Leaving an Epson Printer On, or Off

Living in Denver, it is definitely dry, although not as hot as AZ. I use the water glass technique - cover 3880 with the plastic it came in, which has some holes in the top and leave a cup of water under the plastic.

While I definitely leave it longer than I should without printing, I have not had a clog (although point taken about having differnt experiences with the same printer). So anyway, a long winder way of saying +1 for the cover it with a cup of water under the cover (and refill or make it a bug enough cup - I would say I use a small jug)
 
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Feb 26, 2012
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I left my Epson 9900 unplugged for 2.5 years.
restarted and 8 of 10 heads work perfectly after a few cleaning cycles.
the other 2 heads, which happen to be a specific pair, are not working at all. Not one nozzle.. So I'm wondering if there's a problem in the valving/damper assembly. I'm going to have to make some time to take the thing apart and find out if the ink is even coming to the heads for that pair. I can hear the piezos activating during cleaning cycle for that pair but nothing coming out after the first test.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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I left my Epson 9900 unplugged for 2.5 years.
restarted and 8 of 10 heads work perfectly after a few cleaning cycles.
the other 2 heads, which happen to be a specific pair, are not working at all. Not one nozzle.. So I'm wondering if there's a problem in the valving/damper assembly. I'm going to have to make some time to take the thing apart and find out if the ink is even coming to the heads for that pair. I can hear the piezos activating during cleaning cycle for that pair but nothing coming out after the first test.
One thing to try is to take a strip of paper towel that is dampened with non ammonia windex ahd slide the head over it, leave it in place overnight. If the clog is in the nozzles, it will dissolve the ink.

If its in the dampers, there is little to do, but you can put a ink tank that is filled with head cleaner for the offending color nozzles and print to just that one clogged color. There are patterns available for each color in the printer, so you can work on one color without using other colors of ink up. It takes lots of paper, but ordinary inkjet paper works fine for this. I've done both before using the windex, I keep going until the faint blue windex is printing a good pattern with no blocked nozzles, then put the color ink in place and print that color again, 25 pages at a time until the ink is printing clean and all the windex is out of the lines and head. It takes a while, but it worked for me.

Leaving my printer off is much better than leaving it on.
 
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Feb 26, 2012
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Thanks for the tips.

I did try a shorter term soak of paper towels with a mix of windex and IPA under the heads but it didn't do anything. I could try a more sodden soak for a longer time.
I'm thinking it's the valve/damper block.. When I did the first few cleanings and nozzle checks I got some faint output from a few of the nozzles on the problem heads. Then they just stopped putting out anything, even when doing a strong cleaning on the pair. I've never seen anything quite like it.. The heads seem completely starved of ink.

It's not hard to take the head and damper assembly apart... I'm not looking forward to that tho!
I suspect I can sort it out if I do that and then I may have to do an alignment but I really don't feel like buying a service call just yet.

I do have an old set of ink cart's I could fill with some solvent and flush the lines using the service menu. Would cost me a lot of ink but that's still a lot cheaper than a service call.


FWIW, my little R3000 is a quite a good sleeper. I had it powered off almost as long with only 1 or 2 single page black text print jobs over the same period of time and it came back perfectly after 2 minor cleanings. I'd like my large format back tho... I had a few files printed for clients at some local shops and the color was mostly carp from their HP machines. One guy who keeps his calibrated did a pretty good print job for me but none stock the paper I wanted for my clients.

Anyone know if Epson's latest large format machines have improved the "clogging" issue over the x900s?.. i see the new ink formulation has a bit more range.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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Thanks for the tips.

I did try a shorter term soak of paper towels with a mix of windex and IPA under the heads but it didn't do anything. I could try a more sodden soak for a longer time.
I'm thinking it's the valve/damper block.. When I did the first few cleanings and nozzle checks I got some faint output from a few of the nozzles on the problem heads. Then they just stopped putting out anything, even when doing a strong cleaning on the pair. I've never seen anything quite like it.. The heads seem completely starved of ink.

It's not hard to take the head and damper assembly apart... I'm not looking forward to that tho!
I suspect I can sort it out if I do that and then I may have to do an alignment but I really don't feel like buying a service call just yet.

I do have an old set of ink cart's I could fill with some solvent and flush the lines using the service menu. Would cost me a lot of ink but that's still a lot cheaper than a service call.


FWIW, my little R3000 is a quite a good sleeper. I had it powered off almost as long with only 1 or 2 single page black text print jobs over the same period of time and it came back perfectly after 2 minor cleanings. I'd like my large format back tho... I had a few files printed for clients at some local shops and the color was mostly carp from their HP machines. One guy who keeps his calibrated did a pretty good print job for me but none stock the paper I wanted for my clients.

Anyone know if Epson's latest large format machines have improved the "clogging" issue over the x900s?.. i see the new ink formulation has a bit more range.
It won't be the damper or anything else. It will be the head.

I have taken the head off X900 printers many times, it takes about 25 minutes and the only 'special' tool you need is a Phillips screwdriver with a long shaft to reach down for a couple of deeply recessed screws, access is good for everything. I used to make up my own solution for cleaning them and never used a dummy tank or ran cleaner through the lines, the problems were always directly in the head.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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The new machines use the same head technology, heat, which is the core issue of the clogging, so no, even though they claim newer machines are less prone to clogging they are not.

I have pointed out many times the problems with the X900 series Epson printers and cannot stress highly enough how much looking after they need.
 
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stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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I don't use my Epson R3000 very often, and I don't have any clogging problems. If it hasn't been used in a while, it will take a long time getting ready to print, presumably clearing out heads and such. My old printer was a 1900, I think. It clogged much more easily, and I had to induce cleaning cycles manually. I don't know whether a lot of the difference is dye vs. pigment formulations.
 
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