Digital BW, The Print

You don't mention using a CIS but carts. I really don't know what's
wrong but I'm going to give give a flying guess, so take that as a
disclaimer. Also, I never needed to clean my 1280 under head, but did
have some practice on my 1160's:

I've always felt that cleaning under the heads clears up blotting and
more importantly, dirt/hairs/sludging ink. So when I don't see
hairs/sludge on towel anymore, I stop. I always did the paper towel
trick with Photo-Wipes btw, less likely to tear and less lint. And
always with carts INSTALLED.

I never considered the trick to clear up clogs, just misdirected
nozzle firing under head, and sometimes, but not always: ink
"spitting". Ink blobbing I learned, could be caused by other things.

When I loaded my own carts for the 1280 with MIS hextones, I had
problems when changing carts NOT related to dirty heads. INK SPITTING.
I would only get this when installing fresh self- filled "vigin MIS"
carts. It went away soon but created a mess. At least one other person
had this experience I recall.

This would not happen with a CIS, since you don't change carts (much).
I was changing carts all the time on my 1280.

My solution, immediately after installing carts and letting printer go
through charging cycle, was to do three cleaning cycles in a row...I
didn't even do nozzle checks- I had to minimise the time that carriage
was over printing bed.

After three cleaning cycles I then put a heavyweight matte paper in
1280 and printed a purge pattern. If it started to blob, I mean more
than the paper could handle, usually at far end of a pass, I'd
immediately cancel print, or in emergencies...pull plug...anything to
get it to return to parking pad (of course I then plugged it back in
and either turned off properly).

I don't recall what I did if it blobbed up terribly on the purge
print, after I got the head back- maybe run one more cleaning cycles
or turn off for awhile. The three initial cycles usually got rid of
the air in head that I theorised was causing the "spitting ink", and
after the purge print I was just fine, or else the blobbing was modest
and cleared up during purge print.

If I was right in my theory, air in head causes ink spitting. So
changing to a new non-Epson cart or leaving cart out for a time (? I
never did this...) would cause head to spit out air+ink.

So my wild idea is you don't have a dirty head-paper towel problem but
air in head problem caused by new carts  and /or not having carts in
place then installing new ones.

Also, I might check your parking pad to see how gunked up it is. You
can irrigate it with your favorite solution (Windex, Fantastik,
40%ethanol+60%distilled water), and soak up with a radio Shack foam
pad...repeat until clean. The foam swab can also swab the pad rubber
perimeter of gunk, to insure a better seal.

Apologies for length, and remember, I repeat this is only a thought I
had based on my own problems installing carts in 1280...and this was
with the older MIS ink- a different animal.

Jim Hayes
 



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Ranyart"
<dilcher@y...> wrote:
> Looks like ink is bleeding out from the print heads.  Some people
> encounter this when they have external ink wells that are raised up to
> high.  Happened to me once.  Could this be the issue?
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mike Sommers
> <mike@s...> wrote:
> > Hiya Folks,
> > 
> > Following some great advice from folks on this forum, I was able to 
> > temporarily clean up the mess on my 1280 print heads by placing a 
> > Windex-soaked paper towel under my heads, and running the carriage
back 
> > and forth over the towel.
> > 
> > Here's an example illustrating the kind of mess I'm talking about:
> > http://www.sinfin.com/smudges.jpg
> > 
> > I was very surprised at how much ink was under there. I actually
> used up 
> > about 8 separate "Windex-soaked paper towel pads" before the
amount of 
> > ink coming off the heads wasn't too bad. (I had removed the ink 
> > cartridges, by the way).
> > 
> > After some windex to clean the parking pad, a good night's rest and a 
> > couple of nozzle cleanings the prints coming out of the 1280 were 
> > problem-free...
> > 
> > until last night, the same pattern of blotches re-appeared.
> > 
> > I've ordered a fresh set of UT-2 cartridges from MIS, in case they
are 
> > involved in the problem, but I'm going to have to go back in there
and 
> > clean out all the excess ink on the heads again.
> > 
> > My question is... at what point do I stop moving the print head
> carriage 
> > back and forth over the Windex-soaked paper towel pads? When there is 
> > absolutely zero ink showing up on the paper towels? or is it okay to 
> > stop when there is still a little bit of ink showing up on the paper
> towels.
> > 
> > I'm hoping that the next Windex treatment will be the last one for a
> while.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Mike