How to go about flushing all ink out of a 3880?

[berserk]

That debris looks like a small piece of a plastic drinking straw that the printer chewed on before depositing it the waste tray..
View attachment 7318

Don't You see that he is using his old socks to fill the waste tank...

Interesting - and I suppose it works.

 

[W. Fisher]

I've seen the underside of the capping station off my other 3880 that I've had apart before where there are a couple of clear hoses. One from the two capping station pads where the head parks on, and the other goes down to that maintenance cart. My only guess it came from the inside of those hoses, but they large square one on the top with the bit of hose on it I don't know about. Might be it came off the capping station itself and was formed when I squirted the head cleaning fluid onto the pads (some overflow probably to from that?) to clean those two pads until they were white again.

Another oddity is I am using QTR and its Calibration Page to check on the clearness of the ink lines and heads. With the Piezoflush in the PK and MK tanks, that pink color does tend to show up in the other colors on the Calibration Chart too. The black on that page must mix with other colors in QTR a bit. Maybe the PK or MK black is using the other colors to neutralize them to a neutral gray or something (I noticed that some of the black inks are sort of greenish overall.). All other carts are clear alcohol and distilled water, but they show the Piezoflush magenta color in some of the chart's lines.

Photo and chart below has the PK black on the top and a check point #1 in PS where the green RGB number is lower indicating the magenta in the QTR black line. The other 3 colors have a point too which shows a low green value or more magenta in the print. Sort of odd, but might be the paper base reacting too with the clear solution. Dunno.

The banding caused by one badly clogged PK/MK seems to be getting better (or less) each day. I run an alternating PK/MK flush and print and then let it sit for a while. Piezoflsuh is in PK/MK tanks still with the alcohol/water in the other tanks.

Fingers crossed.

W.F.

 

[W. Fisher]

Added later:

I took a few drops of Piezoflush and dropped it onto a slanted old B&W print. Not much ink came off it.

Mixed up a 50:50 batch of 70% alcohol and distilled water and dropped it onto the print and a lot more ink ran off it, almost to the white base!

The Pizeoflush solution seems pretty mild and maybe why mine isn't unclogging the 3-4 black nozzles after two days now. I'll try a reload of the 50:50 alcohol/dis. water mix, a drop of Dawn detergent, and 7-8 drops of Cyan dye into the mix just to see the nozzle checks (If this succeeds, I prefer to see a colder blue-black of the cyan for a while than the warmer color of the reddish Piezeoflush when the new inks go in and mix up, unless I do the alcohol/water flush for a while in the PK/MK carts until clear in QTR's Calibration Page.). I made a 100ml mix of the new stuff and loaded half into the MK and PK carts.

More cleanings and maintenance tanks coming up.

W.F.

 

[The Hat]

I reckon @berserk might be right, because too much attention is bad for any Printer and just when you finish with all the maintenance, the Feckin thing is liable to refuse to print a sheet...

 

[berserk]

Hey, heard of downgrading it to an office printer.
Only one thing is required - costumers must be able to read Your invoices for You to buy a new P800.
No profiling needed.

 

[PeterBJ]

@W. Fisher See this post for a cleaning fluid that has been used successfully on an Epson 3800. I have used this cleaning fluid made by pharmacist with success on some Canon and HP printers.

 

[W. Fisher]

I installed a set of dye ink tanks into the 3880 hoping to see an improvement. Didn't take much time for the ink to hit the nozzles compared to trying to get it flushed out with the 50:50 alcohol mix. With black nozzle, I got about 4 bars missing in top row and two at bottom. Two at bottom have been the worse too.

I tried the letting it sit overnight on a 50:50 isopropyl (99% this time) alcohol/water mix on a paper towel. This AM the top four bars are back so "Yay!" there. The bottom still shows two blanks on the PK.

I was wondering, having watched so much online cleaning methods, if putting a syringe and silicon hose on the PK tanks intake nozzle where the cart is at and pumping the cleaner back and forth through that line if it might clear it? Some show dismantling the printer and doing it at the print head itself, but seems doing it at the tank position might also work instead of ripping it all apart to do it at the head?

I'll put a towel under the print head and see if the ink comes out while pumping it.

I may toss the cleaning tanks back into it with a bit of dye added to the main mix to see the nozzle checks and get the pricey ink out of it until then.

So far given the thing has had 3 maintenance tanks worth of cleaning solution run through it with QTR Calibration sheets, power flushes, Qimage purges, the thing is still spitting ink, just not at the problem PK nozzle, but all others still look good or better than when began.

This thing was meant to spit ink and so far even with all the power cleanings, PK & MK switching, and solvents run through it still is working. "It's either gonna get better, or it's gonna die!"

W.F.

 

[berserk]

Hey folks...
...this is "The W. Fisher 3880 Show"

Berserking a printer that way was never on my mind.

Now it is - I can hardly withstand it - now I also want to!!!!

Tried an heavy duty air-compressor to blow the lines free and hear the dirt hit the walls?

 

[W. Fisher]

Hey folks...
...this is "The W. Fisher 3880 Show"

Berserking a printer that way was never on my mind.

Now it is - I can hardly withstand it - now I also want to!!!!

Tried an heavy duty air-compressor to blow the lines free and hear the dirt hit the walls?

LOL!

A small explosive charge in the line might be next if the air compressor fails.

That or bust out the head and send it to a "Printhead Refurbishing Company." Yep. There are those places around the web. One shows a guy looking at a printhead under a microscope. Some are selling refurbished heads too.).

W.F.

 

[berserk]

Selling a printer by parts I heard is giving more profits - and that is what it is all about.
With air-compressor and explosive charges ---- almost free delivery

However - even if we like the approach - we must take it easy.

I've heard many here are taking printing a bit more seriously!!

Who cares - ATTACK!