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A broken epson R2100 A3 photo printer

Can I work miracles, we will see tomorrow!

And the customer says “I have only every used original epson ink” Hmmm (just because they are recycled epson cartridges doesn’t mean they are filled with epson ink, probably just water and pigment, not oil base ink, for a guess). This printer was purchased second-hand from eBay and the customer told me it has never really worked properly since they got it, and the next photo shows why. The ink waste pipe has disconnected its self and the filter pad is bone dry, which would suggest that the ink hasn’t flowed though the head for a long time.

Anyway I had to strip it down to get to the bottom of the printer, super glued the pipe together. (hope it holds, will find out tomorrow if it has worked) the head is on soak in a head cleaning solution. As a note when I inspected the waste ink pads, I could see that the printer has hardly been used.

What a waste!

This entry was posted by MarkNHewitt on March 27, 2009 at 12:11 am, and is filed under My Work, Printers. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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#1 written by Mark Hewitt 3 years ago

It worked and the printer is fine with a new set of cartridges

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#2 written by Michael 2 years ago

Hi, I’ve recently acquired an Epson R1800 that the previous owner claimed was working up until they replaced the exhausted genuine ink carts with cheap replacements (print rite and another make). Since getting it I tried all the Epson cleaning utilities over and over, rinsing through two sets of each cart (there are 8 on this model). Some colours that were working have stopped working, one of the blacks has been consistently working throughout, whilst all the other colours have this constantly missing band through the middle, somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0cms wide, the beginning and end of the blocks of colour on the “auto head cleaning” pattern, the one that takes ages and uses loads of ink, are printing perfectly at the start and end but missing this massive band in the middle. Some of the lines look quite jiggly, that is consistent, not random. I’ve tried new carts and squirting meth through the head with a syringe as well as soaking both the ink pointy bits with the tiny holes and the head itself in methylated spirit for hours, to no avail. Could you please help me? I have no idea where to go from here, or if it’s even salvageable. I know soaking in Meth doesn’t sound very health for the delicate print head, but these are the extremes to which I have stretched in my desperation, it doesn’t seem to have harmed the head anymore than it already was. Can this really be just cheap ink that’s caused it?

Thanks in advance.

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#3 written by Mark Hewitt 2 years ago

Hi Michael

Blocked Nozzles can be caused by a few different things, but the main things to looked at is the black rubber wiper blade and the head suction seat also rubber (make sure there not dirty), another thing to look at is to make sure the waste pipe is not blocked, this can be checked by filling the head suction seat with fluid and checking to see if it empties with a head clean, if it doesn’t you will have to strip the printer down to remove the solids from the waste pipe (not an easy job).

Also its not a good idea to inject any fluids into the head as this can cause major damage. Print heads are very expensive to replace, sometimes costing more than a new replacement printer.

ultimately cheap ink can damage the print heads, the Epson piezo print head nozzles are microscopically small, the cheap ink is water with pigment in a bag, while the Epson ink is oil based with compartments in the ink cartridge to stir the ink while in motion, also mixing different ink makes can cause reactions

Hope any of this information helps

Mark

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