Epson L1300 and Epson L300 Running Pigment Ink

[Sallyw100]

I have been running an Epson L1300 and L300 for a very short time with MIS Pro Pigment inks. Both printers have stopped feeding magenta ink. I know the bottom ink feed is a killer. Can I just disconnect the tubes from the tanks and put them into top feed bottles. I saw pictures on another thread but wasn't sure what printer it was. My concern is if it will pump the ink out of the top. Where should I place the bottles since the ink feeds into the bottom of the printer. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The ink I use is the best for the specialty printing that I do or I would just change inks.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I had been running pigment inks for a while on a L300, wihout problems. And if the bottom feeding would be the problem it should affect the other colors equally. Since that Magenta only is impacting both printers I would consider it more likely to be an issue with the ink itself. There are cartridge like inserts in the printhead in place of the regular cartridges. These are connected to the ink tubes, are partially filled with ink and air, working as a damper, and there is very fine wire mesh filter in the ink path to the ink outlet. I have seen this filter clogged with some ink glibbery stuff blocking the ink flow. I could clean that with some head cleaner slowly pushed into the ink outlet with a syringe - wihtout needle, the cleaner runs out of the ink inklet connector.

 

[Sallyw100]

Thank you! I will try that. On the L300 I thought maybe there was foamy ink in it and drew ink out of the bottom with a syringe but didn't try to push head cleaner into it.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

just push the syringe for this reverse cleaning very slowly, otherwise you can dislodge the little filter, and you won't get it back at its place again. I got such dampers from an Epson parts/repair center as a spare, and I have seen them offered as well at Aliexpress from China. You may as well clean the magenta ink channel with a syringe and a short piece of tube fítting onto the ink pickup rod in the printheed, sucking and pushing cleaner into it alternatively. That approach has been described elsewhere in more detail - I can*t find it.

 

[websnail]

Magenta pigment inks are notorious for the sheer concentration of the pigment so if anything is going to clog it'll be that colour.

One thing that may be useful in reducing the issues though is a guide I wrote a long ways back about CIS systems and pigment ink usage in them... It may prove useful even if some of the sections aren't relevant as the CIS system is not one you can replace easily.
http://www.wasteink.co.uk/service-required/pigment-ink-cis-systems/

 

[Sallyw100]

Thank you both for your information. Websnail that is an interesting article you wrote. I have run MIS CISS systems on Epson 980 printers since 2002. The last decent printer that I had quit running a couple months ago and I was trying to replace it. I can understand now why I was able to run those printers and CISS systems for so long with pigment ink. I think the cartridge on them was the key. They were also heavily run at least every other day. I have not been able to get the L1300 magenta back and am going to purge the pigment ink out and replace it with dye ink and use it for another purpose.

 

[websnail]

Hi @Sallyw100... Glad it was of some use... If you get stuck with the Magenta it's worth trying to reverse flush the ink out using a syringe and adapter. Sometimes the ink won't flush out via the nozzles but can be pulled out via the inlet. Unfortunately the L1300 requires a bit of disassembly to make that happen as you need to get past the buffers installed in what would have been the cartridge bay, but it should be doable.

 

[Sallyw100]

I was able to flush the pigment ink out of the Epson L1300 using Piezoflush, swapped out the magenta damper and have it running really nice with dye ink.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

thanks for the info about the success with Piezoflush in this case