Digital BW, The Print

Dan, 

if you had epson color cartridges in your 1280 you can take them out and
put them back as many times as you want with no problems.

Did you try squirting ammonia/water at a 1:9 ratio directly through the
nipples in the print head?  I've done this 3 times now and it has always
worked. The ammonia really does a great job of dissolving cruddy ink
deposits. I once got some cleaning cartridges from Media street, and the
chips must be bad, because I can't make a purge print with them in the
machine. Dialogue says "Can't make a printer connection". 

However you can clean the heads by just pressing the ink button and
holding for 3 seconds, so that worked.  But I prefer the ammonia method,
it's free and works!
I have a friend who has 2 1160 printers and both went bad at the same
time. (Banding). He used the ammonia and both his printers now are
working like new.

If you have an older CIS system, you may have to use ammonia to clear
the crud out of the tubes where they join the cartridges. This can be
really messy and a real hassle, but it will work, if you want to go
through all the trouble.   

I just got my 1280 up and running last night, after 3 defective CIS
cartridges. 

You might try Media Street's CIS system. It comes PRE primed, with the
ink in the cartridges. All you have to do is get a set of ink bottles ,
screw the tubes to the bottles, and release the valve, and bingo, you're
ready for printing.  With so many defective cartridges out there now (
They won't hold a vacuum), this might be the way to go. That is, IF
Media Street has the inkset you want to use.  They do not sell MIS VM
inks, or any other MIS inks.

The place I got the cartridges from tested a bunch of their cartridges
and found the entire batch defective. They sent me 3 new ones, and
finally I got one that worked perfectly. So maybe the bad ones are gone
now. 

If you can't clear the printheads with ammonia, I suspect your heads are
shot. How old are they and how much printing have you done with that printer?

Be sure you try the ammonia trick before discarding your printheads, it
has worked every time I've used it. 

And you also should clean the BOTTOM of your print heads by manually
dragging them over a paper towel dipped in the ammonia 1:9 solution. You
wring out the towel and fold it over and over to make it 1 inch by 12
inches. Put this in the trough where the print heads glide back and
forth. Send the cartridges to the left as if you were going to change
carts. Then turn off the printer by unplugging it. Then drag the heads
over the towel back and forth. It may take 3 towels to get all the gunk off.



Jerry

daintreeriver2002 wrote:
> 
> Jerry,
> 
> I followed your steps for cleaning the print heads of my Epson 1280.
> The cartridges that I'd removed were about 20% full (color) and maybe
> 40% full for black.  After the 4 head cleanings and running some
> purge print I went from getting a little bit of ink out to NONE at
> all.
> 
> My next step was to put in two of the new cartridges I just received
> yesterday from MIS (VM).  Of course, both the chips are bad because
> neither will work!!!! I'm extremely frustrated right now with MIS and
> its product.  Have to wait until Monday to call them, though!
> 
> What do you and everyone else advise?  Should I just bite the bullet
> and get the CIS system?  Then I don't have to deal with chips,
> right?  I'm so angry right now, I'm thinking of switching to Piezo so
> I don't have to do business with MIS anymore.
> 
> 
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