# How can I remove the air from my ciss ink system?



## g_hopper

I am having a problem I hope someone can help me with. I bought an epson printer with the ciss system already hooked up... I am running sublimation inks, cmyk.
My son got a hold of the ink container and pulled the tubes out of the bottom.  THANK GOD I was able to fix that without loosing hardly any ink.
My problem is that I am ready to print, but now my "Y" tube is mostly filled with air and I have lost the suction to get the yellow ink to the printer. I have tried looking at the videos on youtube to try and remedy this myself, but the ink cartridges in my ciss system are not quite like the others I have seen, so I am confused as to which hole I remove the air from. I am afraid I am really gonna bugger it up, because, for real, I really have no idea what I am doing with it.
If someone out there knows what I should do, then, PLEASE, feel free to shout out. God knows I need all the help I can get. Thank you in advance.
~Linetta


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## azballbusters

I guess it matters which bulk system you have but you can prime using a syringe and if the ink cartridge has a hole with a rubber plug in it that is the best place to start. Remove the plug and prime through that hole. Some of the cartridges you can also prime from the bottom of the cartridge hish is almost fool proof.


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## PhotoGiftsDirec

I had the same problem with my cis system. i went to my local chemest, brought a syringe for 69p, took the cartridge out and pulled the ink through. I didnt have a clue what i was doing but it worked great.


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## culprint_tpr

For most cis systems the previous posts are correct, with an addition. You will need to clamp off the line before you remove the syringe. This will keep the vacuum that is created when you prime the line. Once you have primed each line and replaced the cartridges back into the printer you can release the clamps. It also helpful to know if you have a bag system or a reservoir system. As a side note always keep the ink system on the same level as the printer.


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## g_hopper

Thanks for the help. I will try it out tomorrow. There is a rubber stopper on the top of the cartridge. I can't see thru the cartridge to see the ink though, so how do I know when to stop? When the ink goes into the syringe? Should I clamp the hose for this? I am running a reservoir (sp???) ink system, not the bag. I am sorry, I bought the unit already setup off Ebay, I didn't get any instructions, except for the printer manual. 

~Linetta


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## culprint_tpr

When you are priming the lines you will know to stop when the ink enters the syringe. You will also want to go from the lightest color to the darkest and wipe the syringe off after each color. This will keep you from contaminating each color.


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## g_hopper

Ok, I removed the rubber stopper at the top of my "yellow" cartridge... this is the only one, so far, that needs it. I used the syringe to try and pull the ink to the cartridge... I watched the reservoir with the Y ink, and saw air bubbles rise in it, like the ink was moving, but it didn't advance thru the tube. But here's the deal, I got ink in the syringe, but it was not yellow... it is like a dirty green color.  Why is this? I do not have green ink, just cmyk. This really confused me so I stopped. Can I recycle this by putting it in the black ink? Or should I just scrap it? This ink is so expensive...  I hate to waste it needlessly. I got like 35ml of this ink in the syringe... I guess I will just leave it in there for now. I contacted the person I got it from and they said they would make a video demonstration and post it on youtube, but that was several days ago and no word since. I am too eager and they are too slow I really want to start printing, this is my only hold up... hahaha... that I know of. This is aggrivating to me... I dunno what I am doing wrong... or am I just not going far enough, stopping too short of the mark?
The whole reason I bought the system all ready setup was so I didn't have this headache starting out.


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## rrc62

Cyan and yellow should make green, so you could have some ink mixing somewhere. It wouldn't take a lot of cyan in the yellow to taint it green. I think there is more a chance for mixing with a reservoir system that a bag system. You need to figure out if the reservoirs contain clean ink. If they do, you have two options. Pull ink through the lines until you get clean ink or empty the reservoirs, clean everything out and recharge the system. I wouldn't try to reuse the ink you are pulling into the syringe. You'll likely contaminate whatever you mix it with.


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## culprint_tpr

Ross is definitely correct. You can also start with the ink containers and follow the lines looking for the leak were the ink is mixing. If it is clean at the reservoir and the lines all have correct colors as they go into the cartridges then the mixing of ink would be there inside the cartridges. As a last note, make sure the syringe was clean when you started. There may have been residual ink still in the syringe.


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## g_hopper

OK, here I go again... I have taken the cartridges out and looked them over and the only thing I can see, as far as contamination goes, is on the bottom of the yellow... the hole on the bottom is that greenish color instead of yellow. Do you think that perhaps that when it was setup they put the wrong cartridge in the yellow's place and that is what is giving me the contamination? I don't see how else it would have happened. The yellow ink that IS in the tube is brightly colored and looks clean. Th cyan isn't even next to the yellow... the magenta is. So I don't see where or how else it would have gotten
Now as far as the cartridge goes, if I wanted to clean it from contamination, how would I do this? I will take a few pics of my system and the cartridges and try to upload it to this forum, so you can better see what I am talking about.
Thank you for not leaving me to the wolves.


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## rrc62

To clean the system, you would need to empty the carts and the reservoirs and run a cleaning solution though the system. Since there could be a contamination issue, I'm not sure I'd dump the carts or the reservoirs back into the bulk bottles. If you do, just make sure the ink is not contaminated. If it is, you'll ruin the ink in the bulk bottles. For cleaning solution, Windex or alcohol should work. Empty everything and clean the ink from the reservoir and the carts then pull the Windex through the system with the syringe. As the carts fill up with dirty Windex, empty them and keep flushing until you get clean Windex in the carts. When it's clean, flush it all out with alcohol. Alcohol will dry fast. Let everything dry, then refill the system.

Without seeing what you have it's hard to say if a complete system flush is necessary. If you have contaminated ink in one of your carts, a full flush is probably in order. If you take a clean syringe and can pull clean ink from each cart, then you probably don't need to flush the system. You should have as many syringes as you have colors. This way you are guaranteed to be using a clean syringe with each color.


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## g_hopper

Hurray! It made me nervous, but I fixed the problem. Thank you so much for your help. The vendor finally posted a short video to youtube, which showed me how to reprime the cartridge, but I ended up having to also clean out that particular one, too, because of the ink contamination. I lost half of my yellow ink in the process, but I am trying to look at it as still being half full. ) I will just be picky about what I print for a while.
I used the windex and alcohol like you said, and it worked great. I am glad that I got this behind me. Now I can move on to other things. 

Happy Easter!


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## Y2KSTYLEZ

I am in dire need of assistance please. I bought a CISS ink system for my epson SX600FW did as the instruction says, but the printer says the black ink cannot be recongnised. I have tried the reset knob, but the screen is still saying the same thing...cannot recognize the following catrige(s). Install them correctly...BK TO711/TO71H/T1001... can someone please help.


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