Hi,
First thing is to email Art. He has an encompassing understanding of
Epsons and its ink. Not only that but he explains things well so that one
can confidently carry out procedures to get the printer back running with a
little effort, usually with little monetary cost and some common sense for
many Epson printers. This printer, however, may be more of a challenge.
Second, the Dura-brite ink used in the C-84, C-86 and several other C
series printers is formulated to dry too fast; according to Art uses a
resinous formulation to achieve that goal, and from my two years experience
with this ink is destined to clog almost any printer within that time frame
or less, because the design of the ink is faulty for the printer it's being
used. I hope they didn't purposely plan it that way.
The problem are the clogs that have actually formed inside the head
at the nozzles. I believe the clearing may be achieved using a cleaning
cartridge with a combination of ammonia and alcohol. Most cleaning
cartridges would probably have a ratio of 10/90, but for the Dura-brite ink
I would go with 50/50, as this ink is tenacious in the clogs it forms
compared to dye base ink, not even close proximity to the Dura-brite pigment
stuff.
How do you make a cleaning cartridge? Well you could fill one of your
empties with a solution, but you will also need to reset the electronic chip
that is on that cartridge so it reads full when you re-insert it back into
the printer or the printer will give you a no print signal indicating that
you have an empty cartridge installed. You could use a chip reset tool
(about $20).
Unfortunately getting the cleaning solution into the chamber may be a
bigger problem than simply putting in the cartridge filled with the
solution, as there is already a clog. The chambers of yellow and magenta are
already filled with ink so it's problematic how to actually put the cleaning
solution into those chambers to help dissolve the clog at the bottom. The
only way I see getting a cc or more of the fluid in there is to either
suction out some of the ink using just the syringe and pressed tightly
against the nipple of the chamber, or very carefully taking a syringe, with
very fine needle and inserting it into the nipple opening and very slowly
pulling out some of the ink, and then quickly inserting a cleaning
cartridge, so that now empty space doesn't fill with air. You might be
thoughtful to want to take a syringe filled with cleaning solution and
injecting it into the chamber. I wouldn't because too much pressure could
easily blow out the head membrane. Better is to remove the ink with the
syringe and put in a cleaning cartridge.
Additionally, I would avoid leaving the 50/50 ammonia/alcohol solution
in the head for too long as the strength of the ammonia could have some
deleterious effects on the plastic in that strength. Once the clog is
cleared I would replace the cleaning cartridge with an ink cartridge to get
the ink flowing again.
Although there's the possibility that the waste pipe may come off to keep
proper cleanings from taking place and nullify the suction effect of pulling
ink through the nozzles, from what I've seen, I would be doubtful that it is
the cause of the problem. The rubber tube is pressed onto the wastepipe
nozzle pretty tight and unless the tube actually gets caught on a stray
piece of plastic would not likely come off.
Is it worth doing all this and keeping this printer? If you continue to
use the Dura-brite ink then absolutely not. In the past two years I've put
six C-84 printers into service in our school and 5 of them have clogged. If
I had had a handle on how to clear them with what I've learned at this point
the other five would still be working, but I've disposed of them at this
point. With some effort though you could switch this printer to use a
different type of ink and fill the cartridges easily, and cheaply. Currently
I have 3 new C-84 printers running on a dye base ink using a new spongeless
cartridge that one can easily fill with ink in less than a minute. There's
been no tendencey for clogging from any of them (one barely gets used) and
this experiment is going on three months at this point.
