Epson GS6000 - Black head dropout - Only on B side

[KHolmes23]

Hello everyone - I'm still fairly new to Epsons, at my previous company I had Mimakis (JV3 & JV33) those things were bulletproof! And if I needed, parts were available everywhere. I am used to working on those myself, but my new company prefers to have a tech come in and do a lot of the work.

Anyways - my GS6000 just had a head replacement due to some nozzles failing, other print issues and being at over 200% of its life expectancy. Since the head was replaced I'm getting a lot of instances where the black nozzles on the B side are completely dropping out. It always happens overnight, when I come back in the morning everything is gone, and sometimes between prints. Meaning when one job finishes and I send another within a minute that channel is completely gone. Only once or twice has it drop out in the middle of a run. The tech and Epson want to change the maintenance station, but my argument back is why the other colors on the head are not dropping out at all. They have also brought up the sub tank and the dampers as a possibility for this pointing to ink starvation, I also question that. I've run 50+ feet of 54" wide vinyl with 90% rich black print coverage and have no issues, telling me that is not the cause. If the printer is starving on black ink it should certainly drop out in the middle of those print runs. Once I get the heads going in the morning I can run without issues most of my day, but it's getting a little frustrating not being able to solve this mystery. Any help is appreciated !

 

[twmiller24]

There probably was a bad batch of black ink. This just happened to us. Initially, the tech replaced the head, but then we had the same issue. As it turns out, there is a sub tank that they didn't replace that apparently was the issue. So, they had to replace the head and sub tank the second time. Apparently, there were ink particles clogging the subtank and getting into the head, destroying the head.

 

[KHolmes23]

Thanks for the reply - That makes some sense based on what is going on. We did have a cartridge a few months ago that had density issues, changed that cartridge out and then we were back up and running until a couple weeks ago where we replaced the head. I actually just had the drastic dropout happen about an hour ago, finished one of the parts for the job, hit print on the next one and 80% of the nozzles were clogged. Did a light cleaning and they were all back right away. My picture doesn't show it but the B side is firing on all cylinders and no issues, ever on that side. Is this the same as you were dealing with or was yours more of an issue that was not able to be cleared with a simple cleaning cycle?

 

[posterframing]

I had same problem with epson ink now that I changed ink everything is fine

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[DougWestwood]

Hey Hey,

We sold our Epson GS6000, but we have some accessories left over.
Case of eight cleaner cartridges, and an expired black ink, thrown in free.
Hate to just toss them. Make me an offer.

 

[posterframing]

I had the same problem . You need to hook up a srynge and lightly push cleaning solution through that channel until it clears and need a filter on black line

 

[IvanDD]

So you may have seen that i posted about this exact same issue before. We had decision one come out and change the black head, fixed the issue for six months. Then every six months the same thing happened. After they came out for the 5th time, they replaced the cap top assembly and put a filter on the black line. Well that fixed it for almost two years, but its now happening again. I can pull ink through the black line through the valve thats after the ink filter. So through the filter and through the valve by the filter.

Does anyone know where this subtank is? I dont see it anywhere.

 

[IvanDD]

I had the same problem . You need to hook up a srynge and lightly push cleaning solution through that channel until it clears and need a filter on black line

So if i cant push anything cleaning fluid through, that means means somethings clogged?