Large format Initial Ink Fill

[JMugs]

Janners Tip of the day.

Always, always have a new waste tank in place!

Just changing mine over to sub work. Now I cleared the old ink out, flushed with cleaner, and got a horrendous mess! The original owner must have reset the waste tank (a common practice) to use again, only it was full and overflowed!
I should add that I have been using this for a number of months in my wife's photographic business and had believed the waste tank reading... silly.
So rather than dig out the sponge, fit a new one, reset the chip and hope it worked, I ordered a new one. Now carried out the initial fill, and all is hunky dory with a perfect nozzle print. The waste tank shows 39% full though! Good thing is I can see the ink in the cartridges and not a lot was used. I suspect a reset tool and sponge from Lidle is the answer next time!

Janners

[pisquee]

I just reuse the maintenance tanks, with the sponges removed. Empty and rinse them out, and clean down with isopropyl wipes. Then use a chip resetter. It is a lot easier and less messy than trying to get rid of sponges filled with old ink, than just pouring the free flowing ink out. Obviously you need to be careful not to spill ink when moving the tanks around doing it this way.
May be good to move this thread to wide format section?

[JMugs]

I just reuse the maintenance tanks.......................................................

May be good to move this thread to wide format section?

I can see that happening, and good point, although I did wonder if it applied to CISS systems as well, but no idea as I have never used one.

Janners.

[Andrew]

On some of the older model Epsons you could disable the levels indicator so you never had to reset. This was fine on the inks as you had them in clear sight but we did get caught out on the maintenance tank a few times and the marks are still all over the wall and cabinets to remind us.......... or atleast were until we moved a couple of months ago.

[JMugs]

Andrew, it does make a fine mess doesn't it!

Janners.

[pisquee]

We made that mistake on an Epson 4000, and it took ages to clean up all the pigment ink that had spilled out. Reset it, but was too busy to empty and clean it out, so left it as a job "to do" which didn't get done 'til it was overflowing. Thankfully it was on a laminate worktop, and a lino floor, so wasn't as bad to clean up as it it was a carpeted room.
Now when busy I'll swap around the waste tanks from a printer not in use, to keep the jobs going on the printer in use, and ten go and clean it out and reset it, so, although we don't have an actual spare, we have three printers, so can do a bit of swapping around when needed.

If using refill carts, then i'd recommend turning off the ink counters, so you can just keep topping them up when you see them getting low, but you don't have the faff of having to remove the carts to reset the chips. I wouldn't turn off the level monitoring on the waste tank though.

[JMugs]

Wise words there Tim

Janners

[James990]

I know the feeling about redecorating the walls, desktop etc when doing the waste ink. Still got the scars to prove it!!

Mind you someone did admire it and asked if it was modern art!