I have an epson 3000 and hadn't used it in months. I knew I had to do
a lot of cleaning to get it going again, so I did clean the heads,
windex the cleaning pads, refill the ink reservoir, and got a test
pattern to finally print. The test pattern is weird, though, it's
missing ink in areas and has excess lines all over the place. Take a
look at it at:
Hmm well if the nozzle's clogged, why am I seeing extra lines on part
of the print out? What are my options for unclogging these nozzles?
On Sep 20, 12:25 am, "Chris Gilbert"
<christopher.DELETEgilb...@virgin.net> wrote:
> cruzer wrote
>
> >http://onxy.2y.net/bad_epson_3000_no...ck_pattern.jpg
>
> Looks like a serious clogging problem with at least the black nozzle.
>
> Chris
By any chance do you have access to one of the micro-bristle brushes that were
at one time used to clean the groves in old vinyl records? Using one of those
with some warm water and a drop of detergent I was able to successfully
resurrect some ink carts that I thought for sure were a lost cause. You can also
substitute one of the clothes lint-brushes that have fine stiff fibers, the kind
that you have to wipe in one direction to pick up lint, and then reverse the
direction to unload it, but it's not as effective. The bristles being much
larger.
At times I have also gotten away with giving sharp wrap to a cartridge, nozzle
side down, on a hard surface covered with some absorbent paper. This momentarily
forces the ink into the micro-nozzles. Often its not clogged nor dried ink but a
micro sized air pocket in the way. This forces out any air that is preventing
the ink from getting into the thermal components by capillary or gravity action
alone. I have also used air pressure to force the ink through to get them
started. Again, when not caused by dry ink but micro air pockets. This seems to
be the biggest problem with seldom used printers, air in the way, rather than
dried ink. You'd be surprised how much force is needed to get that ink to go
through that micro-sized air gap that developed. You have to overcome the
surface tension of that ink on a micro-sized scale. 10 lbs. per sq. inch equates
to very little pressure when you're talking about micron dimensions. (Which
always amazes me how protozoa can swim so fast in water, it would be like a
human attempting to swim in hardened cement.) Once it is started then capillary
action takes over and the ink moves through easily of its own accord.
Sometimes I can just get away with holding a dampened paper towel to the ink
head, the capillary action of the damp toweling seems to be able to draw the ink
through at times. This is by far the least abusive method, but it's also the
least effective.
I'm not sure of the configuration of your ink delivery system, never owned an
Espon printer. I'm only relaying things I've done in the past that worked for
ink cartridges. You might be able to make use of some of this experience.
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:26:07 -0700, cruzer <cruzer@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hmm well if the nozzle's clogged, why am I seeing extra lines on part
>of the print out? What are my options for unclogging these nozzles?
>
>On Sep 20, 12:25 am, "Chris Gilbert"
><christopher.DELETEgilb...@virgin.net> wrote:
>> cruzer wrote
>>
>> >http://onxy.2y.net/bad_epson_3000_no...ck_pattern.jpg
>>
>> Looks like a serious clogging problem with at least the black nozzle.
>>
>> Chris
>
On Sep 20, 3:07 am, cruzer <cru...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have an epson 3000 and hadn't used it in months. I knew I had to do
> a lot of cleaning to get it going again, so I did clean the heads,
> windex the cleaning pads, refill the ink reservoir, and got a test
> pattern to finally print. The test pattern is weird, though, it's
> missing ink in areas and has excess lines all over the place. Take a
> look at it at:
>
> http://onxy.2y.net/bad_epson_3000_no...ck_pattern.jpg
>
> I want to know if I should keep on trying to fix this or just trash my
> printer.
Print some thing and check again, looks like the heads are
overspraying, a sign of a wornout head. But that could be because of
the liquid you have used to clean the head. Do you know the service
code to get to the heavy head cleaning routines? If the heads aren't
wornout doesn't look too bad, you could also go with several regular
cleaning cycles.
It is an old 4 ink printer, I have seen some decent photos from a
3000, but mostly they had a midrange exposure, nothing extreme on
either end of the tonal scale.
odd output for an epson 3000 nozzle check 
Linear Mode
