I purchased an unused Epson R2880 recently on ebay. It was in the original box and appeared to be brand new. I set it up, added the ink cartridges that were in the box to do a nozzle check. The only inks that printed were yellow, magenta, cyan and black and there were gaps. I did auto cleaning and printed a few nozzle checks and the nozzle check got better for those inks but I was still not seeing any of the other inks. Eventually I put the piezography inks for digital negs in the printer to see if that made a difference. but it did not. I cleaned the printer following Dana’s instructions but the only change after a nozzle check was I saw some light cyan and light magenta. The other colors that I had seen originally were not appearing any more. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
What happened, I think, is that you put carts in with fully expired epson pigment ink. This caused big chunks to go into the ink stem. You need our small format flush kit. You’ll need to flush, let sit over night, flush again and then run a back-wards flush (suck up with the syringe). Then put piezo carts back in and run a cleaning and you should be ok.
best,
Walker
I have the flush kit already. To make sure I understand…I flush each cartridge with piezo flush without pulling out the syringe and pushing down again on the syringe like Dana did in the video. Then I flush again 24 hours later. Next I use the syringe to do a back flush but do not put any piezo flush in the syringe. Correct? Thanks so much.
I assume you are meaning “ink stem” when you say cartridge. But yes. When you do the back-suck method you first purge forward (with flush) and then suck back.
best,
Walker
Walker, I finally followed your suggestions in the email above and I am ready to do a new nozzle check. Is it a bad idea to put the original Epson ink cartridges back into the printer since they may have caused the problem in the first place? Should I just do a nozzle check with my piezo ink cartridges? Or do something else? Thanks. Catherine
Don’t put the originals in. They have chunky pigment in them!
Use the Piezo ink.
best,
Walker
Walker, I did a nozzle check using the piezo ink cartridges. The results were not good. The nozzle check only showed some yellow, some magenta and some cyan with gaps. I did 3 nozzle checks and still saw only 3 colors and I expected to see shades of black. Any other suggestions?
Thanks.
Walker, have I given you enough information so you can help me out?
Thanks. Catherine
Sorry. I can’t help you further if the clogging persists. There is too much old debris stuck in the head. PiezoFlush is not a solvent (solvent will unglue the lamination on the print head nozzle plate and damage the head). PF will help to a large extent but will not cure everything if the head is beyond repair.
We state in all of our instructions and literature that it’s important to verify the printer is working before putting piezo into it. But an ebay printer with expired ink is not always going to work properly. Epson stopped manufacturing this printer more than 6 yrs ago. That is a long time. We still support it as a model (long after Epson has stopped) but have recently stopped supporting the 2400s and 2200s because they are even older. The chances of getting a printer that will malfunction (if that printer is over half a decade old as a model) increase with time.
-Walker
Thanks, Walker. I understand.
Catherine