Epson RX700 Printer-Scanner-Copy Problems

[mikling]

It sounds like that is a priming cycle of some type to maintain ink in the nozzles. Rather than a sucking from the bottom side it is possibly pushing and generating pressure to push the ink out.
I have never seen an RX700 but it sounds like it is a scaled down model of the smaller wide format printers which are quite heavy duty and serviceable. I am going by the description you gave but this printer is not a standard desktop model.
The generation of pressure is what possibly is the final check for the presence of ink in the system and not the chips. Thus when it tries to generate pressure and detects that pressure cannot be built up, it concludes that there is no ink and thus the message. Some of the newer higher end HP printers have this algorithm.

 

[DHrazdil]

Thanks Mike. What you say makes sense. I'm not sure exactly how I translate that into a course of action to get my printer back online, but if what you say is the case, this is beyond anything I can do as a non-trained do-it-yourselfer.

 

[DHrazdil]

Epson RX700 more than you wanted to know. Mike and anyone else interested: I've been privy to an RX700 service manual, quite detailed with layouts, schematics, electronics, trouble-shooting. Quite interesting. The 6 ink cartridges are each shown to contain a collapsable plastic bag of ink. When you turn on the printer, the air pump bellows pumps up and feeds pressure to each cartridge but outside the bag, so no air to pollute the ink itself. Ink under small pressure is fed by 6 tubes to 6 holding tanks connected to the printhead and there is ink entering each via a 1-way valve that closes when that tank is full and under whatever small pressure the bellows provides. Each tank holds enough ink for about 26 pages of graphics, so if there is an outside temporary interruption of 1 or more of the inks, there is no loss of quality , at least for 26 pages. Connected to those reservoirs is an ink pump that apparantly draws from the tanks and pressurizes the nozzles as needed. I was quite impressed, but still haven't delineated what might be happening to cause the "No Ink Cartridges" error messages. The trouble shooting guide handles a lot of No Ink error messages, but not one with that sequence of events. Foiled again.

 

[DHrazdil]

Epson RX700 Final Disposition: I am ecstatic, fixed the ink supply problems and the printer now works great. I am quite proud of myself for hunting it down and am very appreciative of your help Mike in keeping me on the track. As it turns out, the RX700 cartridge is internally pressurized by the air pump that feeds pressure to the outside of the closed ink bag in he cartridge. Electronics told the printer when pressure in holding tanks was right , so the printer would know to go ahead with printing, but it malfunctioned. The new CIS I tried didn''t work because the return air tube on each of the cartridges was plugged with a little rubber plug that the CIS instruction manual failed to address. This needed removing on installation for the air pressure pump to pressurize it. The upshot was that the printer began to work when I tried removing those plugs. I don't think the CIS people who manufactured the CIS knew about this anomaly becausse nowhere did they mention removing those plugs in their installation instructions.

 

[shempdogg]

Hi DHrazdil,
Im currently having the same issues with my RX700. I recently ran out of ink on a color and replaced it with a brand new aftermarket brand cartridge and this is when I got the error "no ink cartridge. Open the ink cover and set the in cartridge" with all my cartridges lite up. I read your post but I have no idea how your fixed this problem. Can you give me a step by step instructions on doing so? I have all new cartridges in (non epson brand) and I am on a Mac if that helps.
I appreciate your help...

 

[DHrazdil]

Shempdogg: I'll try to help, but there is more than one problem that causes this message and I have had experience with only one. It appears that it is the prime problem. Let me first caution you against pushing the cartridges in and out too many times, do as few as possible. Your learning curve is probably just behind mine. Your first step should probably be to 1. Turn on the printer, 2. Wait till the error message appears, 3. Push and hold the two right side buttons Stop and Color and then push and hold the On button. In about 10 seconds of holding, the machine will turn itself off Wait a few seconds, then turn the machine back on and check for any difference. If none, then you should reset the ink counters and in order to do that you will need to download the SSC Service Utility v4.30 and I think this site will accomodate you.
http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml Save it because you may need it again. Pull up the program and go to the tab Resetter and reset the ink counters. If that doesn't work, let me know. Good luck.

 

[shempdogg]

Hi DHrazdil,
Thanks for the quick reply. So, I tried hold the buttons and resetting the printer but that didnt work. I tried unplugging the computer and that didnt
work either. Im on a mac but I have virtual pc so I tried installing the sc service utility to only have it fail on startup. Any other ideas? I have a pc laptop
that I could install the sc service utility on but will that fix the actual printer so I could then use it on my mac?

 

[websnail]

Sorry to resurrect this post but I was wondering if anyone had taken this printer apart enough to modify the waste ink tubes so they redirected to an external waste ink tank.

I'd always assumed that it was a single tube system but I now have reason to believe it uses two tubes... Can anyone confirm and/or provide pictures of the trapdoor access... Thanks in advance.

 

[leaky]

I can see that it's been a very long time since anything was posted in this thread, but just in case anyone comes upon it, perhaps the following might be useful:

Apparently out of the blue, I got the message telling me that all six cartridges needed 'setting', despite all of them being in place. Mikling identified the problem in my case - thank you to him. One after-market cartridge was faulty, (I'd used non-Epson ones for years without a problem), and was, indeed, stopping the air-pressure building up. Putting in a new one solved the problem immediately. I did, probably unnecessarily, dismantle half the printer while trying to discover what the problem was, (although, once dismantled, I could use a pair of locking forceps on the little air-tubes to isolate each cartridge and find out which one was leaking) and I must say, the Epson Service Manual, which I got online, is pretty good if you're used to tinkering with this sort of thing - and have some tinkering that needs doing.

Which brings me onto websnail's question. There are two tubes and you can, indeed, get to them through the little trapdoor at the back of the printer - you don't have to do any dismantling. I had to extend the tubes a few inches and then redirected the waste ink into an old mineral-water bottle. You do need the resetting software, if and when the 'end of life' message appears, but other than that the whole thing is pretty easy. If you were dismantling the printer, you could with only moderate difficulty I reckon, get to the ink pad and change it, but I can't see why you'd want to, given it'd need doing again eventually.

I wonder if I'm the only person left in the world who's using one of these printers.

 

[websnail]

Which brings me onto websnail's question. There are two tubes and you can, indeed, get to them through the little trapdoor at the back of the printer - you don't have to do any dismantling. I had to extend the tubes a few inches and then redirected the waste ink into an old mineral-water bottle. You do need the resetting software, if and when the 'end of life' message appears, but other than that the whole thing is pretty easy. If you were dismantling the printer, you could with only moderate difficulty I reckon, get to the ink pad and change it, but I can't see why you'd want to, given it'd need doing again eventually.

Blimey, that is an old question and although we've had the same answer for years now it's still well worth having the info on this thread for someone else to find. Thanks for sharing

I wonder if I'm the only person left in the world who's using one of these printers.

Don't think so, we've had a couple of enquiries from people who've picked up RX700's second hand or been looking at ink options due to their original supplier dropping support. It may be wheezing a bit but the patient ain't dead yet