"More to come" ....came tonight.
and with it it brought new news
...and new rules.
I just took the framing-hammer fatal error head out, and apart. It's all together mostly, minus a few fatal things here or there. First of all my hopeful suspicions were correct, I did clear it, and it did print. But my fears were correct too, I did damage it as well.
All along, since printing my test page with it, I've held a sneaky suspicion that while it did print 75% of a page before it blew up - it did after all blow up. Initially I felt it ran out of ink, then overheated. But ever since then I've been asking myself, "Why in the hell did it run out of ink? I primed it after all... something must be wrong."
The autopsy results are now in, so speculation is over - it did run out of ink. But you'd never guess why. and I mean you would never, guess, why.
First of all tonight's autopsy positively confirms my ink-flow theory. Ink DOES indeed flow over the speed bumps on it's way to the nozzle openings, just like I drew it. So if that chamber is clogged solid with dried ink, your nozzle is shut down. Period.
Second of all tonight's autopsy confirms my next fear - Ultrasonic cleaning is OUT. You'll learn why in a minute, for now though suffice to say it's too much vibrating for these teeny chamber walls to endure.
Third of all tonight's autopsy confirms a new challenge, at least for me. Forcing fluid through the head, even gently, is also OUT.
Now on to what I saw:
The following damage illustrates the result of too much pressure applied while forcing cleaner through the head. The chamber deck floor is blown out. This missing floor gives a clear view of the enclosed reservoir that runs under the chamber deck. The broken piece of chamber deck laying on top of the chamber walls also gives a clear view of the electrics running across the bottom of it. This proves electric charge makes direct individual contact with each and every chamber wall, all along it's length. I can only speculate at this point but charging a chamber wall at just one end mostly likely wouldn't make it flex throughout it's entire length, which I suspect chamber walls do. Electrics running the full length of each wall supports my suspicion that the entire wall flexes, which creates positive pressure, which fires the "nozzle".
This next image illustrates what I suspect is the result of ultrasonic cleaning. Perhaps the vibration is just too much for the ends of the chamber walls - which extend out from the speedbump and into the main ink reservoir. It's either the pressure of the thick ink vibrating the wall to death, or the wall vibrating itself to death in the thick ink. Either way death is the result.
The third image, here, is most fascinating to me. Also exciting. Look at those short black lines lodged between some of the chamber walls. Those are more than black lines, they are the broken ends of the chamber walls. To me this confirms my theory that the ink flows from the main reservoir, over the speed bumps, and to the nozzle opening - because these chamber wall ends obviously got sucked in there as they followed the flow of ink. Sure, this is exciting, I guess. But this is not what I find fascinating. What I find fascinating is the fact that this is the green chamber, of the 9900 head with the entire green channel missing in nozzle patterns. Why am I so excited you ask? Because if the chamber wall ends got sucked into the chambers, GREEN INK WAS INDEED FLOWING (even though it was cyan in this test..)
Ladies and gentlemen, we (almost) cleared an un-clearable head.
This last image does not confirm any theories, instead it solves a mystery. Tonight I learned what the extra chamber walls which are not related to any nozzle openings, do. I also learned what the zig zag walls are on the OTHER side of the nozzle openings. I now think these secondary chamber walls are essentially pumps. I suspect they pump ink (or in this case "coolant") through the back side of the nozzle end of the chambers. The more I study the images, and illustrations that I have made, the more this new cooling theory makes sense.