Re-occuring staining in yellow/ight magenta channels

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
1

Hi!

I recently converted a new epson 3880 to piezography and had initial problems with massive staining both yellow and magenta (which I believe is to be expected).
My printer has been used with colors for about 3 weeks from brand new condition while waiting for the inks to arrive at my home. Printer was in great working condition, no nozzle problems or anything like that. I exchanged the ink initialy using an inital ink charge using the service adjustment program as adviced by tech support. I never print matt so I have a cartridge installed in that channel with piezoflush.

Now what I did was I printed a fair amount of super b sized paper using the QTR calbriation mode to flush out the yellow and magenta stains, and when I went to bed last night it all looked great and I was printing my first few real prints (I am in love with how the GO interacts with the paper - I am finally back to the darkroom days where the print is INSIDE the paper and not on top of the paper!!).
When returning from work today I was excited to print some more, but noticed that a fair amount of yellow and magenta staining had returned :frowning: :frowning:

The maintainace cartride has been blinking almost full for a while now, so I have replaced that (can’t imagine that should be a problem? It looked soaked but not overflown or anything crazzy). Also for the first time in my life (this is my third epson printer) I have cleaned the wiper blade and the capping station using the piezoflush solution that I purchased. I have cleaned the yellow and light magenta channel a bit more an I can see some of the stain has disappeared but there is still some left.

Now I would like to avoid printing a lot more sheets flushing the yellow/light magenta only having to wake up tomorrow to find the stain having returned, so I was wondering if I have been doing something fundementally wrong since the stain returned after half a day break from printing, or if the stain could be due to the capping station? (it didnt look very dirty, but I noticed that one part of it looked quite yellowish - not excatly sure how it works).

PS: I am a long term die hard harman baryta fan, but I might have to put in some orders for more Jon Con type 5 - its quite a delicous paper as well!!

2

You may see this color staining for a couple of weeks off and on, it is due to pigments collecting in the lines that run from the cartridges to the print head itself. When you start your printing for the day after the printer has been sitting for a time, run a nozzle check to see if you can see any visual color staining, if you can, run a Cleaning cycle through the control panel and do another manual nozzle check. Sometimes it will take 1 cleaning cycle, and sometimes it might take 2-3 to clear the staining. Obviously the more ink you run through the system the less staining you will see and at some point (it probably won’t take long with a new system) it will be gone completely and you won’t have to do this procedure anymore.

The Capping station is where the print head releases the ink to keep the nozzles firing in the head, it is surrounded by a runner seal that seals around the print head when it’s running through it’s automatic cleanings OR you’ve performed a manual Head cleaning through the control panel or utility. Sometimes when the capping station has become gummed up with pigments it can transfer the old pigments to the head when it runs the cleaning cycle, this is due to the residual pigments that are left behind in the capping station not being sucked completely down the pump to the waste tank. It does help to clean the capping station when you are switching over to a different ink set to help assist with the removal of the old pigment inks.

To do this on the 3880 you will have to turn the printer ON, wait for the head to move off the capping station to the left of the printer, then quickly unplug the power cord. You will now have access to the capping station, using Piezoflush or Distilled water, take your syringe and squirt a small amount of either fluid into the capping station, let it sit for a few minutes then dab it up with a paper towel that’s folded in halves. You can watch this video on the R2880 and apply the same method to the 3880 for this procedure Epson small format printer maintenance - YouTube

Glad to hear you are enjoying our system and I definitely recommend purchasing the Jon Cone Type 5 papers if you think the Harman paper is nice, you will really enjoy the Type 5 paper, it is a lovely paper with very nice gloss compatibilities using just one pass of 30K GO.