brand new cart but it is reported bad as all others.
Strange thing is that I removed head like 3 or 4 times before and never had this problem. Only thing that was different this time is a bit more extreme head cleaning process. Maybe electronics in the head failed and are cause for it. Have you tried new print head and same main board first time maybe?

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mixa

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2014, 10:25:54 am »

It is definitely problem with motherboard. The same thing happened to me, tried everything for days, then checked with mainboard from the other printer and everything worked fine!

Now, I an not sure if it is hardware or firmware thing. I tried several tools for firmware update but none could do the job (usually, message is Printer not ready).

Anyone know some method for "brutal" firmware change?

Cheers
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Chris233

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Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #8 on: June 18, 2014, 12:17:22 pm »

Wow! lots of troubles with that machine, but seems the techs did more dis-service than any kind of good support. ALOT of parts replaced unnecessary. Sorry you had that sort of experience.

Can you give some more detail to how you solved replace cart on all carts problem after returning print head back to printer? I am also having this issue with mine 11880. I tried burping carts several times and manually blowing inks trough system but the same problem persists. Also, I put back old set of carts (most below 10%) but they behave the same.

If you removed the left or right plastic covers / ink bay covers during service, there are a couple places to check that can throw this error.

First is the very small ribbon cable (CN7 ink LED foil cable) at the front of the ink bay. (pic attached Photo1.jpg).  When you re-install the cover, if this ribbon gets knocked out of placement - it can result in all kinds of errors and you'll end up chasing your tail to resolve. All cartridge fail is a common error when this cable is seated at an angle. You can tape around the ribbon cable to further protect it from getting knocked loose.

Another ribbon that is worthwhile to check is the larger ribbon at the back of the ink bay leading to main board (CN10 Edge AD).  Sometimes this ribbon gets wedged between the printer and the ink bay which can crimp and produce this error.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not sure how the Aid board can get splashed with ink.  It's pretty well protected... Are you referring to the aid grid?

In most cases when you get a cascading error such as this, it is a ribbon cable somewhere that is seated improperly, or a non-OEM or chip reset cartridge has failed. Sometimes it can be the board on the back of ink bay shorted out, but is least often.

Anyway hope those to 2 ribbon cables resolve your problem, Stefan
« Last Edit: June 18, 2014, 12:27:17 pm by Chris233 »
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Chris233

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Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #9 on: June 18, 2014, 12:37:28 pm »

Dang this is a very old thread! Wasted time.

 Mixa, you could replace the NVRAM with that of an old machine, which is a brutal change. If the machine is under warranty, I would avoid this since the serial will no longer match to the machine. And be sure to input the head rank after doing this. The firmware will then match that of the other machine.
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mixa

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Re: Epson 11880 the bad, the ugly, and the dead -- Unsolvable Mysteries
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2014, 12:57:55 pm »

Thank you for the reply!

I have rechecked all the internal cables with no success. I brought new main board, attached everything and machine operated fine, with ink levels measured correctly. Then again, I tried to re-install original main board which resulted in same error as before, indicating that all the cartridges are empty.

I have tried NVRAM program and also EPSON LFP Remote Panel 2 but they couldn't perform any firmware change. NVRAM program breaks after about 2/3 of the process (I made flash backup of the working main board and tried to upload it to the original one). The LFP RP is finding printer, but when firmware change is initiated, it reports that printer in not ready.

I don't care for serial as the machine is no longer under warranty.

I am still searching for the method to revive my board and if anyone have some hint I am willing to give it a try.

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