3880 head won't go side to side. Hangs in middle.

[W. Fisher]

I would suggest, whatever you do, to free the working area as much as possible - You must see the problem and make the right decision on what and how to do the gluing. Tools not to forget. Coffee breaks and thinking helps.

Anyhow - if You intended to change the printing head - You should perhaps do more dissembling than this.

In this Youtube film I see a aluminum bar behind the print head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSQbhQbEvd8

I presume that the thingy you are going to glue is under that bar. It seems as there some screws on top of that bar.
Could You study them and try to loosen them to come into/near Your working area for gluing?

AND - if it's there - changing just the print head does not help Your problem - You must then mend that part anyhow! So do not change print head until You have studied and solved what that thingy does and how it's mounted.

Edit: I see that it's the carriage to be switched. It seems anyhow that the bar I talked about above hinder the access to the working area.

I see that gray bar around 5:30 mark that shows a couple of screws in it on top of the carriage area, although the parts manual shows five screws holding it on in total. I think that's what goes on top of the part that broke off. Must be some sort of slide for the top part of the carriage that slides beneath it. The white gear must link up to all those gears on the right panel side for something. Why it has a spring holding it down, unless it is some sort of brake to keep it from freely turning, I don't know. Seems it pushed the black broken piece up and away from the carriage and maybe why it busted off. Dunno.

What he shows taking 9-10 minutes seems more like a full day or two. He does get brutal with the ribbon cables around the print head when he takes it out. The carriage looks like more has to be dismantled on the right side for it to come off the lower chrome rails too. Maybe the entire capping station comes off.

Given how far he takes it, don't know if I'd trust gluing it back together verses the new carriage. Might glue the old one as a backup in case this happens again and stick the new on in.

Anyhoo, looks like lotsa fun! (NOT!)

W.F.

 

[berserk]

Theory : That metal finger might a friction break keeping the white wheel in "exact" position after some calibrating.

 

[W. Fisher]

Part showed up from China to USA, from the date from whenever I ordered it on here (Aug. 26,2018). About 9-10 days given the Labor Day holiday.

Seems the new print-head carrying part of the carriage sticks a bit on sliding up and down, but maybe it will break in. Used a bit of dry silicon oil on the outer and inner parts of the carriage. Thing must have seven springs on it. I'm still thinking a head strike broke or cracked the upper right part off with the flat silver spring sometime ago.

I do see a little cam on the bottom right with a lever that must adjust the tilt of the head left and right viewing from the front. Another lever is on the top and must be the tilt of the head to and fro from the front. Guess it really needs to be parallel to the paper given the size of the head.

I think I'll mike all the cams and see how they compare to the old one once it is out of the printer. Given where they are, I hope they are factory set...maybe.

The white gear is what looks like it lifts the head maybe for the platen gap and maybe also for parking on the capping station. The flat brake spring that broke off the old one and jammed it up must be to keep the head at the same height passing over the paper. It turns two cams that lift the head part of the carriage and turns some cutout wheel on the left side between two sensors that must be some positioning wheel. Looks like the axle for the thing is adjustable by two cam bearings (green screws) to maybe set some pre-determined height for the lift part.

Couple of oil-lite bronze bearings on the back that ride on the chrome rail in the printer. They have a felt seal or pad on them too.

Lots of stuff in the $85 (Incl. postage) thing.

Not looking forward to getting into the thing as it looks far deeper than the video above. Might take it outside to patio where brighter sunlight is and in case the thing spits ink all over the place.

W.F.

 

[berserk]

Puh...that time and excitement could be used on other more creative things.
God Luck!

 

[W. Fisher]

Five hours and got the bloody carriage thing installed.

But now the LCD display won't light up! Power comes on and makes sounds like it is working and head moves again. Suspect the ribbon cable to LCD is messed up. Thing is a mess of ribbon cables and a lot of them are bent into special Origami shapes to snake around inside the thing.

Also, found out you need a Go/No-Go feeler gauge in 0.90mm and 1.00mm to adjust the carriage height of the print-head sliding over the bottom tray. Have to do it with the top cover off and raise or lower the two green-screw cams equally (Now I know what the green screws do!).

Why the heck it takes so much effort to get the silly thing apart is too much. Don't need to take out the ink tank assembly or carts, just take out the dampener/hose manifold off the print head and bag it aside. Do the same for the head and leave it connected with all its ribbon cables and bag it while working on the carriage part. Have to get the right side metal cover off to slide it off the rail.

The capping station was plugged up with ink goo in the bottom center part where the two hoses drain to the maintenance tank. Same goo was stuck under the edges of the print head. Took 99% alcohol to get the stuff cleaned out with some scrapping. No doubt the amount of crude around the print head's frame might leave streaks on prints as it had paper fibers buried in it. The rubber wiper was also covered with the inky sludge. The pigment ink must congeal a lot more than dye ink.

Anyway, I will attack the damn thing tomorrow as the cover has to come off "again" for the feeler gauge clearance test. Need to get some contact cleaner for the ribbon cable socket, and find a metric feeler gauge too.

I guess they are right about the thing taking two days to fix - if you are unfamiliar with it. When you think you got it fixed, you don't.

W.F.

 

[W. Fisher]

Success! Working again. LCD lit up right after a brief brush of the ribbon cable contacts with a fiberglass scratch brush. One maintenance cleaning seems to have brought it all back to good nozzle checks again after have been disassembled (Maybe some air in line prior.).

Windows 10 must have done some recent USB 3.0 update though as with the pair of 3880's running via a Y-adapter out of the computer's USB port, it didn't recognize the printer on reinstalling. It used to work okay, but when I ran the Windows Troubleshooter it reported: "This printer is designed for for USB 2.0 and may not work on USB 3.0" and dunno why it says that as only thing I did was plug it back into the same USB cable as before. Nothing changed other than being unplugged for two weeks and Windows Update doing something odd.

I can get it to work, but it seems a hassle now for whatever the recent Windows update did in the past two weeks to the USB port configuration. Used to say Epson 3880 and Epson 3880 (Copy 1) for the two names.

Oh well, least it works!

W.F.

 

[berserk]

NOW - do not touch it!

 

[The Hat]

NOW - do not touch it!

 

[W. Fisher]

NOW - do not touch it!

haha!

Already did by printing with it this AM. Loaded up the ink carts and changed the maintenance cart. All seems well and the USB worked as it should too. Nozzle checks 100% good.

Wish I had the "Epson Service Program" to further tune it, maybe better than factory. Found one on some Russian site for $20 but don't know as one said it needed Windows XP.

Oh well. Least it prints again.

I did re-glue the piece that busted off the old carriage. I'll keep it as a spare. I suspect it was a bad head strike that broke it or fatigued it. I had some 320gm paper that had a really bad edge curl and the head slammed into it once and pushed it to one side with a lot of noise, but that was a year ago and seemed to work okay until the piece snapped off.

I probably should have replaced the belt while in there too, but didn't think about it. It would require another complete tear down to get the thing attached to the rear of the carriage. Maybe another two days shot, or maybe one now that I've been into it.

I did find a 20-22 inch long Phillips head #2 driver (Harbor Freight Tools for $5) to help with accessing some of the screws too. Not mentioned in the video. Has to pass through some holes in the sides to get to the screws deep on other side. The 6" Phillips was too short around the capping station area to get it out.

Oh, the two pads over the capping station drain a lot better now too since I unplugged the inky goo at the bottom hole where the two pump hoses exit to the maintenance tank. If I fill the pads with a syringe full of alcohol like a pool, it drains out pretty quick now. Prior, the alcohol would sit there like a pool and not drain through the pump as the exit was plugged. I was surprised at the amount of sticky goo plugging it up and all around the frame that holds the print head too (Which probably leaves streaks on prints.). Don't know if this is a problem with thicker pigment inks verses dye inks.



W.F.

 

[The Hat]

I did re-glue the piece that busted off the old carriage. I'll keep it as a spare.

This is where a 3D printer comes in mighty handy..