Digital BW, The Print

I just picked up an Epson 7600.  It's had very little use, but it
hasn't been used in a few years.  Thus, I'm sure there's lots of gunk
in the print lines, dampers and heads.  I'd like to use the printer
with a BW inkset, or, if worse comes to worse, as a way to apply glop
to prints made on another machine. (I also have an Epson 4880.)  I
have a set of refillable cartridges for the 4880 filled with cleaning
solution.  Perhaps these might work in the 7600?

Before doing that, though, would it make sense to replace the ink
lines and/or the dampers?  On the face of it, it would seem best to
avoid trying to dissolve everything in them and running it through the
heads.  Should anything else be replaced before starting it up? Any
other tips? I do have the service manual.

Regards,
Peter

Peter,

> I just picked up an Epson 7600.  It's had very little use, but it
> hasn't been used in a few years...

That should be a good acquisition. 

What I have done with printers that have not been used for a long time is to put cleaning fluid in empty carts first, including adding a bit of ammonia in the form of some window cleaner ("Windex" with ammonia in the US).  With the 4000, I took the lines off where they connected to the dampers in the head assembly and pulled this cleaning solution through the tubes with a syringe.  The MIS bottom fill adapter worked fine to interface the syringe with the tubing.  The tubes cleaned up very nicely. (My hands took a bit more time to clean up.) I then re-attached the tubes to the dampers.  Before turning on the machine I allowed the head to sit for a day in Windex that had been put onto the parking pad.

When I did turn the printer on, the head seemed to clean out in a reasonably limited number of cleaning cycles and purge pattern prints.

A power cleaning seems to fully refresh the ink lines.  That is, pull enough ink through to replace what had sat in the line.

I doubt the 4880 carts will fit.  I assume the 4880 has pressurized carts that have a slightly different design.

Good luck with the "new" printer.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 



  Thus, I'm sure there's lots of gunk

> in the print lines, dampers and heads.  I'd like to use the printer
> with a BW inkset, or, if worse comes to worse, as a way to apply glop
> to prints made on another machine. (I also have an Epson 4880.)  I
> have a set of refillable cartridges for the 4880 filled with cleaning
> solution.  Perhaps these might work in the 7600?
> 
> Before doing that, though, would it make sense to replace the ink
> lines and/or the dampers?  On the face of it, it would seem best to
> avoid trying to dissolve everything in them and running it through the
> heads.  Should anything else be replaced before starting it up? Any
> other tips? I do have the service manual.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter
>

Thanks Paul.  Cleaning the lines as you suggest sounds like a very good
idea.  Do you think I should replace the dampers?  It doesn't look too
expensive to do so.

I see that there's some funnel fill cartridges on Ebay for a bit more than
$100.  Has anyone used these?


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

You may not need to replace the dampers.  I'd try the cleaning first and see if that is enough.  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "pdesmidt tds.net" <pdesmidt@...> wrote:

>
> Thanks Paul.  Cleaning the lines as you suggest sounds like a very good
> idea.  Do you think I should replace the dampers?  It doesn't look too
> expensive to do so.
> 
> I see that there's some funnel fill cartridges on Ebay for a bit more than
> $100.  Has anyone used these?
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>