[tylersundaze]

Just fired up an fp125 i purchased. connected to pc, did head charges, the whole 9 yards. went to print, nothing. put syringe in damper, was able to manually pull ink through no problem, no clogs, good dampers, etc. Checked the maintenance station, suction is good, functions fine. I suspect it is something in the print head. The printer was sitting before i purchased it and i figure all the issues are from poor upkeep but thats besides the point. My nozzles are not firing, nozzle check is blank. It wants to print but just cannot fire ink out. Is there any way to narrow down the problem in the print head? I want to make sure there is no easy solution before getting a new head. I've read the anajet tutorials and it isnt very specific on how to go about fixing print heads that may have clogged. Let me know what you all think. Thanks

 

[zoom_monster]

Was there cleaning fluid in it when you bought it(or ink)?. How old is the ink? There should be an expiration date on the carts. If you do an ink purge by channel (in the driver and EK) do you get any ink?

 

[ironhog]

Sounds like the fuse/fuses on the EPSON board are blown. Not something the every day guy can repair on their own. Were you able to verify the operation prior to purchase?

 

[tylersundaze]

how do i go about doing a purge? i know how to do the ink charge, but i'm not sure on the purging. I ordered sme Magic Bullet nozzle cleaning solution online the other day, going to see if maybe that will resolve the issue. Let me know on how to purge the system. Thanks alot

 

[ironhog]

If you were able to charge the machine with ink I do not believe your print head is clogged. The capping station sucks it through the print head when it charges. See my ealier post.

 

[zoom_monster]

Let me know on how to purge the system. Thanks alot

Tyler, Open the PDF manual from the help menu(in EK) and search for "purge"

 

[tylersundaze]

Thanks for all the input so far. Two things; when i go to the tab to select ink settings, the category is faded out and is not accessible. Any idea why that is and how to fix it? Also, i ordered a bottle "magic bullet" printer head cleaner to see if it will solve the problem, has anyone had any luck with this product? if it is a print head clog, it sounds like this would be the stuff to clear that up.

 

[zoom_monster]

when i go to the tab to select ink settings, the category is faded out and is not accessible. Any idea why that is and how to fix it?

Tyler, My guess is that you are using the original driver for the FP-125. try to update the driver and the RIP to the latest versions and see if that corrects it. These are available on the Anajet website.

 

[tylersundaze]

Ok update. Magic bullet printer head cleaner came in the mail the other day. attached it to nozzles, filled with the reccommended 2ml of solution (which smells basically just like water and amonia) and let it sit for a while. old ink started to come out an printhead slowly started to spray. ran an inkcharge and a head cleaning and it started to show alot more progress than before, but by no means optimal efficiency. So would you agree that its safe that it wasnt printing due to the dried ink? mind you i dont know how long it went without a print before i purchased it so everything about this process has been a shot in the dark. unfortunately, im nearing the end of my little bottle of magic bullet. could i mix a good blend of distilled water + amonia to continue the cleaning process? are there any other cleaning solutions i could add to make this work? black is the most stubborn of the nozzles, it must really be in there good, but i figure if the other ones showed some serious progress, they all can.

 

[ironhog]

Simple Green and water at 25/75 ratio...

Good to hear your news..

 

[kevrokr]

Ammonia is really good at helping break down most types of digital textile ink. It really cannot hurt to keep at it since you would most likely be replacing the head if you cannot clear it anyway.

 

[tylersundaze]

awesome, thanks for the help guys. ill keep you informed

 

[tylersundaze]

also, while doing all this work i had alot of cleaning fluid pour out but it went into a tray. I have every size syringe imaginable, is there a way to put the fluid back in the cartridge?

 

[JeridHill]

is there a way to put the fluid back in the cartridge?

I would not recommend it. Any contamination that gets into your system could cause you to lose your print head.

 

[tylersundaze]

alright ive reached a speedbump. mixed a batch of amonia and water, and simple green and water, connected to each nozzle and flushed out. all the colors originally didnt spray out anything, but after a flush or 2 most of the colors are getting the solution through the printhead. blue seems to be working properly, yellow has a few streams but not all of them, red seems to be losening up too, but black is giving me the most issues. i went back and checked the suction on all the lines and i am able to pull ink through all of them so i know there isnt any issues there. dampers all seem fine. so back to flushing out the nozzles. should i just continue to flush with a higher concentration of the amonia&water/simple green&water and let it sit longer? it seems the last couple cleanings did some work for most of the nozzles as they werent spraying at all orginally. can i try a rubbing alcohol and water mix? when i try to push the cleaner through the black nozzle it barely takes any in, but after a while if i pull back on the syringe i see black trying to come up the tube. does this mean its just REALLY caked in there and needs a stronger cleaner? is there a way to take the printhead off, open it up and manually clean it? thanks for all the help. also, when i ran a cleaning cycle and an ink charge i noticed i actually got some ink on the maintenance station (red and blue). is this good? does this mean that it is sucking ink through the nozzles? perhaps the station has dried ink on it, should i clean it with cleaning solution? i already put some drops of water in there to make sure it has suction and it did suck the water in so mechanically i think its ok. my next option is throwing the whole thing off the roof of my apartment and taking it from there. let me know what you think

 

[tylersundaze]

pardon the length of that last post i just wanted to make sure i had all the information covered so you get a good grasp on the situation im lookin at.

 

[zoom_monster]

Since you've had CF in it over the last few days and you are only getting slight improvement, my guess is that the ink has been in there too long and the head will need to be replaced. At this point, I would place the order. While you wait, If you want to draw fluid up though the face (to the dampers) with the nozzles sitting in a very short(3-4mm) dish of fluid, that would be the next thing to try, but seriously... after this much time, it would be very difficult to get solidified ink out without damage anyways. Just remember what you went through so that you can prevent this in the future.

 

[tylersundaze]

If you want to draw fluid up though the face (to the dampers) with the nozzles sitting in a very short(3-4mm) dish of fluid, that would be the next thing to try,.

thanks for the help. im a little confused by this process though, could you rephrase?

 

[tylersundaze]

im gonna look into getting a new printhead, because it definately seems like its going to end up being an irreversible problem at this point. are the printheads easy enough to install on my own? Id rather not spend hundreds on shipping for anajet to do it across the country..as long as the dampers are ok, the maintenance station has suction, and the lines are all ok, its pretty much 100% narrowed down to a bad printhead correct?

 

[23spiderman]

if AnaJet doesn't send you the pdf file on how to replace the print head, let me know and i'll send it to you. it's not that difficult. also, i have taken the heads completely apart and thoroughly cleaned them out, and it worked just fine. the plastic housing (with all the nipples) comes off of the top of the print head, and you can flush those plastic lines to be sure the clog isn't up there with no risk of damaging the nozzle plate. then when you reassemble you know where the clog is.

i used Simple Green at full strength. i let it sit in the head for about an hour, and then flushed it out completely. some users have said that if you leave Simple Green in for too long, it will delaminate your head, but i've never had any problems with pushing and pulling it through to remove clogs, and then flushing it with distilled water. i would stay away from the rubbing alcohol.

the bottom line is that you MIGHT be able to get the head cleaned, but there's no way to know if there is still some dried ink in the head that may cause starvation in the future...typically right in the middle of a job that was due "yesterday". so getting a new print head is still a good idea, while taking apart the existing one will give you confidence on how to fix this problem in the future. that being said, i've never had a problem with CMYK ink, and the trouble i had with WHITE ink was a bad batch (i think).

to reverse flush, you get a shallow tray of cleaning solution and you PULL the ink up through the face of the head and into your syringe. just get enough of the nozzle plate in the solution to be able to pull fluid up. this moves bigger clogs out through bigger holes instead of trying to force them out through the nozzles.