cartierusm

I hit the wrong button on the above post. Here it is again. Ok got the Epson 3880 up and running kind of. Not many tutorials out there because it's pretty obvious what you need to do to convert it. 1. You don't need to remove the pizza cutter wheels. The black carrier they are attached to just pops out if you poke the very small round hole with a center punch or something as you're sliding the black carrier toward the back of the printer. They pop out. You don't need to disassemble the printer at all. 2. Fold up a piece of cardboard to trip the limit switch on the ink cart door if you need to leave it open because you're using the squirt gun carts a. Per Johnson4's suggestion be careful you're ink is good and clean as those larger carts for this printer don't have a filter. 3. Get refillable carts. All the ones I found small and large come with auto reset ink chips. You need your old carts from Epson or re-manufactured carts that HAVE CHIPS --- READ the description some don't come with chips. I bought some as I wanted two sets of chips for my ink carts and my cleaner carts. The re manuf. carts cost about $25 per cart. So when you get your refillable carts you take the chip off the Epson carts and put it under the chip on the refillable carts and they reset the ink level at intervals. 4. You'll need the Epson Adjustment Program from 2Manuals.com to purge the lines and ink. 5. You'll need to make an output tray to keep the print level and even with the bottom out feed rollers. 6. Make an external waste tank and waste tank chip resetter, for this you'll need 2 waste tanks as you switch back and forth. So once you do all that if the printer is used, which is most likely will be, run a nozzle check and if that's clear continue. You'll fill one set of the refillable carts with cleaner and use the adjustment program and run the Initial Fill. That'll clear out the lines and fill them with cleaner. Then do some head cleanings and print test pages to make sure they're clear. Then switch over to ink carts and repeat the procedure. Make sure your printer is on Photo Black, not Matte Black, you can do this from the Epson Menu on the printer. The MK, matte black, cart you will just keep a cleaning cart in there to fill the space, keep anything from drying out and the printer needs to see a chip there.

Ok got the Epson 3880 up and running kind of. Not many tutorials out there because it's pretty obvious what you need to do to convert it. 1. You don't need to remove the pizza cutter wheels. The black carrier they are attached to just pops out if you poke the very small round hole with a center punch or something as you're sliding the black carrier toward the back of the printer. They pop out. You don't need to disassemble the printer at all. 2. Fold up a piece of cardboard to trip the limit switch on the ink cart door if you need to leave it open because you're using the squirt gun carts.

I can't get to any menu at all. It's always saying paper jam. I've unplugged it and held the power button to drain the power and plug it back in, but after it's start up sequence it says paper jam. I can't get out of that screen to the home screen whatsoever. How do I install the stock firmware in case I need to send it in?

Ok reinstalled the firmware and same error. Now the firmware did the same thing as the first time I did it and it worked the first time, the software sucks. It gets to 99% done, and then says it couldn't be completed (from what I read this is normal) then you hit, continue or retry. People say just to continue. Then it says finishing and doesn't go past 99%, but you can click finish at the bottom. So I did that and then restarted the printer and run the activation program. That worked and restarted the printer.

Ok interesting. CADLink I do believe uses it's own driver, but I have other Epson printers, but those have updates and status monitor turned off as well. If I never setup wifi there's nothing for me to do with that, right?

No, when I converted it I disabled updates and turned off Epson Status Monitor and I never setup wifi as I got it new. Is there hope?

Ok I've been printing all day and everything was excellent. It just stopped min print saying there is a paper jam, when there isn't. I've unplugged the printer multiple times, cleaned the underside of the print head carriage with a paper towel in case there is ink on the sensor, but still nothing. Is the printer dead?

Ok maybe, MAYBE, two problems solved. When I put in the 13x19 sheet in the rear feed it's always asking what size paper, I just cancelled out as I figured that the RIP was telling the printer exactly what to do, NOPE. Once I set it to 13x19 plain paper it seems to printing in the correct location now. But the almost better news is that I think I got the CISS working. I kept the external tank on top of the printer all night, as suggested by Johnson4, and left it there for printing. This morning fired it up did a couple nozzle checks and a head cleaning and a purge print and it seems to be working. Cyan's nozzle check wasn't great, but did a purge print and it seems ok. Printing the first film of the day. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ok cool. Thanks.

So shake the CISS tank, use a syringe to pull 10ml from the white cart in the printer from the vent hole?

I don't know, but if you already have it try it. You can always add dampers later. Tons of people already use CISS without dampers. WIMS? Is that a white circulation system? IF so I would just give the external tank a shake and the white carts and be done with it, at the beginning of each day. I haven't tried anything else yet, but will tomorrow. Gotta get this print job done. Something weird goes on. Sometimes it starts printing on the film near the top, where I want it to, then for the last hour I have to keep cancelling prints as it starts to print about 3" down the page. Problem is I'm ganging stuff up and you can print on the last 2 inches of a sheet as the front rollers were removed in the conversion and there is nothing to grip and move the print the final few inches. SO it ends up just sitting spray ink all over the page until it drips and the last graphic is useless. Anyone else have this problem?

Ok thanks. I tried everything even holding it up high, but not for long just a head cleaning and that didn't work. I put the old carts in and bam works fine. Maybe I'll put them back in and put the whole tank on the printer and let it sit for a few hours and see what happens. I'll watch for flooding.

No same level as the printer. That's what the instructions say, should I raise it up?

I'm having trouble with the XP-15000 and the CISS with Dampers. It just won't print the colors. I see the ink flow when I do an imaginary cartridge change through the printer menu and occasionally I get a good-ish nozzle print check. I called Vibrant Vibes ink, where I purchased the CISS, and they said some people remove the vent plug in the cart itself, I tried that, but when doing a cart change through the menu it definitely doesn't create the vacuum it needs to pull ink. I don't know but maybe there's lots of air in the lines? Here's my current setup. The cheap clips it came with for the lines made the lines dip down possibly hitting the print. I'll make a more permanent solution if this works.

Ah, cool. Thanks.

Glad you did. I like it a lot. So far. Not sure if I can use it with another printer or not as I have that 3880.

Oh I'm familiar with that type of stuff. I've been messing around with this type of stuff my whole life. Thanks though.

LOL I get it. Nice, I bet you can't wait. I'm pretty sure that's what's mostly happening to me is the air bubbles as I'll do a head cleaning with only a speck or two missing, do another one right away and a whole color channel is missing. That's when I started messing around with removing the colored (fill) plug. In all honesty I've been super happy with the quality and printing. It's been pretty reliable so far. I just got the new CISS with dampers system and have a DTF job coming up to test it on. I have a Epson 3880 all channels cleaned and sitting with cleaning fluid with a good head print waiting in the wings if I need it. I'm not doing this for a full time biz, just for friends and stuff. Small clientele. So I bought all the stuff for the 3880, but not sure I should even put ink in it unless I need it as the XP-15000 is working so well.

Interesting. How do I tell if it's an air clog?

$60 for 4 years. Covers spills and the like as well as normal breakage so they can't say anything!!!

Ok. I did buy the extended warranty from Staples so it'll be their problem.

I know. I mean it's a little messy in the carriage, but seems to work. Hopefully I'll have better luck with the CISS.

Yeah it works better for me with the refill plug open and the vent closed for CMYK.

I've been printing all day, about 20 or so prints today, maybe more. Other than that about 25 prints in the last week since I've started.

Ok update. Leaving the colored plug out works, but if you run a head clean and then test print and you're missing a color then remove the clear plut TOO. Run a head cleaning and you should be good. Then I put the clear plug back and print. Seems to work. I think I might be over filling my carts as I'm now doing it on the printer. It's easier now that I know how many pipettes worth it takes. But I don't recommend this LOL. As I've now overflowed ink and had a crappy clean up job.