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CIS dye sublimation-black not printing
Hi, is anyone able to give me some advice?
I have an Epson photo 1400 printer with a ArTainium CIS dye sublimation system fitted. It has all been working beautifully up till about a month ago. Now the black ink refuses to print. On the nozzle check all the other colours are printed apart from the black.
My supplier advised me to keep printing to try and get the black moving & printing again but it doesn’t seem to be working and I’m wasting loads of ink! It just refuses to print the black areas on my designs.
I haven’t done many head cleans because I know this can do more damage than good.
Has anyone had this problem? I have been on the Sawgrass website but there doesn’t seem to be any technical help for my type of printer.
Any help gratefully received!
Thanks
Mariska
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6 Replies
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Hi Mariska, do you have the CSS utility for epson printers installed ? If not then it is worth downloading and using rather than the utility Epson provide. You can also clean the black carts separately from colour so you won’t waste lots of ink trying to clean the black head.
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Can you see the black ink going into the cartridge or is there air in the line? You can remove the cart and draw the ink through using a syringe.
Justin 🙂
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If black isn’t printing then simply continuing to print won’t really help matters. You need to do some maintenance. To start with do a nozzle check and head clean to see if this improves matters. Don’t do more than 2 or 3 head cleans at a time as (a) you waste a lot of ink and (b) you will flood the printer head with ink and then you’ll have to leave the printer to settle for an hour or so. If nozzle checks and head cleans don’t work then you may need to re-prime the black cartridge.
If you have the Photo 1400 Easyflow system then you can re-prime the black cartridge without removing it from the printer. Look inside your printer and you will see the black tube going into the cartridge. Follow this point to the back of the cartridge (going away from you) and you will see a small circle with a small hole in it – this is the re-priming hole. Using the syringe and SHARP needle you received in the Easyflow system insert the needle into this small hole and pull back on the syringe. You should start to pull ink into into the syringe chamber. Once you have ink in the syringe chamber then the cartridge has been re-primed (or refilled). Squirt the ink in the syringe back into the bottles so you don’t waste it.
Perform a nozzle check and head clean if necessary and this should work.
If, when you are re-priming the cartridge you feel resistance as you pull back the syringe and ink doesn’t come into the syringe body then there is a blockage somewhere. This is most likely to be where the tubes connect with lock screws near the bottles. These would need to be undone and cleaned (use the syringe without a needle to pull/ push ink through and then re-prime as described above.
If you are still experiencing problems it may be something to do with the cartridge and tube assembly. These are available as replacement parts from the company that sold you the Easyflow system in the past. You might have an air leak in the tubes for instance which is stopping the printer from pulling ink through. If the Easyflow system isn’t very old then you may be able to get this replaced free of charge, otherwise they cost around £50 +vat and come filled with the sublimation ink. You just then connect them to the bottles where the lock screws are and insert the cartridges into your printer.
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Thanks everybody for your advice, I’ll check it out and see if I have any luck. Problem is that I go on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow, not good for the printer to stay idle- good for me though 😀
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quote Mariska Parent:Thanks everybody for your advice, I’ll check it out and see if I have any luck. Problem is that I go on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow, not good for the printer to stay idle- good for me though 😀actually this is a extremely good point,what to do with your printer when you go on holiday,is there anything you can do to stop CISS inks drying and clogging whilst away??
anyone?
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take it with u and earn a few quid 😀
or get mum to press head clean on her visit to ur house
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