Cleanings - How much ink should be drawn?

[Dsmantledyou]

Have had this Falcon II outdoor that I purchased used a few months ago.
Nozzle checks slightly started fading in and out. So I noticed one of the pump lines went bad and I ended up replacing the pump with an aftermarket one. I wanted to go OEM, but didn't have time to wait for shipping. I had to do a little custom rigging on the pumps since the lines weren't as good as OEM and the metal brackets that hold the lines together were missing. Anyways, I'm able to get decent suction out of the pumps from a cup of cleaning solution.
After Replacing the pumps nozzles were still fading in and out, so the next step was to replace the caps. Did that, but it took me a while to get suction after replacing them. After fiddling with the caps for a while, I was able to Syringe ink out of each line.

In conclusion, I've owned this printer for a few months, and I'm still able to produce sellable prints. My lines are able to suck out ink, but as I look at the capping unit lines during cleanings, Only a 1/4 -3" of ink sucks out spontaneously. Sometimes I only see a tiny bit of ink come out during cleanings. Is that normal?

BTW, I'll be switching to OEM pumps and caps to be on the safe side.

 

[randya]

A cleaning should only be a couple to a few milliters per cycle.
Something less than a teaspoon for all colors combined.

 

[Dsmantledyou]

Cool, Thanks. I think I'm sucking up enough ink then.



I might be running into a seperate issue with caps not seating properly though. Sorry if it's off subject. I noticed that after cleaning around the heads with swabs for maintenence, ink sometimes doesn't get suction from the cleanings with one or two of the heads. It seems as though I have to give it a little assist by sucking with the syringe a few times to get it going. The first couple sucks with the syringe just gets air. Then after a couple tugs, the ink starts pulling.

Any advice on seating the caps properly, or checking if they are in the right position?

 

[Compilla]

BTW, I'll be switching to OEM pumps and caps to be on the safe side.

 

[randya]

Any advice on seating the caps properly, or checking if they are in the right position?

You should be able to release the head, move it to the far left and examine the 'ring' of ink around each head left by the cap.

That will should you the alignment.

Make sure the caps self center and pop all the way up for sealing.

You can also remove the wiper assemby and examine with a flashlight.

 

[Dsmantledyou]

Pulled the head to the left of the machine and the cap imprints don;t seem to be blocking any of the nozzles, so I'm assuming it's all lined up correctly. I pour solution in the caps while doing a flush and the pumps suck 'em up and goes all the way down to the waste tank. So it looks like the pumps are doing their job.

But now the tricky part. After doing manual cleanings around the heads or caps, some lines don't draw ink anymore, just air. So I'll have to syringe ink out. It will take me quite a few suctions (I'm talking 20-30 min) to finally get ink to draw. I just cleaned around the capping area so now my magenta won't get any suction.

I checked with a flashlight and removing the wiper assembly. The caps did
rise up all the way to the heads, but how do I check if they're self centered? I checked it out once, then my wiper sensor error came on.

Also, how would I go about aligning the caps or heads if needed?

I feel like I'm about to throw this machine out the window! Thank you so much for the advice

 

[jwright350]

Remember how the printer cleans. All jets fire into the capping station, then the pump sucks the capping station dry. So if there is no ink in the capping station you'll just suck air because you need some wetness to make the gasket around the capping station seal. So... make sure your capping station isn't all dried up or the rubber gasket is hard/damaged.

A good think to try is after running a cleaning cycle, push down on the heads to seat them in the capping station while at the same time use a syringe to carefully draw ink. (you do this by hooking up a syringe on the hose coming out the bottom of the capping station...not really by the one that goes in the waste tank) If this works and nozzles come back then you probably have a bad pump or your pump is plumbed backwards.

 

[Dsmantledyou]

Thanks for the tip. I think I might have found the issue. I re-seated the springs under the caps and all of a sudden I'm getting suction on all lines. One of the springs is a little weak and distorted. Probably because I was being a little too aggressive on the head soaks when I bought the printer. So that particular cap has a little bit of bubbling. I might need to look around for a spring that size. I'm hoping that this solved the problem. Thank you guys again for your suggestions.