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General discussion

Epson Durabrite: CLOG vs AIR BUBBLE?

Jan 19, 2010 1:07AM PST

....preface: ditto everything already said, REVISITED.....

Resentfully stuck salvaging my bigger investment in ink, I?ve never had any printers but Epsons, so I was ?familiar? with the usual woes ... till my latest (CX5000) produced a new combo-platter problem:

Natch, 9 of 10 times it?s the black--whether it first registers on the page (gapping/gone) or at boot up (flashing/solid ink light) it takes the same cul de sac to disaster (disaster: buying another Epson);

1)If on the PRINT (my CX5000 image error began as horizontal lines [caught early, could turn off--cool down? reboot & print clear before re-banding], only now I?ve also got bizarre splotches of psychedelic like color negatives I can neither a)connect with missing ink--though it surfaced simultaneously? nor b)repair): first I clean the heads till all but a dash or 2 of the black test bar is back, 1 more cycle should do the job but instead it prints out half the black bar & another cycle results in no black bar at all? This outcome, shared by eventually all latter-day Epson users, is what makes me suspect air in the system; for solvent can dissolve dry ink but can only push a pocket of air forward which'll be pulled (vacuumed) back the next time the printer sucks in more ink supply?

2)If the ink LIGHT is on (usually after I cleaned heads till I lost all black): I find cart not even near empty, reinstall it, squat, refill it anyway, no fix, switch to brand new ARC cart only to find nothing corrects the now fragile, false chip-reading and I?m left utterly outta business .... is this:

A)INK?
B)AIR?
C)HARDWARE?

How do you tell the difference & how do you clear/bleed out air?

Discussion is locked

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Sadly you have discovered first hand.
Jan 19, 2010 3:29AM PST

That these printers are 2 year designs. While a new print head can fix it, it can cost as must as the printer.

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strike two?
Jan 20, 2010 11:26PM PST

I get that Epsons are now designed to 'self-destruct' in year two (whether used 200 or 20 times).... but I was really hopin' for an answer to my question anyway?

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Sorry for the typo.
Jan 21, 2010 10:24AM PST

Go ahead and try the air blast or such but your plight is one that you should find all over the internet. The cure is a new printhead which is as much as a new printer.

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DIY "air blast" (for CX AIO series)
Jan 22, 2010 1:08AM PST

Could you provide steps for this technique as I believe such air pocket lockouts better describe this end-of-service state (where no head-clean or solvent prevents a worse [a total] ink loss) which many seem to experience? With apparently nothing left to risk, we might as well make use of what's officially DOA to learn HOW TO BLEED AIR OUT of the next printer?

Lateral Q: can air pocket contact malfunctions account for my new printed swatches of psychedelic-like color-negative results? have you ever heard of such inverted color-sync issues before?

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Sorry no.
Jan 22, 2010 1:12AM PST

I never wrote it up because it had such a low success rate. If a person wants to try they will try. There is no air bleed issue. I can only guess there are those that dreamed that up.

The failures in 2 year old printers do include what you describe. The rough part is how do you help the owner get past this without spending time at the service counter or losing a month in the garage tinkering with it?
Bob