Hey, can someone point me in the right direction? I have QTR. I have Print tool. Have worked with these for years. Just purchased the Piezography Pro Inks for my 3880. Not sure what next step is as far as setting up to print. Do I need to purchase something else? Happy to print with included curves until I get comfortable. Just tell me what is next…or where to look. Thanks Dan
Information for printing with Piezography Pro inks can be found in “Section 7: Printing” of the Piezography Community Edition Manual. Please read thru there, then let us know if you have further questions.
Happy printing~ Dana 
Folks, I have run into several things that I would appreciate help on. I have an Epson 3880. I try to run it on a regular basis but often get some nozzle clogging when I am ready to print. Since you always say to have all jets working perfectly I usually run a cleaning. Sometimes I find this actually results in MORE of a problem - more clogs. I let the unit sit and sometimes recheck the refillable carts to make sure they are full. If all else fails I run a power cleaning. This usually does the trick but not always. That is the first quandarey!
The second thing is the fact that the carts are ALWAYS hard to remove. I think it is because of the way the chips are placed. Has this been improved yet?
Last night I refilled several carts that were low. When I placed the Photo Black Cart into the machine it just ran and ran then showed me a 1404 error code. I was able to open the lid and checked the carts. ALL good EXCEPT the Photo Black which had basically exploded. I cleaned out the problem and loaded one of the newer? carts I got from you folks last year. Labeled RCS-38xx-80-PK. The machine would not recognize it. I tried resetting the chip with your resetter- still nothing. Tried carefully transfering the old chip to the new cart - still nothing. Finally I reinstalled an old EPSON Photo Black and Bingo all good. What gives? I have two sets of these refillable carts but not real impressed with the first one I tried. Please help me out.
As I have said before you have a great concept but there seem to still be some bugs to work out though I do see progress such as the new ink bottles that eliminate the need for syringes. Please help get me up and going again so I can convert over to my new PRO Inks that I just purchased. Cheers!
Dan,
The new bottles definitely do NOT eliminate the need for syringes. Those silicone caps should be removed as per our instructions and you should fill your cart with a syringe and purge as in the instructions. We even have a video instructions about the new bottle. That there is a tiny hole in the top of the silicone plug is because a plastic pin inside the cap conveniently fits into it for a 100% airlock compression seal when the cap is screwed back on. So, please ALWAYS refer to our written and video instructions that are located on each of the product’s Learn More page directly on our web store.
Unless you have multiple accounts with us it appears your printer may be loaded with some Piezography ink positions that expired in 2014 and 2016. Depending upon how you stored the bottles and how routinely that you remove and shake your carts and how long before you print - the issues in terms of nozzles may be due to allowing ink to go stale in the printer. I see you are buying 110ml bottles and the minimum recommendation by EPSON for a 3800 or 3880 is about 120ml ink per year per chanel. That is minimum recommended usage in an EPSON Pro 38XX printer. So, your usage might be a little sparse in comparison and the inks in the ink exchanger and ink lines and of course inside the print head subject to aging.
If you print intermittently it is a good idea to remove the carts, gently shake them, then run 3 POWER CLEANS to bring freshly shaken ink to the print head. It wastes ink, but no more than not using the inks up within their shelf-life. And doing this will give you better performance and the Piezography prints will be more as we intended. Having said that, we are not recommending using outdated ink.
In regards to the new PK cart not being recognized. Did you install the OEM PK chip underneath the control chip? Is it in the correct orientation? The 3880 cartridge page has a video showing how this chip should be oriented when you place it under the control chip. Is the OEM chip clean? Did it get PK ink on it? It may have shorted. Did you try putting the PK chip from your OEM PK cart (that works in the printer) under the control chip of the new PK refill cart and test that? If it still does not work then the PK control chip should be replaced.
There is no chip resetter for the 3880. So there remains a possibility that you have also shorted the Control Chip under which you are supposed to replace the OEM chip. Please re-read the 3880 cart instructions and please review the 3880 cart video.
I’m not certain why your carts fit too tight - but you mention the control chip. Are these fully snapped into position as per the video? If they are slightly raised they will narrow the space you have to insert them but also may rip out the chip reader in the printer. Cheap to replace but a huge pain and really time consuming to disassemble the printer and replace them. So check the video and then check how you have them seated.
Are you still using the very old white opaque long 3880 carts from 2012? We have not changed our design in a very very long time and our current 3880 carts work really well. So I am puzzled that you see two different versions.
Before going to PRO, your 3880 may benefit from a thorough internal PiezoFlush cleaning. We have a newsletter going out shortly about this. Stale ink in a 3880 may adversely affect your 3880 ink exchanger. They are less than $200 but again a bit of a pain to install the first time - then routine to install the next time. It is the heart and soul of your print head’s performance and it should not be abused by allowing pigment ink to sit in a printer due to intermittent use.
I hope I touched on all the concerns. Your concerns raised concerns with me! the ink aging. But again, I only see one account on our system and you may have a second using a different email? I can check for you if you wish to PM me. Or you can check the manufacturing date or the use by date on your ink bottles.
best,
Jon
Just to add to this, make sure you clean your ink cleaning system (capping station, flush box, wiper plade, etc). this is the most common problem when the “cleaning makes it worse” thing happens on epson printers. Paper fiber gets in there and gums up the works.
3880 carts are stable. Thousands of customers use them everyday without trouble (and have for about a decade) although they are a “loose” 3-part design due to specific engineering and programatic reasons, so I would say they are out of “concept” stage by now. You most likely just need to replace your control chip. It probably shorted with ink or when you clipped it in. Taping the control chip tighter to the cartridge (over the back solder points) generally does the trick.
a quick search of community.inkjetmall.com will give a bevy of information as well.
all the best,
-walker