Epson R2000 Yellow & Red Ink not printing

[Welly]

Hello Joe,
Everything you said are definitely right and exactly what happen in Asia, and the Printer Head or New Epson R2000 are very rare now.

And like you said, my real problem is the lifespan of the printer, the longest serving one only last 6 months, and most of them only work for 1-2 month and died for the same problem like this one. The reason why i'm not giving up on this one is because I know some R2000 user like me, their printer can last for 1-2 years with heavier workload compared to mine. But of course, they turned me down whenever i ask them anything related about printer maintenance or how to fix something because they see me as their competitor.

I need to fix this problem or I will lose everything i've invested for this business because i've spent all my savings on this last R2000. And now I hope I got the answer. If i can't unclog the capping station i might just try to replace it with a new one. Thank you very much for your advice, i will let you guys know the update whatever the result is.

Best Regards,
Welly

 

[Larryb]

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.

Take another look at the video. Dana drops the piezoflush onto the capping station pad, then blots it off. She repeats this as many times as it takes to get the pads clean. If the water or cleaner you're using just sits on top, you've got a TON of gunk so this may take awhile. Also, find the wiper and clean that off too. Dana uses a Q-tip, but I switched to using a piece of good paper towel folded many times and held with tweezers. Q-tips would leave cotton hairs on the wiper which I feel is bad. (Dana switched to using sponge squeegies, I think).
Larry

 

[jtoolman]

The Capping Station is connected to the purge pump which applies vaccum during cleaning cycles. There is a gasket or sealing perimeter that presses against the bottom of the nozzle plate as you are performing cleaning cycles. If it is not sealing due to gummy conditions on its surface then IT can not seal and generate enough vaccum to suck out ink and clear out any inevitable clogs that build up constantly with Sub Inks.

So also you need to clean the perimeter of the capping station gasket purge sponge as it is sometimes called as well as the wiper blade. Another posibility is that the tubing leading to and from the purge pump ( under the capping station ) may be plugged. So again, no vaccum. No vaccum, no head clean!

You also need to clean the are to far left of the platen sponge. You will see that it is soaked with black gunk. You squirt cleaning fluid on it and blot. Repeat and then repeat and repeat unltil it is clean or as clean as you can make it.

Assuming that the pump and purge units are OK, you need to physically pump ( VERY CAREFULLY ) cleaning fluid directly into the ink stemps of the print head assembly.

Assuming thed R2000 still looks like a normal R2000, you trun off the printer.
Power up the printer and as soon as the head begins to move, you pull the plug off the wall of from behind the printer.
Now you can manually move the print head.
Fold 1/2 a paper towel damppened with head cleaning fluid, folder into about a 5-6 cm wide mutilayer strip. Lay it directly on the path over which the prin heads would pass during printing.
Slide the unlocked print head carriage directly over it.
Remove the cartridges.
Load a syringe with cleaning fluid and attach a length of tubing the will fit the syringe tip and the ink stem snugly.
Now insert the end of the tubing on to the first ink stem.
Carefully inject ink about 1 ml and pull back about one ml worth.
Repeat the process several times.
Move on to the next ink stem and repeat process.
Continue only you have treated all 8 ink stems.
Remove the syringe.
Reinstall the carts.
Slide the print head carriage over to the far right.
Remove the now soaked and ink stained paper toweling. Blot any excess ink that will be present on to the platen sponges.
Power up the printer and do one or two cleaning cycles.
Perform a nozzle check and pray to the print Gods that all will cleared.
If not do one last cleaning cycle and check the nozzles.
If almost clear, print a purge sheet, an image containing stripes of all the colors in your ink set and print that several times.
Let the printer rest for a few hours and re check the nozzles condition.
That is about all you can do! If it is still clogged in the same manner then your print head is history.

Joe

 

[Larryb]

Something else you may want to try, more expensive, more involved, but if you've got an impossible clog you can try this.
Purchase another set of cartridges, a bottle of inkjet cleaning fluid (I wouldn't use a home-made type here), fill the cartridges with the cleaner and install. Run the initial fill cycle (you may need to download a separate program to do this). Then leave the printer like this for a few days, and run the initial fill every couple of days. Piezoflush is coloured, so you can run a nozzle check and check for piezoflush in the nozzle check pattern. Hopefully you won't have to go that far, though.

If it was working intermittently like you observed, I suspect that the capping station was causing your problems.
Larry

 

[Welly]

Hello Guys,
Thanks again for all your advice, Mr.Larry I missed out on Dana's video before so iIdidn't blots off the cleaner from the sponge several times like it should be.

Here is what i've done for today :
- Repeat the capping station cleaning steps by Dana for 25-30 times until the paper towel are totally clean after I blots off the cleaner.
- Cleaning the wiper blade until it is totally clean from the bottom to the top.
- Washed the printhead like Mr.Joe said, the result is the cleaner went smoothly through the printhead with no sign of cog for all the 8 ink stems, so i didn't repeat the process.
- I also cleaned all 4 far side of the sponge to prevent the capping station and print head not sealing, i didn't find any gunk on it but i clean it anyway.
- But I can't find the tubing under the capping station because I don't know how to open it, so this one task is not finished yet.

But sadly the result is not like what I hoped, but i'm still have high hope the problem is not on the print head. And here is some pic from the nozzle result and the capping station after all i've done today:

Here is the look of the capping station after 25-30 times of cleaning process

And this is the nozzle result after the cleaning process and 2 times of head cleaning, the red looks perfect but only a very small amount of yellow ink came out:

This is the nozzle check from yesterday, there is no red at all but the yellow ink looks perfect.

I'm very eager to hear what you guys think about this, what is the problem do you guys think it is. I'm going to move my printer head to another R2000 that works perfectly tomorrow, I asked a workshop and they are willing to let me try my print head on their working R2000 for around $5. If it work well on that R2000 then it means i'm saved, because I can get a new R2000 without print head for around $70, a lot cheaper compared to $1000 for a print head. Thank you all again for anything you shared to help, it really mean a lot to me. Looking forward to hear more from you guys.

Best Regards,
Welly

 

[Larryb]

Welly,

It looks like you recovered the red, so things are looking up!

If you download the WIC reset utility, you can perform an ink charge. This will use a lot of ink, as if it were priming your printer for the first time. You may just have an air lock in your head.

Sometimes doing multiple head cleans can actually fry an Epson head. If you have a powerclean function, that's safer, or you can use this ink charge method.

WIC reset utility:
http://www.2manuals.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=1149

I'd also suggest installing a waste ink bottle instead of letting it fill up the pads inside the printer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE41tMtPLwk

I just watched the video. Hey, it's you Joe! Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's easier to open the side of your R2000 and attach the tube from there. That's what I did on my R3000. Any small bottle and correct sized tubing will work, but you won't go wrong with Joe's suggestions.

Hope this helps.

Larry (no need to call me Mr. Larry! )

 

[Welly]

Hello Larry,
I already have an installed waste ink bottle when i first bought this printer. And i also performed the ink charge function few times using different application, i will try the WIC reset utility once i'm home.

By the result i have show you, yesterday the yellow works perfectly, but today it is gone and replaced by red. This is really weird. I'm still waiting for the workshop to open and try the print head on another R2000 to see how it goes. Thanks again, Larry!

I have a question, assuming the problem is the capping station, the vacuum not working so it can't suck the ink into printhead. What if i manually insert the ink into the print head like i did with the cleaner? can it damage the print head? Thanks before.

Best Regards,
Welly

 

[Welly]

Hello guys,

After i swaped my printhead to another R2000, the result is the same, so it looks like the problem is on the printhead. I will try again the steps Joe taught me severel more times until it fixed or broken.

Best Regards,
Welly

 

[Welly]

Hello Guys,

Just to let you guys know I finally fixed my R2000, after a frustrating week I finally managed to fixed it and now it can work 95% with a little bit of blank space on both yellow and red nozzle. I just want to share my experience just in case someone need help with the same problem.

This is what I did out of frustration:

I remove the printhead from the printer, then I open it out to clean the plastic tubing connecting the spike and print head for ink distribution, I use a needle to clean the inside of the tubing for several minutes without any real hope at that moment. After that I clean the tube with cleaner and let the cleaner stay inside the tubing for several minutes. After that I put back the print head and run Ink Charge, then hoopla it works!! But i'm not quite sure yet, so I try to run another head cleaning and it still works well, until now....

Thank you guys for everything you taught me, especially Mr.Ink, Larry & Joe. Now i know how to manage my printer properly, this forum helped me a lot, I got a real hope from this forum, it really means a lot for me and my family. I thank you all once again.

Sincerely,
Welly