Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Mark Romine" <klick3@g...> 
wrote:
> What about if you pull the carts to clean the heads will this action 
also break the vacumm? 
>

No vacuum involved after carts full- but you could get air in the head 
and carts. You can remove air from the carts with a syringe and MIS 
"bottom fill adapter" using their recovery procedure for a CFS- should 
work for a CIS. Even if the ink isn't foamy, it can get out big air 
pockets, if by chance it is an issue.

 
> I have an unbelievable clog, worst I have ever seen in four or five 
years of printing with Epsons, even after soaking the parking pad with 
cleaner 
> and letting it stand overnite the same number of nozzels are still 
clogged this morning. This is an 1160 btw.
> 
> The way this whole problem started, I was getting decresing density 
in midtones almost to the point of getting posterization. I had not 
printed 
> much of anything in six to eight weeks,

If you were getting good nozzle checks, and if the ink was older than 
5 or 6 months, and if you had shaken the bottles up just a tad, 
then...

You might want to replace the inkset, it sounds like it may have 
problems, though I don't know which ink you're using. This condition 
was one of the main symptoms of DSS I discovered with the old Piezo 
inkset. At best I could only clear about 90% of the problem by 
inserting Epson carts. A couple people had more complete sucess by 
injecting Fantastik into the heads. In hindsight, I realized that I 
should of replaced the ink at that point, as the DSS only came back 
within two months.

Use your own discretion of course, inksets can be $$ to replace. And I 
would make sure all three conditions above have been met first. 

 thus I assumed that the 
heads were experiencing some build up.

This was the case with my DSS too, as inserting Epson carts 
temporarily cleared 90% of problem.  


 So I thought the heads needed 
cleaning, 
> pull the CIS carts and flushed each port with windex and a siringe. 
This resulted in nearly every nozzel being clogged, with cleaning 
cycles I have 
> now got about 70 to 75% of nozzels opened.

What did you use as ink/fluid to perform the cleaning cycles? I 
wouldn't reinstall the CIS with the pig ink. I also would not use 
cleaning carts. I would only use Epson carts.


 So I thought that I would 
try cleaning the tubbing and I bought new CIS carts, these are now 
> installed but no improvements on the clogggs.

Sounds like air in there- Epson carts/purge patterns could clear. Your 
pig ink has to be okay too though. You can run just one color purge 
pattern full page or all colors-files on MIS site.

> 
> Anyone any suggestions?

Okay, as suggestions, not as a font of absolute wisdom<g>:

Use Epson carts to flush out heads/with purge patterns. If on the off 
chance ink is bad as defined above consider replacing (this would also 
mean yet another replacement set of CIS carts). If you stay with the 
old CIS carts (punctured seal), this may help slightly... inserting a 
syringe with a bottom fill adapter into exit port, drawing out ink, 
dumping into bottle, repeating, etc- to remove excess air. Be carefull 
not to poke any filter/screen that may be near exit port in CIS cart 
when using bottom fill adapter, insert gently.
Jim H.


> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
>