H....E.......L.....P.... HP Officejet 7000

[leethesign]

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice before I get carted off to the funny farm ....

I recently bought an HP 7000 wide format and ordered CISS for it as I do quite a lot of printing. I fitted the CISS (I've done it before to another printer, so it wasn't difficult) but I just couldn't get the ink to flow to the
cartridges. As soon as I'd primed them and put them in the printer the ink just flowed back down the lines and the tubes were full of air.
This kept happening until the printer was flooded with ink, my hands were multi coloured (probably for ever) and there was ink all over the floor, the desk and the dog,

I took all the carts out and the printhead and cleaned everything up and tried again - same result.

I took it all apart again, cleaned everything up again, now when I fit the cartridges, I get the same result with ir in the tubes, so it would seem to me that there is a leak issue with the CISS.

Also, now when I put everything back together, the printer toolbox tells me the printhead is incompatible!
Is it possible I have knackered the printhead?

I contacted HP support to try and establish if there was a fix for this error message, but they want the numbers
and dates from my cartridges for some reason. Problem here is, after I had taken the chips off and put on
the CISS cartridges, I threw them away, so I can't give them the numbers, therefore I can't get any answers
from them - 'cause obviously if I tell them what I've done they won't want to know.

I thought I may be better binning the CISS and getting refillable cartridges instead, but I have one or two questions:

1: Is it likely the printhead won't work?
2: Will the chips still be any good if I now put them onto refillable cartridges

Will I just be throwing good money after bad - so should I just throw away the printer and start again?

Any advice would be really appreciated

Thanks in advance chaps and chapesses

 

[tigerwan]

When you cleaned the print head, HOW did you clean it?

 

[Mowerman90]

Not having ever had any experience with a CISS, I can't offer much help other than to ask if you've contacted the company you bought the CISS from? If not, I'd get with them and ask what they think could be the problem.

 

[The Hat]

leethesign
I cant rightly say what the problem is with your CISS but it look like an air leak of some sort.
If you havent damaged the HP chips while removing them from their cartridges
then there is a good chance that they will work on the new compatible cartridges

Both tigerwan. and Mowerman90 Have made valued points to you.
1. Did you let your print head dry properly before installing it back in the printer?
2. Get onto the place where you got your CISS from and see if they can offer any explanation
as to why youre having all the problems with it.

The best way to test out the print head unfortunately is to get a set of new HP cartridges
and try them in it, to see if it still works + you can still try HP support after getting the new set of cartridges.

If your printer still works then either refill the HP cartridges (not great) or get some compatible cartridges
for refilling but I would say to give the CISS a miss if the Vendors cant provide a quick fix while you still got some hair..

 

[leethesign]

thanks for the input guys - the people I got the CISS from seemed to think there was a fault and they've refunded my money for that, although they couldn't suggest anything that would help sort the problem.

So it still remains a likelihood that I'll have to chuck more money at in by getting a mortgage and buying some genuine HP cartridges.

When I cleaned the printhead, I did so carefully and I let it dry properly before putting it back, although I s'pose I could have damaged it somehow.

Oh well, I'll go to town tomrrow and spend another barrowload of dosh!

Thanks for the input everyone....now let's see what happens.

 

[crexas]

I have noticed something like this in almost all of my Canon CISS. Very similar symptoms - you prime the ciss, everything looks normal, but when you take the caps off the cartridges and plug the into the printer - ink flows back to ciss and tubes are full of air. On Canon ciss it's easily fixable. When I primed my ciss, some ink would flow to cartridges, but not enough. There cannot be a direct way for air to flow through the cartridge (from bottom to top). What I mean is that you must have enough ink in the cartridge so that air cannot pass from cartridge's bottom to top. If there is enough ink (not only in the sponge but also at least half full in the ink reservoir) then air doesn't get through and does not fill my tubes. What I do is unplug cartridge from ciss, fill it with ink with a syringe , then push ink in ciss through the disconnected tube until all the air is gone, clamp the end and reconnect to cartridge. I have no experience with HP carts or ciss but I hope it's something similar and can be as easily fixed

 

[leethesign]

Thanks for that advice Crexus, I'll certainly give that a try.

I contacted HP support and they arfe sending me a new printhead, so maybe all is not lost.

Let's see what happens next!

 

[The Hat]

crexas
The method you describe in detail for removing the back flow of air from a CISS unit seems like a really good idea.
Air inside the cartridges and tubing has always being the main problem with a CISS unit
when it's left idle for any period of time and sometimes can be difficult to remove.

Thank you for sharing your great advice and it should helps others who are having difficulties with their CISS..

 

[leethesign]

Hear hear