Epson 9890 Magenta nozzle checks always bad after 30 minutes

[brinked]

3 months ago I switched from a closed cart system (sawgrass pro photo) to a refillable cart system. 

Ever since that day, my magenta requires constant cleanings.  1 regular cleaning always clears up the nozzle check without fail.  However if I go without printing for 20-30 minutes, I know I will have to do a cleaning or the magenta will go bad, as if it dries up.  The longer i go without printing, the worse the nozzle check is.

Every morning when I arrive in the lab, the magenta nozzle check is always about 90% missing, until the 1 cleaning clears it up.

I have tried running several power cleans, I cleaned the capping pump station using a qtip soaked in windex.  I tried parking the head over a windex soaked towel.  I replaced the refillable cart with another hoping it was a bad cart, but the problem is still there.

I print on this machine for hours on every business day, so I would think any air bubbles would have worked their way out by now after 3 months.  Right now this is just a minor inconvenience but I dont want it to turn into more.

I can not find anwhere on the web that shows this same problem so i was wondering if anyone here has ever experienced something similar.

[BrianWJH]

No experience with Sawgrass inks however Epson K3 Magenta is a bit of a 'glogger' and I have had the associated damper filled with pigment sediment which needed replacing, may be that the damper has a similar issue.

Brian.

[brinked]

Thanks Brian.  Is the damper hard to replace?  I can't find many videos for the 9890.

I did watch a video to replace the head.

[Paul2660]

Dig up Eric G's thread on this site on the 7900. He has a video on the damper replacement or did at one time. The 9890 will be the same process possibly the same parts.

Paul

Link is here

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61585.0

[brinked]

Thanks Paul.  Im going to try some more basic steps before going for damper replacements...hopefully I can resolve this without having to dig too much into the machine.

I am attaching 2 nozzle checks, the top one is how it looks after 1 hour of not printing, and the bottom is how it looks after not printing over the weekend.  This happens each and every day.

My next steps will be to purge the magenta ink line with some purge print files.  Then if that doesnt work, I will try to do an init fill, already ordered 2 replacement maint tanks to prepare for that.  Then if that doesnt work, Im thinking of ordering a set of refillables to run cleaner through the system.  Then finally if all that fails to work, ill look into replacing parts.  I already order a new wiper assembly since its very easy to replace, my process is to do the most easiest things first since the machine still does print, its just an inconvenience at the moment.

[PocoArtist]

I have the exact same problem. Went with the same remedies. No solution so far.

[brinked]

poco glad to hear I am not in this alone.  We are in this together now.  Did you change anything before this started happening?  New ink cart etc?

[PocoArtist]

I changed the ink cart. Still clogs . The problem started a year ago.
The printer is rarely idle for more than a week.

[brinked]

sounds like you need a cleaning then.  When the epson repair man came to replace my head a few months ago he mentioned that canvas causes the biggest ink buildup in the printer.  You most likely need to get in there and clean up a bit.  Have you replaced your wiper blade yet?

If my steps dont clear this up, I think im just going to fork out the money and pay decisionone to replace the dampers and everything else that can be the cause of this.  Might just do that yearly since it would be cheaper than replacing the printer every year.

[Wayne Fox]

As has been mentioned, the symptom described (sudden and frequent loss of nearly all of a channel) is almost always a damper issue.  If the damper isn’t working right, it allows air to be sucked into the ink supply line at the head (the exact opposite of its’ purpose which is to bleed air out of the line), meaning no ink can get to the nozzles.  Many epson “clogs” are really lack of ink ... not that it helps because it still takes inks/cleans to fix the problem.

The damper is an assembly on top of the print head itself, is pretty straight forward replace but you do have to be careful. Follow the step by step instructions in the Epson service manual.  I do not have that available to me right now, but it is available.  It’s probably better to replace the entire damper assembly, although I believe you can change just the damper for single channel (2 colors).

[brinked]

Wanted to provide an update to this thread.

The problem was my refillable carts.  The refillables I were using had the pressure valve blocked so it was relying on gravity to go through the ink lines.  Why on earth they would make ink carts like this is beyond me and now idea how they worked as good as they did.

Switched to inkowls and everything is fine now!