Epson R300, Idividual cleaning of inkcartridges

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Knut

Hi again!
After having solved the problem with the waste ink counter, thanks to
Tony but also to others, this pops up im my mind:
Why is it not possible to clean only that color that is giving problems?
Why waste ink from the other cartrides that works perfect? (At least I
understand that the cleaning program clean all cartridges at the time?)
Is it a trick from Epson to consume as much ink as possile so they can
sell more of it?
As you here on this forum seams to very copmetent in most cases: Do you
know of any program that can clean just one color at the time??
Regards from the winter in Sweden
Knut
 
Knut said:
Hi again!
After having solved the problem with the waste ink counter, thanks to
Tony but also to others, this pops up im my mind:
Why is it not possible to clean only that color that is giving problems?
Why waste ink from the other cartrides that works perfect? (At least I
understand that the cleaning program clean all cartridges at the time?)
Is it a trick from Epson to consume as much ink as possile so they can
sell more of it?
As you here on this forum seams to very copmetent in most cases: Do you
know of any program that can clean just one color at the time??
Regards from the winter in Sweden
Knut
Click to expand...

Knut
I know of no method of doing this, but there is much that I don't know so maybe
it is posssible.
I suspect that it is not so much a trick by Epson but a method of ensuring that
the printheads are kept in the best possible condition by regular cleaning.
Piezzo heads are prone to clogging so the head cleaning regime is very
important, the upside is high quality prints.
Tony
 
Do you know of any program that can clean just one color at the time??
Click to expand...

The SSC Service Utility says it supports: "Separate cleaning of color and
black heads for all Epson inkjet printers". The version I have doesn't
clean individual heads on my 2100 but I see there's a newer version
available, which I haven't tried yet.

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml

Jon.
 
As you here on this forum seams to very copmetent in most cases: Do you
know of any program that can clean just one color at the time??
Regards from the winter in Sweden
Knut
Click to expand...

You can print out "purge" sheets.
 
I am sure the program does support seperate cleaning but not for the Epsons
at this level. These printers have one pump which when used to clean it
cleans all the carts, taking it's instruction from the main board in the
printer there is no way to to clean one color at a time. If cleaning is a
problem, ie, it's using large quanties of ink to clear badly maintained
printers one should consider using cleaning carts which cost a fraction of
ink carts. my 2100 is nozzel checked every day and if a nozzel goes off
slightly I print a 6x4 which contains multi colors if that fails I run a
purge sheet, only then without sucess would I consider a clean with carts.
Over the last two years I have run cleaning carts twice only.
 
Hi again!
After having solved the problem with the waste ink counter, thanks to
Tony but also to others, this pops up im my mind:
Why is it not possible to clean only that color that is giving problems?
Why waste ink from the other cartrides that works perfect? (At least I
understand that the cleaning program clean all cartridges at the time?)
Is it a trick from Epson to consume as much ink as possile so they can
sell more of it?
As you here on this forum seams to very copmetent in most cases: Do you
know of any program that can clean just one color at the time??
Regards from the winter in Sweden
Knut
Click to expand...

The hardware does not support it [that's part of why the 200 (same
mechanism) costs only a little more than the cost of a set of carts].

And, hi again!, as I noted in another post, I have so far run through 5
full sets of carts and according to the waste pad usage report, I have
enough space left for 40 more full sets of carts -- by which time, I
suspect at least one or more moving parts will have worn out anyway.

I can only suggest you examine how you are using it. Turning off the
printer frequently? Turning off the printer with a power strip?
Unnecessary cleaning? Choice of inks? [no, I don't want to prime the
troll]

I leave mine on 24/7 [on a UPS even, so it doesn't cycle if there is a
power hit], and only use OEM inks [shush troll...], and as far as I'm
concerned, 45 sets of carts on a printer this cheap ain't bad.
 
When I had problems with the C62 which used tri-coloured tanks, I wa
forever doing nozzle cleans with OEM inks, as you say some printer
fires all the nozzles and some fires only the selected nozzles whe
cleaning

What I found which sometimes helped as opposed to 'flushing' th
nozzles, was to draw circles or squares in MS word or any othe
programme and fill with the blocked nozzle colour and print, after
sheet or two there is the chance that the nozzle will be cleared, an
others they remained blocked

At least if this doesn't work the first time or two it's time to do
full nozzle clean, this way you just 'may' save the other colour
from being wasted

Trouble with tri-coloured tanks is when one ink runs out they all ru
out

Dav
 
Epson used to have two cleaning stations. One for the black ink, and
one for all the color ones.

The cleaning station works by applying a vacuum to the nozzles of the
head using a rubber bumper on the station to seal the area around the
active part of the head.

To have each color as a separate entity, the printer would need a
separate cleaning station for each color, and each cleaning station
would require a separate vacuum pump, or a very complex series of valves
to shunt the vacuum to one place but not another. One of the reasons
Epson probably went to one cleaning station for all the heads is that it
lessens head drying problems, as well as lessening the cost and size of
the printer with less parts.

Firing the piezo actuators to try to clear a clogged nozzle, has about
no chance of working (which may be what the Russian program tries to
do). If it worked, just printing would clear the clog.

So, that's the problem. The more cartridges there are the more ink gets
wasted on each cleaning cycle. Is this an accident of design? Maybe
originally, when it started, but I suspect otherwise now, mainly because
Epson promotes their individual cartridges as a great boon to saving
ink, but as I have said for years now, it isn't necessarily so with the
way the cleaning and purging systems operate.

Art
 
There is only one way that individual heads/colors can be cleaned, and
that is by firing the head. Unfortunately, if that really cleaned the
head, they would never clog and they would unclog immediately when they
were used next.

The way Epson printers clear clogs is by applying vacuum to the head
area from the outside (via the cleaning station and a vacuum pump)

Since all Epson printers for the last 4 or so years have only one
cleaning station (they used to have one for black and one for the color
inks) there is no way to clean any head separately via the vacuum
cleaning method.

It is exactly this problem that causes a total of over 100ml of ink to
be wasted each time one of the wide carriage printers goes through the
black ink change (Ultrachrome matte black to photo black or vice-versa),
because although only the black ink lines need to be purged, all the
lines are purged equally.

Epson does fire all the piezos at once during the head cleaning process,
which makes sense while doing a vacuum cleaning to circulate the ink
within the nozzle and help to remove older ink in the chamber, but the
piezos do not have enough energy to "blast" a clog through. That's why
the vacuum process is required, and as we all know, even that doesn't
work if enough dried ink is covering the head.

Art
 
That's true, and it works if you put cleaning fluid into the cartridges,
otherwise it is not effective most times.

Art
 
Arthur said:
That's true, and it works if you put cleaning fluid into the
cartridges, otherwise it is not effective most times.

Art
Click to expand...

IF YOU WANT TO DRY CLEAN YOUR CARTS DO YOU HAVE TO LET THEM RUN DRY.
 
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