Epson 3880 not printing and no ink flow after cleaning dampers and black ink valve...

[JayDecker]

After getting all the nozzles on my 3880 to fire with cleanings using piezoflush, the black valve appeared to stop working. I disassembled the 3880, washed the dampers and black valve out with warm water. After reinstalling the cleaned damper assembly, I ran 4 power cleaning cycles to refill the system and printed a nozzle check. Nothing printed. As best I can tell there is no ink flow of piezoflush cleaning solution to the dampers.

Any suggestions regarding what to do at this point?

 

[W. Fisher]

I'm unclear as to what you did.

You said you did four cleaning cycles to refill. Did any of that hit the capping station and make its way to the maintenance tank?

Did you unplug the two cables to the printhead or not? One may not be fully seated if you pulled them off. I use DeOoxit Gold (Music shops carry it for plugs and jacks.) on the ends and it helps push them on and then it's all dried off by the time I get it together. Supposedly helps with the contacts. I didn't get the one that goes to the right side of the LCD board pushed in once and it gave me some grief on starting up.

How did you feed the Piezoflush? All carts at once, or use one cart and rotated it between the each ink cart holder?

Does the pump sound like it is spinning up and pumping on the left side when it starts up? Unplugged?

If the ink was old, water may make the sludgy ink very hard to clean out. I've always used something stronger like 91% alcohol to dissolve the old sludgy ink. Seems the stuff builds up on the silver cover that holds the print-head together on the bottom and it will leave blots on the paper if it fills with paper fibers and debris. In one case I had to resort to brake cleaner or contact cleaner, but some of that stuff can dissolve some plastics depending on the contents so test first. It will loosen up the ink though. If sludgy, it might need to be scrapped off as the gooey stuff is tough.

Wiggle the carts when it's on and see if the LCD display flashes an error. Might have to use the DeOxit on the cart connections or shim the bottom of the carts up to make contact. A couple of my refillables have a piece of felt under them for that reason.

Good luck.

W.F.

 

[JayDecker]

Thank you for responding. Here are the responses to your questions:

1. Not a drop from the cleaning cycles hit the maintenance tank.
2. I put peizoflush in the print head with a syringe and the print head printed that fluid out. Then ran a cleaning cycle and nothing more came out of the print head. Seem nothing is making past the dampers.
3. Have a full set of carts for peizoflush.
4. The pump sounds normal and you can hear carts inflate after taking the pressure off and reconnecting hose, so there appears to be pressure to the carts.

Additional information from today:
1. Peizoflush flow easily from the carts through the hose to the damper header.
2. It seem like peizoflush is not able to flow into and through the dampers. I tried sucking on a damper with a syringe and couldn’t get any flow into the dampers, even with the cart air hose removed. Is there some trick getting flow through the dampers? (I just flushed clean warm tap water through the dampers and black valve and displace the Tap water with air.)
3. Is it possible that the damper assemblies are inoperable, blocking flow and just need to be replaced? If so, where can you get get just the damper assembly with the black ink valve?

 

[W. Fisher]

Print head is likely good, but it does sound like the dampers are sludged up. Might be able to backflush them from where they attach to the print head with some plastic tubing like the ones on the top of the print head, silicon hose from a hobby shop, and a syringe.

For parts:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-D...=item280cb2128a:g:oz4AAOSwXeJYMluT:rk:20:pf:0

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Damper-Pri...=item4d768f9220:g:Au8AAOSwPRxbNJmX:rk:32:pf:0

Good luck.

W.F.

 

[Umberto Gladys]

Sorry to revive an old thread. I am having the same symptoms. Epson 3800 with 3rd party ink in the OEM carts that has been working flawlessly for years. Yellow became problematic with only half appearing on tests. Followed 3 tutorials on YT to break everything down. Disassembled everything and soaked the print-head in 2mm of piezoflush for a few hours. Never got any liquid on the interface pins. Was careful to let it dry completely before reconnecting. Reconnected everything and no screws left over. No errors on startup. Figured the print-head would need a few charges since it was basically depleted now. Have run 4 charges and nothing is coming out. Waste tank has very little ink in it and capping station pads are not getting a lot of ink on them either. Pump sounds normal and working. Running out of ideas. Help!

EDIT: weighing the carts is showing that no ink is leaving the cart during cleaning cycles. Carts are all between 136g - 147g.

 

[The Hat]

Running out of ideas. Help!

I would estimate that the data strap to the back of the print head is not fully engaged, and that is the reason why there is no ink flow to the paper..
The print head on a Epson is not a serviceable unit..

 

[Umberto Gladys]

Thanks. There are two on this head on the left side so I will disassemble and make sure they are both connected fully

Edit:
I am not seeing any ink move down the lines during cleaning cycles either but strangely the printer thinks the carts are using ink and the counter keeps decrementing from each. Checked to see if the two ribbon cables were securely attached to the print head and they are. The waste tank only contains the cleaning solution applied directly to the cleaning pads. Pump station seems to be working and any cleaning solution directly applied quickly flows to the waste tank.

I don't know if there is a way to tell if somehow the printhead is now damaged? Would it show the same symptoms that I have? From what I read it would manifest itself differently or throw an error to the LCD

It's like I have lost pressure in the system and no ink is moving to the head. I am going to disassemble again and see if I can ID any other issues

 

[The Hat]

I am going to disassemble again and see if I can ID any other issues

Good luck in your quest..

 

[pkk]

Yes, Good luck!! I'm interested in the outcome of this, as I'm right now up to my elbows in replacing/repairing the ink delivery system on a 3800 & a 3880.

 

[KeithR]

I just came across this post so I'll apologize in advance if the issue has been resolved. When I had my 4800's, I used both cone color and piezography in both and utilized pezioflush. Flush was designed to dissolve ink but does need time and is recommended to allow it to so so for 24 to 48 hours. But from my experience, if you have damper issues, it's better to just replace them. Depending on how often one prints, Epson recommends changing dampers about every 2 years.