Trying to revive an Epson 7880

[mcpix]

I picked up a used 7880 really cheap, and I've been working on getting all the colors to print. Initially when I ran a test print I had missing squares on black, cyan, and yellow and just a few squares printed on magenta. I installed a new yellow and magenta cartridge and ran a power clean. Black, cyan and yellow are all fine now, but magenta has completely dropped out. I tried the windex paper towel under the head trick and noticed that I get magenta ink coming out on the towel, but still not on the test print. Any ideas? I'm thinking about buying a vivid magenta cleaning cartridge and printing just that color (anyone have a link to a file that will allow me to do this?). Any other ideas?

[aduke]

Take a look at http://www.marruttusa.com/printer-maintenance/inkjet-printer-purge-files.php .

I used their colors to create my own 4880 purge files and when tested as single colors, the printer reported that only the particular ink was used for the print. This was for all but one of the colors.

Also, my lightly used 4880 seems to be happier if I print a couple of all-channel-purge pages almost daily. In addition, I've gone to cleaning the flushing box and wiper on a nearly daily basis.

Alan

[BrianWJH]

You could check the dampers, magenta in particular is prone to clogging and especially if the machine has been sitting idle for a period.

Also worth looking at the ink lines with a torch to see if the ink is clumping i.e. ink pigment settling out of suspension.

Brian.

[mcpix]

Thanks, those were exactly the files I wanted!

Thank you also for the information on the damper. As far as checking the damper, is there an easy way to do this without removing the print head? Do you think if I get a Vivid Magenta cartridge filled with cleaning fluid and then print the Vivid Magenta test file, I have a good chance of cleaning the damper and/or clearing the line?

[BrianWJH]

I would check the damper and ink supply lines first, if they look ok then try the cleaning fluid.
If however there is clumping in the lines or damper I would replace the dampers and flush the ink supply lines first, you don't want to force anything into the print head that might cause it to clog any worse.

The dampers are accessible without removing the printhead they attach to the top of the printhead inlet manifold.

Brian.

[mcpix]

Thanks, that's a good point about not clogging the head.