Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
Hi all:
I have several epson 1400's.....one of them has decided to act up after giving me great service up to now.
Epson 1400 stylus with cis using Armor Ink from Best Blank....this set up has worked wonderfully up till now.....
Problem: BLACK
Black is banded and not printing properly...all other colors fine. Have performed nozzle check/cleaning procedures to many times to tell,( the print test produces aprint out of jagged lines for each color....black prints the top and bottom line....blank in between) ....popped in the oem carts to see if it was my cis cart ...same problem which leads me to think it is a clogged head.
Epson support site is limited help....
I am aware of solvents that may clear this up....question is:
Recommendations of possible solvents...and how the heck do you disassemble the head?
I read in some articles, removing the head to clean was necessary...
Anyway....any help on this would be great!
Thanks,
Kirk
Sacrifice a coffee filter, soak it with Simple Green, and put it on the capper. Park the heads on it, and see how that does. Is this a single or multi-head printer? If it's multi, just do that to the black.
FWIW, I'm -slowly- cleaning dye sub crud out of a 1280... Lots of soaking on the botton, and I've got cleaning solution in a cartridge...
I had the same problem with my cyan and magenta heads because I let the printer sit for over three weeks when I ran out of CM inks. I bought the Ultimate Heat transfer ink kit for inkjetcarts.us. The kit came with 3 sets of refillable cartridges, 8 oz of each colors, 8 oz of cleaning solution and eight syringes. Filled one set of cartridges with cleaning solution followed the cleaning instruction and problem was solved.
8 oz cleaning solution with refillable cartridges set is available at inkjetcarts.us.
I also use autoprint program from inksupply.com that prints a CMYK test pattern on a schedule. It helps avoid clogging and keep the heads primed as long as the printer is on.
Unless the head is damaged I would suggest using cleaning solution. Leave the solution in for a while to dissolve dried ink in nozzles.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
Thanks chuck...luis. Does anyone know how to disassemble the heads....I see one screw ...took it out...but the assembly does not want to move and I didnt want to force it. I tried using a syringe ...gently pushed a solvent I have thru...with paper on the bottom to catch....then I sucked the ink back out with a syringe....hoping I would get whatever was possibly blocking....( I read this somewhere)....but in the end...I'm still where I was....I have been googling for directions to taking the heads out.....havent had any luck there either......sigh!
Suggestions...directions.....would be appareciated..=)
What surprises me is that I was gone over the 4th of july...total down time of 4 days....printer was in consistant use before that. 4 days is all it takes? surpring to me....
Don't try to take the head out of an Epson - you'll just get angry. Let it soak overnight with the simple green, maybe a cleaning cartridge with a coupla full-sheet prints of that color...
What surprises me is that I was gone over the 4th of july...total down time of 4 days....printer was in consistant use before that. 4 days is all it takes? surpring to me....
Autoprint would be the ideal solution in that situation. You have to leave the printer on all the time for the software to work. You can create a schedule on how often the test pattern is printed. The default is every 3 days. I changed it to 4 days to conserve ink. I also modified the size of the test pattern that came with software to smaller size. Again to conserve ink.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
Thanks chuck...luis. Does anyone know how to disassemble the heads....I see one screw ...took it out...but the assembly does not want to move and I didnt want to force it. I tried using a syringe ...gently pushed a solvent I have thru...with paper on the bottom to catch....then I sucked the ink back out with a syringe....hoping I would get whatever was possibly blocking....( I read this somewhere)....but in the end...I'm still where I was....I have been googling for directions to taking the heads out.....havent had any luck there either......sigh!
Suggestions...directions.....would be appareciated..=)
Sorry. I don't have a clue in removing the head. Where did you apply the solution? Did you remove the cartridge and push the solution in the nipple where the ink goes in from the cartridge? Try doing the opposite. Suck the ink out first from the nipple. Push the solution. Leave the solution over night so it will soak the nozzle and hopefully dissolve the clog.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
Last edited by Lnfortun; July 11th, 2008 at 07:12 PM.
I tried both ways...however I didnt let it soak over night. I will do that tonight...Thanks alot!
BTW according to Inkjetcarts.us when the printer does the head cleaning it uses 30 times the amount of ink used compared to just printing a purge file a few times until the banding disappears.
Evidently the printer is using a lot of ink during the head cleaning cycle.
Attached is the purge file I use for all four heads. You can make your own for individual heads when only one head is clogged. Instead of using the 4 color file. That way you do not waste the other inks.
The 4 color file is what I use as a default file for Autoprint.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
I boiled the water and placed it on the pad where the print head sits and turn the unit off. let it sit for like 5 minutes and it should work like a brand new printer.
Epson 1400 clogged head help 
MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2
