Digital BW, The Print

In the past I recall reading much about nozzle clogs. I should have 
payed more attention. I think I have my first clog. When I print a 
nozzle check the cyan bars have missing lines. I have run the color 
cleaning utility about 5 times. It still has missing bars. It is an 
Epson 3000 and refilled MIS ink. What is the best approach to fixing.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "wilfred71118" 
<wilfredm@b...> wrote:
> In the past I recall reading much about nozzle clogs. I should have 
> payed more attention. I think I have my first clog. When I print a 
> nozzle check the cyan bars have missing lines. I have run the color 
> cleaning utility about 5 times. It still has missing bars. It is an 
> Epson 3000 and refilled MIS ink. What is the best approach to 
fixing.

I don't own an 3000 so I guess all the rules may not apply that I 
learned. So that's a bit of a disclaimer. But a couple things off the 
bat.

Don't do more than two or three cleanings in a row! It will only get 
worse, and you will lose ink, and possibly flood the pads and get 
excess ink splattered around. I do at most two these days on my 1280. 
Then I put a few drops of Fantastik, 40:60 ethanol to water, Windex, 
etc to what I think are two (in 3000), not one pad as in the 1160 and 
1280 on the right hand  side. This procedure is very common and 
documented all over, search Cone's site for example, or the posts 
here. You send the head to the left and put three-5 drops or so on the 
pad, then send printer back and turn off for six hours minimum. There 
are tricks beyond these, but this first one has a high sucess rate.

Educate yourself as to what tricks work for what symptoms. For example 
the towel under the head trick works best for ink blobs and lines that 
jump up or down in nozzle pattern. Learn to recognise a clog from a 
possible air bubble. Air bubbles tend to generate more gaps as you do 
cleanings and the missing lines tend to trade around. Real clogs tend 
to be the same line in the pattern not printing out over and over. 
Your 3000 should be less prone to clogs because the nozzles are bigger 
than more recent printers.

You mention a "refilled" MIS cart. I have never used a refilled cart 
on any of my printers, just never got around to it. I just fill virgin 
carts. I don't know if that could be a problem. You don't state 
whether you just installed it or not. So I cannot help there.
Jim H.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "jimhayes361" 
<jimhayes@j...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "wilfred71118" 
> <wilfredm@b...> wrote:
> > In the past I recall reading much about nozzle clogs. I should 
have 
> > payed more attention. I think I have my first clog. When I print 
a 
> > nozzle check the cyan bars have missing lines. I have run the 
color 
> > cleaning utility about 5 times. It still has missing bars. It is 
an 
> > Epson 3000 and refilled MIS ink. What is the best approach to 
> fixing.
> 
> I don't own an 3000 so I guess all the rules may not apply that I 
> learned. So that's a bit of a disclaimer. But a couple things off 
the 
> bat.
> 
> Don't do more than two or three cleanings in a row! It will only 
get 
> worse, and you will lose ink, and possibly flood the pads and get 
> excess ink splattered around. I do at most two these days on my 
1280. 
> Then I put a few drops of Fantastik, 40:60 ethanol to water, 
Windex, 
> etc to what I think are two (in 3000), not one pad as in the 1160 
and 
> 1280 on the right hand  side. This procedure is very common and 
> documented all over, search Cone's site for example, or the posts 
> here. You send the head to the left and put three-5 drops or so on 
the 
> pad, then send printer back and turn off for six hours minimum. 
There 
> are tricks beyond these, but this first one has a high sucess rate.
> 
> Educate yourself as to what tricks work for what symptoms. For 
example 
> the towel under the head trick works best for ink blobs and lines 
that 
> jump up or down in nozzle pattern. Learn to recognise a clog from a 
> possible air bubble. Air bubbles tend to generate more gaps as you 
do 
> cleanings and the missing lines tend to trade around. Real clogs 
tend 
> to be the same line in the pattern not printing out over and over. 
> Your 3000 should be less prone to clogs because the nozzles are 
bigger 
> than more recent printers.
> 
> You mention a "refilled" MIS cart. I have never used a refilled 
cart 
> on any of my printers, just never got around to it. I just fill 
virgin 
> carts. I don't know if that could be a problem. You don't state 
> whether you just installed it or not. So I cannot help there.
> Jim H.


> Thanks for the info, I did the windex thing on the parking pads. 
Left it overnight. This morining it still has the missing space. The 
missing space is always in the same place but sometimes that missing 
space is a little wider and messed up than the previous test. The 
first run was with the original Epson carts. When they ran out I 
filled virgin carts with MIS ink and these carts should be 3/4 or so 
full. . The bar that is broken up is the cyan bar. I guess that means 
the cyan nozzle. I have printed a purge chart for cyan. I am a little 
puzzled though. The color of the printout of the cyan purge is 
purple. I thought that the printer would only try and print from the 
cyan cart if the image on the monitor was cyan. I seemes that magenta 
is being added because of the obvious purple color not cyan.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "wilfred71118" 
<wilfredm@b...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "jimhayes361" 
> <jimhayes@j...> wrote:

> > Thanks for the info, I did the windex thing on the parking pads. 
> Left it overnight. This morining it still has the missing space. The 
> missing space is always in the same place but sometimes that missing 
> space is a little wider and messed up than the previous test.

Yeah, a clog I'd bet. What is the humidity in the room and how often 
do you run the printer? I find that if I keep humidity at about 40%RH 
 and I turn the printer on once a day at least and print a quick draft 
MIS purge print at 360 dpi, my 1280 stays healthy.

 The 
> first run was with the original Epson carts. When they ran out I 
> filled virgin carts with MIS ink and these carts should be 3/4 or so 
> full. . The bar that is broken up is the cyan bar. I guess that 
means 
> the cyan nozzle. I have printed a purge chart for cyan.

Yes, that is the next thing after the parking pad trick I would 
try...running just the color that is clogged purge- MIS of course has 
these files. It sounds like you're running MIS color ink, in that case 
you might be running dye instead of pigment ink. Dye ink on a 
3000...shouldn't really clog. I forget if MIS has  a color pig(?).


 I am a 
little 
> puzzled though. The color of the printout of the cyan purge is 
> purple. I thought that the printer would only try and print from the 
> cyan cart if the image on the monitor was cyan. I seemes that 
magenta 
> is being added because of the obvious purple color not cyan.

Surprise! Yep, that's right. Print the six color purge page from MIS, 
and usually, well sometimes anyway, it's mixing colors a bit on each 
stripe. It depends a lot on driver settings and the color MIS 
originally put in the file, I don't know, I'm not an expert in color 
matching.

I learned this when I had one nozzle go completely out in the middle 
of a purge print, yet another ink was printing faintly in it's place!

If you have the problem I think you do, and I'm working from 
incomplete info, if you can't get the nozzle back from printing a full 
 one color purge print or two, the next thing do do is put a NEW set 
of Epson carts in, or, since I know they're expensive on an 3000, if 
you can get the old Epson carts back in and working (problematic on an 
1160), then run a six color purge, maybe one cyan purge, repeat a 
couple- to a few times. Then let the thing rest over night. Then 
repeat. After two or three days, that Epson ink will be really going 
through there. Many people have had sucess clearing clogs this way- 
including me. The OEM ink seems to act as a solvent of sorts.


I'm also starting to think the towel under the head/ windex trick 
might be in order since we're starting to run out of simple things to 
try. Worth a shot before you spend more $$ on carts. I wouldn't have 
thought it as a first thing to try, though.
If all this doesn't work, you get more radical.
Hope that gets you going.
Jim H.