SP-300 problem

[Jim Hill]

My SP-300 which has been trouble free until now!!

I am getting drop out on the yellow and magenta print head.

I have done a powerful cleaning twice and the test print looks about the same.

I have the manual for the SP-300 but I am not sure what to try next.

I have read posts about head soaking but have never done it and not sure just how to go about doing it.

This printer was working perfect with almost no drop out on the test prints.

I have not used the printer in the past five days.

Thanks so much for any help. Jim Hill

 

[sfr table hockey]

Hey Jim,
I don't have a sp300 but when you say drop out, do you mean as you print a solid color of the yellow or magenta, that the print starts to fade off to nothing or do you just mean the test prints are showing missing nossles on those heads.

I kind of assume you mean the heads are dropping nossles in the test prints.

If this is the case and the printer sat for a few days it may just be the drain line is plugged on that side. One way to know is to either force some cleaning fluid into that drain line (connect syringe somewhere after the capping station) or if you can hook up the syringe to that drain line in the drain bottle and try to draw from that end of the line.

If the test prints just get worse with every cleaning then that may be whats wrong.

Don't do the powerfull clean as if a line is plugged most times you need to manually clear it and a powerfull clean wastes a lot of ink on the working side for no reason.

If you did notice that both drain lines did drain ink into the bottle as you did the powerfull cleans then also that would cross off the plugged drain line theory.

 

[Jim Hill]

Thanks for the quick reply.

You are right the heads are dropping nozzles in the test prints.

You might be right about the drain lines because I did notice after doing the two powerful cleans there was not much ink in the drain bottle.

Can I take the drain hose off a the pump and inject some cleaning fluid into it?

Jim Hill

 

[sfr table hockey]

On my old CJ it's easy to pull the line off the captop and inject some cleaning fluid through to the drain bottles. It's right in front easy to get at.

On your SP 300 it may be a bit harder to do. As long as you can remove a line (as close to the capping station as you can get) and inject from there you ensure that you are clearing as much of the line as you can.

Again I am not sure where you captop line connects to the pump line but it may have a connecting valve or something that you might be able to remove and connect there to push solution through.

I will try to review the service manual to see where that might be but it may not show.

Just make sure that it is the line that goes through the pump ( that line just weaves through the pump and it does not let fluid out of the tube into the pump, unless it breaks) and on to the drain bottle.

Ok... found a bit of a picture that looks like the pump on the right side of the capping area. The photo shows white tubes from the pump connecting on to black lines that look to run under the captops. If that black to white is a connection then you can go from there through the pump. To check the captop line you could just force air up through that line and feel for any resistance or pressure. You should just see a bit of bubbles in the captops as the air forces up through them.

 

[Jim Hill]

Fixed the problem

I pulled off the drain hose from the pump and injected some cleaner fluid into it until it cleared out the line to the drain bottle.

I also soaked the cap heads for about 20 minutes after putting cleaning fluid on them and that solved the problem and the printer is now printing find again.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice on how to fix the problem.

Jimmy