Epson R2000 Yellow & Red Ink not printing

[Welly]

Hello, I have a problem with my Epson R2000 as the title said. The Yellow and Red are not printing, the nozzle check are terrible. This printer is used frequently every day. I always perform head cleaning before i use it.

What i've done so far:
- Flushed the head using cleaning solution, the cleaner come out perfectly without problem (no cloged indication)
- Cleaned the Spike

Note: Sometimes it works perfectly on its own, and then the yellow & red ink are not printing again the next day. (only a very small amount of ink came out on nozzle check).

Please help me solve this problem, i've lost 7 printers so far because of the same problem, Thank you very much. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Regards,
Welly

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

i've lost 7 printers so far because of the same problem,

- what is your print volume then - are you a real heavy user ? Which type of cartridges and inks
are you using - Epson or refill ?

 

[Welly]

Hello Ink,
I'm a heavy user, i use the printer around 5-8 hours a day. i'm using the cartridges from Epson and Epson inks. Anyway, i've tried to replace the cartridges with another set from my other printer (it works perfectly on the other printer), the results are the same.

Thank you for your response! Looking forward to hear more from you, Mr.Ink

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Is there a specific reason that you stick to the R2000 with such a big print volume? Printing with a Pro 4880/4900 you would benefit from a much lower ink cost from the 220 ml cartridges, even for Epson ink, and probably lower paper cost from roll paper. I'm not that familiar with the R2000 specifics so I would leave further advice to other forum members.

 

[Larryb]

Have you ever cleaned the capping station and wiper?

Here is a link you find useful.
http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance

Larry

 

[jtoolman]

The R2000 uses Gloss Optimizer and has Orange and Red inks among the others. Has MK and PK without Black Ink Switching
So folks love it for the intense color, great gloss relusts with those type papers and great rendition of skin tones. Plus you can get OEM carts for average of $5 each or less. You used to get full sets of OEM inks for about 415 back in the day. This printer was very comonly used for the T-Shirt printing industry and the OEM inks can not be used. So............

Joe

 

[Welly]

Thanks Mr.Larry for the link, i'm going to read it through after this post.
And No, i never clean the capping station and wiper, i never do that.

Thanks Mr.Ink, the reason why i'm sticking to R2000 is because of the reason jtoolman talk about, i'm using it for T-shirt printing.

And Mr.Joe, yea thats right i'm using it to print T-shirt, but the ink i bought always labeled with Epson on the bottle, i can't say i'm 100% sure it is from Epson original ink but it is only the label. At my country anything could be fake tho. Any suggestion on this issue sir?

Thank you very much for all the reply, really appreciated, looking forward to hear more from you guys.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

O.k., that clarifies some, you are not using genuine Epson inks for T-shirt printing, you are supposedly printing on transfer sheets with dedicated sublimation inks for that purpose which you are refilling. I understand the special benefits of the R2000 using that extended inkset + gloss optimizer but T-shirt printing would not benefit from that if the printer is not used as well for high quality photo printing as well. If the printhead works well with the cleaner - all nozzles present - but not with these sublim inks I would switch the supplier of those inks and test another brand. Availability depends on your country which I can't recognize. Production like equipment should always be cleaned , the capping station is the most critical assembly in the printer in this respect where all the wiped off and cleaned left over ink passes through and even can build up gel type ink residue.

 

[Welly]

i'm not aware all this time about how important the capping station is, i learn everything about r2000 from my own mistakes on the past. I'm from Indonesia, sorry i forgot to mention it earlier.

Anyway, here is the update: I Tried the method on the link Mr.Larry posted, but the cleaner just stay at the capping station and won't dry out even i left it for 6 hours, so far i'm pretty confident the problem lays on the capping station, because the last time the ink works perfectly, it turns out bad after i perfom head cleaning after i finished my daily printing routine. Is there any better way to clean this capping station? For the time being i will just keep putting cleaner on the capping station and wait for it to clean itself.

Well that mean what i'm using is not genuine Epson ink but other unknown brand ink with epson tag on the bottle. Any suggestion on which ink is better for T-shirt printing would be very appreciated, Mr Ink. Thank you very much for your response.

 

[jtoolman]

Welly. From what I've read and heard, the EPSON R2000 has been purchased in the thousands by simmilarly minded groups who use the printer for DTG printing.

That created a vast number of available brand new ink cart sets that could then be liquidated on EBAY for ridiculous prices per set. I now, I have about 10 such sets.

As I stated I used to pay about $10 - $18 per complete set and once I even got some for $8 with free shipping.

So do they really need thousands of actual printers sitting in a large Asian Ware House churning away T-Shirts?
Of course not.
The vast majority of these R2000 printers are used for sacrificial purposes.
No, not to offer them to the printing Gods but to have hundreds of spare Print Heads whic need to be replace quite often!!!!!

WHY? Because the sublimation inks reduce the life span of the print heads. Specially the WHITE inks.
But also since NO ONE performs the maintenace that these printers would normally be require. Specifically when they are being used for printing on Garmets or Trasfer Paper.
But you know that now.

So in short, I wish you luck getting that print head to print 100% clog free again.
If you are lucky it might, but more that likely it will not. Those are the simple facts.

Oh and just so you know, the DTG industry has been using many converted EPSON printers in the past. The PRO3800, R1900 ( and Earlier ), R2000 and now the R3000. Yes the R3000. It is used as the "Guts" for a customized propriatary DTG printer produced by a company called ANAJET

Joe