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#1: detecting an air leak in system? Author: Etrsi_645, Location: northwest Indiana

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:24 am
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What would the symptoms be if there was a leak in the system somewhere which was allowing air in?

I just filled the inks, capped the filter holes on the reservoir tanks and laid the tank on their side for 30+ seconds, and then released the tubing which I had clamped before hand. I used the power switch to turn the printer off/ then on and watched the ink run up and into the dampers (there was no ink in the first inch of tubing at the dampers beforehand). A nozzle check and purge JPEG looks bad right now. So I wait again overnight to see what happens.

#2: Re: detecting an air leak in system? Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UK

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:18 pm
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Etrsi_645 wrote:
What would the symptoms be if there was a leak in the system somewhere which was allowing air in?

It's help to know which kit you're using but I'm guessing it's an ink republic kit or similar because of the keyword "dampers" that you used.

Either way.. air leaks are usually indicated if you see any of the following:

No air in your tube(s)
Ink slowly or quickly retreating back to your reservoirs
Ink failing to travel through the tubes towards your printer as you print (to replace the ink used)

#3: Author: Etrsi_645, Location: northwest Indiana

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:05 pm
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hi,

I have an InkJetFly SmallFoot CIS on an Epson R1800 printer. I have seen no ink in the 1 inch of tubing near the dampers on many occasions; a head cleaning will suck the ink up into the dampers. When I have used a syringe on the reservoir air hole to pump ink into the damper, the ink will retreat away from the damper as soon as I remove the syringe from the air hole, so I have tried reinserting the damper air plug before I remove the syringe.

Where I am at now is: I got the problem Cyan color working on the nozzle check, but.. when it started working the photo black (PK) stopped working. The photo black now shows no nozzle printout at all; but was previously working all during my turmoil with the Cyan. So what is that? An air bubble stuck somewhere? I don't know. What has at time seemed to help is removing the dampers from there slots and reinserting them. I do the reinsertion, pump with syringe, repressurize the reservoirs (bottles) by laying them on their side for 30+ seconds, raising and lowering the height of the bottles, but often times these steps don't seems to work right away. Oh yeah, I wait overnight too..

It feels like I need to do the right magical steps in the correct order to get it working and next time the order of correct steps may change or so it seems.

Rick

#4: Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UK

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:10 am
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Etrsi_645 wrote:
I have an InkJetFly SmallFoot CIS on an Epson R1800 printer.

OK.. thanks for that info.

Quote:
I have seen no ink in the 1 inch of tubing near the dampers on many occasions; a head cleaning will suck the ink up into the dampers. When I have used a syringe on the reservoir air hole to pump ink into the damper, the ink will retreat away from the damper as soon as I remove the syringe from the air hole, so I have tried reinserting the damper air plug before I remove the syringe.

Ok... It sounds like you're trying to force ink into the cartridge while it's still inserted in the printer which is never a good approach.

I'm understand the above to indicate that your "dampers" are transparent, allow you to see the ink levels in them. It's be useful if you could take some pictures of the situation and provide a link to them here so we can better understand the situation. At the moment there's too much scope for confusion or misunderstanding.

Quote:
Where I am at now is: I got the problem Cyan color working on the nozzle check, but.. when it started working the photo black (PK) stopped working. The photo black now shows no nozzle printout at all; but was previously working all during my turmoil with the Cyan. So what is that? An air bubble stuck somewhere? I don't know. What has at time seemed to help is removing the dampers from there slots and reinserting them. I do the reinsertion, pump with syringe, repressurize the reservoirs (bottles) by laying them on their side for 30+ seconds, raising and lowering the height of the bottles, but often times these steps don't seems to work right away. Oh yeah, I wait overnight too..

It feels like I need to do the right magical steps in the correct order to get it working and next time the order of correct steps may change or so it seems.

More often that not, when you remove set of cartridges/dampers to resolve one issue you end up creating another one. If I'm reading this right it may be that you're not using any tube clamping to stop ink or air flowing back and forth in the tubing while you handle the cartridges and I suspect that clamping the tubes would help enormously when you carrying out any changes or servicing the units.

The problem is that when you remove the cartridges, lift them or the reservoirs you are increasing and decreasing the pressure in the system and this in turn can expel ink, create a vacuum or draw air into the cartridges/dampers. Having something to halt the ink flow and thus stop any of these things is very useful.

If you can I would try repriming the cartridges one last time but after each cartridge has been reprimed, clamp the tube to half flow in that part to stop further flow until you've reinstalled everything. Then unclamp everything to allow it all to settle.

Having looked at the kit it's likely you'll need to very carefully pull apart the tubing near the reservoir end to allow you to do this so it would be very much at your own risk. Overall though I would try contacting Inkjetfly for more suggestions as they obviously know their own kit better and should be in a better position to help.

#5: Author: Etrsi_645, Location: northwest Indiana

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:29 pm
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Thank you for your reply.

Using the tubing clamp was never something I did. I don't remember the original instructions or any follow up instructions from InkJetFly ever mentioning how to use the tubing clamp. I am slowly learning about its use now. Currently, I finally got it ALL working again.. I am now printing a purge jpg every 2nd day to keep the printer in use. To get it working the removal and reinsertion of the dampers has seemed to help a lot.

From what you seem to be saying, I should use the clamp when refilling the ink bottles.
You mentioned it is not good to prime the damper with it inserted? Is that right? My dampers have a rubber stopper on each of them. When I want ink to be pushed into the damper, I leave the damper inserted in the printer and remove the rubber stopper before pumping on the ink bottle air hole. Then, when I can see ink approaching the top of the damper hole, I stop pumping... This is the moment I should then clamp the tubing so it doesn't back flow?
I would think so, because when I was not clamping, the ink would back flow the moment I removed the syringe from the bottle's air hole.

Rick

#6: Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UK

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:38 pm
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Without knowing exactly how the little foot system works I couldn't be 100% certain but I'd say you've got most of the way...

The frustrating part is that I'm pretty sure the clamp you have is an "All tubes" clamped or none which makes for a limited number of ways to prime stuff, etc...

Let us know how you get on anyways...

#7: Author: Etrsi_645, Location: northwest Indiana

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:01 pm
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yes, it is an all tubes clamp.. they make an individual tube clamp mechanism?

Upon thinking about it, it would seem, use the clamp whenever doing maintenance to prevent the flow of ink or air in the system.

#8: Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UK

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:45 pm
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Etrsi_645 wrote:
yes, it is an all tubes clamp.. they make an individual tube clamp mechanism?

Upon thinking about it, it would seem, use the clamp whenever doing maintenance to prevent the flow of ink or air in the system.

The company you bought your CIS from don't but I've found some very nice clamps that work well with systems where the tubes are seperated out at the reservoir end.. Not ideal given your particular kit..

They'll be on octoink.co.uk when I finally get the store finished Smile

or take a look on ebay.co.uk under snailsource (my ebay shop) and you'll see the ones I mean

#9: Author: Etrsi_645, Location: northwest Indiana

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:32 pm
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Yes, I see what you mean.. Mine is a ribbon of tubing only separate at the dampers and ink bottle bottoms.
Those accessories you sell are a much needed niche market for CISes.

#10: Author: Martin, Location: South Yorkshire, UK

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:16 pm
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Etrsi_645 wrote:
Yes, I see what you mean.. Mine is a ribbon of tubing only separate at the dampers and ink bottle bottoms.
Those accessories you sell are a much needed niche market for CISes.

Yeah... it does cause you a problem in that respect..

As to the niche stuff... well I got so fed up of nobody having the stuff I just decided to give it a go... Seems to be working ok.

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