Digital BW, The Print

Hi Richard,

I really appreciate your expertise and help. You, Ernst, and John 
Vitillo have been invaluable to my understanding of all this 
mechanical stuff.

What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me in reagard to the 
suction of the lines and subsequent ink flow into the heads. If I 
hadn't manually brought the ink up into the dampers with a syringe, 
the hoses might still be empty and full of air.

I am positive that the lines are clear from the carts, which are 
epson dye and good, to the new dampers. What I do not understand is 
how the overflow ink dump lines work that take the excess head 
cleaning ink into the pads below. I want to now go into them and see 
if they are clogged. I suspect they might be because eventhough I've 
done numerous initial fills and KK2 procedures there is still plenty 
of ink in the carts!  It would make sense to me that those overflow 
need to be flushed out also but I don't have a clue as to how to do 
that. Is that info described in the manual? If the white lines on the 
righ end of the printer by the head station ARE clogged,whould that 
stop the heads from filling up too?

Before I decided to install the Piezzo inkset I had used the Lyson 
Quad and Small Gamut inksets in this printer only. I never had a 
problem with them for 3.5 years. They are the only inksets I used in 
this printer. I had no real cloggs before, but as Jon Cone has 
pointed out, when Lyson inks hit Carbon pigments a stubborn jelly is 
created that mucks up everything. My Generations carts did't get rid 
of it all obviously.

I haven't given up on this machine because generally it is like new 
and hasn't been used all that much yet. The wast pads down under are 
very clean and solid. If I can solve this printer I will have learned 
a lot and then might consider setting up a used 9500 with the Piezzo 
inks also.I hope to be the most enthuastic advocate of this process 
in the state of Georgia. But I've got to get some large prints done 
first before I rave about them on my website. The results on my two 
small printers sure have been outstanding to say the least.

Still at it to the bitter end,

John



> Hi John,
> 
> I think by the time you're through with this head maintenance, 
you're
> definitely going to be one of our resident experts on the 7000 ;>) 
> Sorry to hear it's being so uncooperative and giving you such grief,
> though. The "school of hard knocks" is definitely a rough course, 
but
> in the end, it's a good one.
> 
> Couple of things:
> 
> 1. I wouldn't spend any more money on inks or cleaning fluids until
> you've gone through a couple of more steps and you see something
> happening on paper that tells you the heads are firing. You've had
> some good advice on this already from others -- what you can use for
> substitute cleaning fluids, not putting your Piezo inks into the
> breech yet, etc.
> 
> 2. Glad the capping station alignment seemed to solve part of the
> problem for you. However, I wondered if you followed that process
> through to completion -- have you actually observed the system 
pulling
> ink from the capping stations and dumping it into the waste pads
> during your init and KK2 cycles?
> 
> It's not that I think a problem there would prevent your heads from
> firing even a dot of ink onto the paper during your nozzle checks if
> your feedlines are actually clear, your dampers filled, screens 
clear,
> etc. Rather, it's more in the spirit of knowing that fluid is freely
> flowing "end to end" through your system and under its own steam. 
> 
> You can test this by wetting the capping station and seeing if that
> fluid is being pulled down through the pump and dumped onto the 
pads.
> Initially, you don't necessarily have to pull ink through the heads,
> and you can even actuate the pump manually -- then, if that looks 
good
> I'd park the heads and make sure you're seeing the same free flow.
> 
> Given how stubborn this system is acting, I'm just suggesting it's
> prudent to make sure that the entire path from "cart to waste pad" 
is
> clear, unobstructed, pumps working properly, etc. This shouldn't 
take
> too much time.
> 
> 3. If that all looks good -- and you can definitely ascertain that 
the
> fluid in your carts (whatever that may be) is being pulled through 
the
> system and dumping onto your waste pads, then you're back to the
> question of the heads themselves -- but not until then.
> 
> 4. All this may seem like overkill -- but you're not reporting any
> error messages on your control panel, so electronic failure isn't at
> the top of the list. Not that the self-diagnostics rule out every
> possiblity there, but you just want to be sure that less complex
> mechanical systems are doing their part first.
> 
> 5. Last question here -- and my apologies if I missed this info from
> an earlier part in your posting, but it's very important:
> 
> Exactly what was the printer doing -- or not doing -- before you
> embarked on the head replacement process? Was it printing at all?
> Please describe a bit about it's "pre-maintenance state".
> 
> Hang in there, John! You'll get this puppy printing beautiful Piezo
> prints before long...
> 
> Regards,
> Richard
> 
>  
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "john dean"
> <deanwork2003@y...> wrote:
> > 
> > I've installed the heads and brought the Epson dye  ink into the 
new
> dampers. There is 
> > plenty of ink in the carts and lines and dampers.
> > 
> > Then did the initializing of the head numbers. Then did initial
> fill. Then cleaned etc.
> > 
> > There is plenty of ink in the lines and dampers but I can get NO
> nozzle check at all. Not 
> > even the hint of a nozzle line. This has gone on all day.
> > 
> > I sincerely don't think the pump would choose this particular time
> to go out. When I do a 
> > head cleaning the pump sounds like it is working fine. Something 
in
> the head is not right I 
> > guess. Checked it three times.
> > 
> > Any suggestions?
> > 
> > John