Can I unscrew pro9000 print head?

[rodbam]

When I remove the carts I can see each colour on top of the inlet stub.
1. The German method with no tape over the small hole after filling.
2. I don't keep track but about 4oz has gone through each cart in just over 12 months. I'm now on my second order of of 4oz inks.
3. I did purge them when I got a Colormunki profiler about 6 months ago & I've just purged my spare set to try them out.
I do have top fill plugs in my carts & when I removed it on the PM cart I got quite a big blob of ink about every 3 seconds. I tried the Yellow cart & that seem to drip less of a blob every second or quicker. I refilled the spare purged PM cart & with the sponge very saturated with ink due to still being a bit damp it only dripped a big blob every 3 seconds.
Thanks for the good advice Joseph I seem to get very relaxed after my 3rd beer but I hope to clear up this problem soon as I fear I'll become an alcoholic

 

[Emulator]

I will reluctantly buy a new set of OEM carts (sniff sniff) & see if that is the problem.

Rod can you not buy a single PMagenta OEM cart from Amazon, as we can? Just for test purposes, you can always re-fill it later if you are concerned about the profile.

That is what I did, with my problem PCyan and it showed it up immediately.

Regards Ian

 

[Grandad35]

When I remove the carts I can see each colour on top of the inlet stub.
1. The German method with no tape over the small hole after filling.
2. I don't keep track but about 4oz has gone through each cart in just over 12 months. I'm now on my second order of of 4oz inks.
3. I did purge them when I got a Colormunki profiler about 6 months ago & I've just purged my spare set to try them out.
I do have top fill plugs in my carts & when I removed it on the PM cart I got quite a big blob of ink about every 3 seconds. I tried the Yellow cart & that seem to drip less of a blob every second or quicker. I refilled the spare purged PM cart & with the sponge very saturated with ink due to still being a bit damp it only dripped a big blob every 3 seconds.

4 Oz is about 120 CCs, and corresponds to about 10-15 refills. Although some people report never having to purge their refilled carts, my personal experience is that the ink flow in my carts slows down when they reach 6-10 refills.

I get cleanly formed drops of ink dripping from my carts, not "blobs". What does a blob look like? Is it foamed ink? Air bubbles in the ink, no matter how small, would obviously not be a good thing.

Edit---
I tried to get a photo of one of the ink drops, but had no luck at getting anything even remotely close to being in focus. I did verify, however, that the ink droplets were perfectly formed with no signs of air bubbles, and that when the ink splatters on the sink that there are no signs of bubbles. What do your drops look like when they hit a wet surface about 6-8" below the cart? Can you try taping over the refill hole and letting a number of drops come out to see if air is being pulled in at the refill hole? Air in the ink could explain the strange PM nozzle check in your last post.

If you use the German refill method, it is important to let the sponges completely dry out after purging to prevent ink from being pulled up into the sponges too far.

As was also suggested, trying a new OEM cart would also tell you if the ink supply is the problem.

 

[stratman]

If you use the German refill method, it is important to let the sponges completely dry out after purging to prevent ink from being pulled up into the sponges too far.

Sponges do not have to be dry before refilling nor does one necessarily need worry if the entire sponge becomes colored by ink on refill after a purge.

A completely dry sponge may inhibit uptake of ink by the sponge. Pharmacist's conditioning solution with glycerol is said to return the hydrophilic nature of dried out sponges.

An entirely colored sponge is not a problem. All my sponges are color saturated and the cartridges refill and print appropriately. Ink pooling above the sponge or entering air channels may be problematic, though.

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

If you use the German refill method, it is important to let the sponges completely dry out after purging to prevent ink from being pulled up into the sponges too far.

No, not at all. I still vacuum fill by the Freedom Method, and my sponges are chock full, with as much air out of them as I can get. (Then I let it drip and draw out a little more ink to make sure the sponge is not overfilled. Sometimes I even have to clean the vent.) But there is absolutely no problem with filling a sponge. They're made to be filled.

Mikling posted a series of photos in which he opened a cartridge for experimentation, and completely soaked the sponge--upper sponge included. The cartridge still delivered ink perfectly.

On the other hand, Canon noted in one of their patents that a completely dry sponge will not soak up much ink.

 

[joseph1949]

Based on the replies on this thread we have a problem on how to fill a purged cart.

I have a suggestion or two, but first let us make some assumptions:

1. We have a problem with a cart.

2. We decide to purge (clean/flush) the cart to resolve the problem.

Note: Here resolve means I hope this works.

3. We used distilled water for the final flush.

4. We believe that purging the cart has corrected the problem.

5. We use the paper-towel-wick method to dry the cart. The drying process is done at room temperature.

6. Let us assume that the cart is bone dry and we fill the cart with ink. So, what do we do next? Here are the possibilities:

A. After we fill the cart and making sure there are no leaks from the cart we place the cart into the print head and perform a nozzle test.

B. After we fill the cart and making sure there are no leaks from the cart we place the cart into the print head and wait for 8+ hours. We then perform a nozzle test.

C. After we fill the cart and making sure there are no leaks from the cart we replace the orange cap on the ink outlet (and cover the air vent if that is your will). With the cart prepped we place the cart in a safe place (outside the printer, please) in the horizontal position. The cart is in this position for at least 8 hours (longer is better). After the 8 hours we remove the cap (and the vent tape if necessary) and we check for leaks. With no leaks we place the cart into the print head and we proceed to perform a nozzle test.

Note: In 6B we are stabilizing the cart inside the printer. In 6C we are stabilizing the cart outside the printer. Because we are working with a purged cart I believe it is safer to stabilizing the cart outside of the printer. There are too many unknowns with a purged cart. It is better to be safe(r) than sorry!!!! Thus, we stabilize outside the printer.

If you stabilize outside the printer you should place a cart in the print head to take the place of the purged cart. The reason for doing this is that we want to keep the inlet from drying out. Eight plus hours is too long to keep the inlet uncovered.

7. Let us assume that the cart is not bone dry. This time we drip dry the cart. Maybe you are thinking drip drying is not enough. You then can use the paper-towel-wick method to remove some more of the distilled water. The idea here is to work with a cart that is not bone dry. After drying the cart we fill the cart with ink. So, what do we do next? Here are the possibilities:

We do what we see in 6A, 6B, and 6C.

Note: Some of you may be wondering what happen to pharmacists conditioning solution with glycerol? I have not used the solution in #6 or #7 because as good as the solution may be it is an unknown. If you like, you can use the solution on a bone dry cart and a cart that is not bone dry.

The purpose of this reply is to find a way to get a purged cart to perform correctly in the simplest manner possible and to do this in the safest way possible. I believe if we use time to stabilize a cart outside the printer with no conditioning solution we can get a cart that will perform correctly without having to jump through a lot of loops. You should experiment using the time method on a bone dry cart and on a cart that is not bone dry. You can use the conditioning solution with the time method if you wish. The solution may make the time method work betteryour call.

Like I have said beforelet time be your friend!!!!!!!!!

Thank you.

 

[rodbam]

Thanks everyone for your good advice, I've learnt a lot out of this drama. I think the first thing I've learnt is to not use a syringe to force liquids through the print head. I found it took some pressure to get the liquids to start flowing.
After my first few head soaks & using the syringe I noticed the next time I took the head out I could see ink around the white parts of the head, I didn't worry about this because I thought the ink was just tracking there after a deep head clean because of the Windex residues.
Then Mike posted about being very careful about applying force to the syringe because of separating the glues in the print head which I read after doing at least two lots of cleaning & syringing. Anyhow I have buggered up the head with the manly way I use the syringe which makes my decision to buy a new print head completely justified now
Here's a few shots of the leak which after a few deep head cleans uses up half of my green ink. Now the head is buggered I might try & put glue around the outside to see if the leak will stop as the green ink doesn't seem to be affecting any other colours, mind you & PM problem is still there but it might be interesting just to see if the glue works.
It looks like ink is flowing to the stubs.

The green ink leak

 

[Emulator]

Hi Rod

Very sorry to see the bad news. An educational set of photos for the rest of us.

If the print head is finally dead, I hope you will not leave it there, but when, (if), you feel inclined, you will unscrew the pro9000 print head and complete the set of photos of the inside. It's the bit no one sees, but all wonder about!

Kind regards

Ian

 

[rodbam]

Gday Emu. I must have blown the head gaskets very early on by using the syringe. Even though you might be as careful as can be it seems to take a lot of pressure to force liquids through the head. Maybe I went too far because I wanted to see the spray pattern to compare with the videos on YouTube so maybe we should just syringe so only little blobs of water come out instead of a spray pattern.
My main surprise is that 99.9% of my syringing was done on the PM ink inlet but it's only the green that is leaking & it doesn't seem to be contaminating any other colour & it can still print great looking B&Ws.
When I get my new head I will take the print head apart & then post a tutorial on how to bugger up a head in two easy steps

 

[Emulator]

Hi Rod

Oh well if you can do your B&W!!

What does a nozzel check show now?

I was thinking Rod, how old are your inks? It might be wise to get a new batch of squeezies before you install the new print head. We don't want history repeating itself.

Regards Ian