R2400 clogged heads

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cathal donnelly
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Hi guys mt epson R2400 has clogged heads anyone got any ideas how to fix it cheaply,Epson price is near the £200 mark with about 2 weeks turn around

Cathal
 
Hi guys mt epson R2400 has clogged heads anyone got any ideas how to fix it cheaply,Epson price is near the £200 mark with about 2 weeks turn around

Cathal

I have done this fix on a couple of Epson printers before.

I bought a bottle of ink jet cleaning fluid for about £5 then I removed the printer head mechanism and wiped the bottom faces several times with a jay cloth saturated in the cleaning fluid before re-assembling it.

JOB DONE...

It is not the easiest job to do though but it's not impossible. Have you tried using cleaning cartridges first?
 
I would strongly advise against wiping the printheads; I've seen too many of them ruined this way.

By far and away the most effective method I've found involves soaking the printheads with a saturated tissue overnight to break down any solidified ink.

To do this, allow the carriage to move to the middle of it's travel and pull the power out of the back of the printer. Inside the printer, over by the right hand side, you'll see the service station where the carriage parks and the printheads get cleaned. It consists of a rectangular rubber seal. Clean the seal with a damp cotton bud.

You may also notice a rubber wiper blade which is used to wipe the printheads. The best way to clean this is pinch it with a pair of tweasers which you then run down the length of the wiper. Clean the tweasers on a damp piece of tissue and repeat a few times.

Now fold a couple of piece of tissue paper over several times until it's roughly the size of the rubber seal mentioned above and saturate it with water. Place it over the seal and move the carriage back over to the service station by hand so the printheads are sitting on the tissue paper.

Leave overnight, remove the tissue paper, re-apply the power and run the built-in cleaning cycle half a dozen times.

Perform the nozzle test and if it's not completely clear, repeat and soak for a second night.

If it still doesn't work, then you may wish to consider harsher methods of cleaning as you have nothing to lose.
 
Cathald, here are the instructions as I promised.....


Thursday 19th March
Tip 126 – Hardware [7] – Cleaning Epson print heads 1


This is the Epson approved method.

Items you will require

1 x 20-50ml syringe
1 x thin plastic pipe (that fits the syringe) 10cm in length.
1 x bottle of inkjet cleaning fluid (isopropanol cleaning solvent)
1 x NEW cartridge to replace ones fitted at blocked colours.

TIP125a.jpg


TIP125b.jpg



Fit the rubber/plastic clear tubing to the end of the syringe as shown in the above picture.

Method

First off print a printer head test and make sure that the head is in fact not printing through EVERY hole and try the normal head cleaning procedure three times.

Second try a full on head clean. There are ways to initiate this but the easiest is to tell the printer you are changing a cartridge and don’t actually change it.

If neither of the above help then we can proceed to the main course !
Firstly we need to park the printer head carriage in the cartridge changing location. The procedure for doing this varies from printer to printer but usually holding the ink change button for about 5 seconds forces the printer to do it or alternatively turning the printer on and waiting for the head to fly past the change location. Either way once the head is in that location pull the power lead out. DO NOT leave the lead in as some Epson models will automatically re-locate the head after 45 seconds of non activity and you could break off the nozzle you are working on.

Once the head is in it’s park location remove the cartridge that is not working.

Remove the pipe and fill the syringe with 10ml of solvent and re-attach pipe. Then push the fluid to the end of the pipe by pushing the plunger.

Locate the nozzle that the print cartridge attaches too:

TIP125c.jpg


Attach the other end of the pipe to the nozzle inside the printer (where the cartridge attaches):

TIP125d.jpg


Pull the plunger lightly (which should cause a vacuum and pull any air in the head through the liquid the the plunger) then let go of the plunger. The vacuum should suck the liquid into the head. Do this again till no air comes through then pump the cleaning fluid into the printer head using moderate pressure till no more goes through and leave to do it’s work.

After 12 hours try to pump more through by pushing the plunger. This should have cleared any blockage.

Fit another cartridge and plug the printer back in.

Complete three printer cleaning/nozzle check runs and note any improvement.

You can repeat the above a couple of times but if this does not work the only alternative is to go to the next tip for an alternative method.

Friday 20th March
Tip 127 – Hardware [8] – Cleaning Epson print heads 2


If TIP126 has NOT managed to clean your heads then you will need to remove the heads from the printer. This is not the easiest of tasks but if you want to carry this out and have any concerns then let me know as I have a number of exploded diagrams and service manuals.

Park the heads and remove the power cable.

Disassemble and remove the print heads !!!

Right now this method is not endorsed by Epson but basically we need to force cleaning fluid through the head. You can do this by re-attaching the pipe and syringe and forcing the fluid through again.

Wipe the heads with a jay cloth soaked in cleaning fluid.

Leave to soak for 12 hours making sure that the cleaning fluid does not go anywhere near the electrics and repeat the above 2 lines.

Re-fit and perform cleaning cycles.
 
I would strongly advise against wiping the printheads; I've seen too many of them ruined this way.

Yes cleaning that way is the LAST resort but I PM'd Cathald to let him know I was writing some full instructions and sent him the service manual :)

The above method is the method taught to Epson engineers before they fit a new head. I have included the LAST RESORT method too but it took me a while to do the photos and write the method, hence the delay.

I have used these two methods as my Apple top tips for two days
 
Cheers guys I will give this a go tomorrow as I have had a couple of beers so it might not be the best time to be poking around inside a printer........

Cathal
 
Hi Darren / cowasaki,

With regards to the Epson print head cleaning. " unapproved method "

Seem to be having a few problems myself with a clogged head, the approved cleaning method doesn't quite seem to be working so I was wandering if you wouldn't mind sending me some details that you have on the head removal procedure.

I have the Epson R2400.

Regards, Paul.
 
Hi Darren / cowasaki,

With regards to the Epson print head cleaning. " unapproved method "

Seem to be having a few problems myself with a clogged head, the approved cleaning method doesn't quite seem to be working so I was wandering if you wouldn't mind sending me some details that you have on the head removal procedure.

I have the Epson R2400.

Regards, Paul.

Sorry but I don't actually have a service manual for the R2400. You need to take the heads out of the machine and then you can access the bottom of them in order to soak them. There is another method you can try which involves soaking a jay cloth in cleaning fluid and folding it up then parking the head on it over night then cleaning as normal. If that does not work then you would have to disassemble it.

You might get the manual here LINK password is "printer1.blogspot.com"
 
I find the nearest fluid to the above mentioned is surgical spirit from Boots. It dilutes any dried ink. I once took four empty cartridges, filled them with surgical spirit, then charged the chip. Put it on continuous print which gave it a good wash out.
 
how many times have you used the software to clean the heads?

Do you mean how often do I clean the heads with the Epson driver's head cleaner? Well probably about once a month. There is a more strenuous cleaner in Epson's engineering software suite but that is only available to their engineers ;) Anyway the above should sort it. It is very rare that it gets to the point of requiring the heads out but it happens on occasion.
 
Hi Darren,

Thanks for the link to the service manual, proved to be quite worthwhile.

I too removed the print head. Gave the print head a good soaking in Isopropanol along with the cartridge holder to clean all the spigots.

After a number of draft prints to clear any residual cleaning solution, the printer is up and running again..

Thanks for your previous posts and pics.

Paul..


 
Hi Darren,

Thanks for the link to the service manual, proved to be quite worthwhile.

I too removed the print head. Gave the print head a good soaking in Isopropanol along with the cartridge holder to clean all the spigots.

After a number of draft prints to clear any residual cleaning solution, the printer is up and running again..

Thanks for your previous posts and pics.

Paul..



Glad to be of service (y)
 
Sorry but I don't actually have a service manual for the R2400. You need to take the heads out of the machine and then you can access the bottom of them in order to soak them. There is another method you can try which involves soaking a jay cloth in cleaning fluid and folding it up then parking the head on it over night then cleaning as normal. If that does not work then you would have to disassemble it.

You might get the manual here LINK password is "printer1.blogspot.com"


Hello Everyone,
This is more or less a zombie thread, but I'm trying to resurrect my Epson R2400 and not having a very good time of it. I'm going to need to disassemble the unit and could really use the manual. The link provided is dead, the file is out there, but I can only find paid links for downloading it. Does anyone have the Epson R2400 manual they can share with me, please? Thanks
 
Hello Everyone,
This is more or less a zombie thread, but I'm trying to resurrect my Epson R2400 and not having a very good time of it. I'm going to need to disassemble the unit and could really use the manual. The link provided is dead, the file is out there, but I can only find paid links for downloading it. Does anyone have the Epson R2400 manual they can share with me, please? Thanks


Hi photousa,

Yes, I have the service manual for an Epson R2400. It can be found here...

http://tinyurl.com/mptcyk3

I'll leave it up for a while... should anyone else need a copy, please PM me.


Cheers,
RGM
 
I used printhead hospital cleaning fluid, it seems to have ago little extra in it than straight IPA.

It rescued my Canon 9000 head from the bin, unfortunately I'd already got a replacement head at just under £100. That head is now in storage should I need it in the future.
 
Any chance anyone out there can send a link to the R2400 manual again? The above link is dead. I'm needing to take my printer apart. Many, many thanks!
 
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