# Ink not coming through



## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

Hi.
I'm just trying to start in sublimation printing as a hobby.

Bought a brand new Epson WF-7110, no ink in. Hubby bought some new ink, but he bought DYE ink, not sublimation (he didn't listen to me!!!!) and put this in the printer  OK, he finally listened to me but of course we had to clean out the ink.

Cleaned it out, put SUB ink into brand new refillable cartridges. It won't print! Printer goes through all the motions but colour won't print. Paper does show some black ink which we presume to be some residue still from the dye, but no colour from the sub ink will come through. 

We did use a syringe to start the ink flow and remove any possible air but still nothing

Anybody got any ideas? I'm desparate!

PS The printer did print perfectly when we had the dye ink in


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## jimc (Jan 31, 2007)

Did you remove the air bungs from the cartridges?


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

yes. 

We saw some different instructions today for a slightly different refillable cartridge that said leave it on, so we tried that - didn't work of course.

They also said to syringe air out of the top hole, not just from the bottom to get ink flowing. Just tried that and made things worse! Printer now showing two cartridges low on ink (which they aren't) and won't even attempt to print. 

argh! so much for an enjoyable hobby LOL!


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## Talon (May 14, 2015)

You say he bought "dye" ink. Was this an aftermarket ink or the OEM Epson ink? Sub inks should be compatible with the OEM, but you have to be careful about compatibility of sub inks with other inks. It can cause issues. 

Are you able to syringe ink out of the bottom of the bulk carts?


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

The dye ink was not OEM, but there wasn't a problem with that - that ink printed correctly. 

It was only after we cleaned it and put new refillable cartridges with sub ink in that the ink stopped coming through. The sub ink purchased was a 4 pack premium quality SubliNova InkTec


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## Talon (May 14, 2015)

OK, there still may be an issue with the compatability of the Dye ink and the sub ink. Some inks when they come in contact with each other, even in the smallest amounts, will turn to gel and clog screens, filters, dampers and print heads. 

Do you have the OEM carts? If so, put those in the printer and ensure the printer is functional.

Can you pull ink from the bottom of the bulk carts with a syringe...Does ink flow from the bulk system properly?


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## RayD (Oct 19, 2014)

I have the same printer and it has resisted all attempts to work! The same problems as you with the same ink. After set up I flushed out the OEM ink before installing the non OEM cart's.

I tried putting in the original OEM cartridges and the printer said they were the "Set Up" cartridges and could not now be used.

I have tried all the steps you have and have spent hours messing around with this piece of c***p. For back-up I have bought an old Brother (MFC-240C) and it works like a dream with sub ink but is very slow. So have now bought another Brother (special offer from Viking clearance).

Re the Epson, this is the second one!! The first went back for refund (after flushing) I would never touch Epson again.

I fully understand your frustration and hope you get sorted.

Ray


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Talon said:


> OK, there still may be an issue with the compatability of the Dye ink and the sub ink. Some inks when they come in contact with each other, even in the smallest amounts, will turn to gel and clog screens, filters, dampers and print heads.
> 
> Do you have the OEM carts? If so, put those in the printer and ensure the printer is functional.
> 
> Can you pull ink from the bottom of the bulk carts with a syringe...Does ink flow from the bulk system properly?


I disagree. This myth seems to perpetuate on forums for some reason.

I have been swapping OEM carts, 3rd party pigment and dye carts, and sub inks on many different models of Epsons for many years. 

On most Epson desktops including this one the WF7110 (I have one) once the firmware detects the new carts an auto head clean and ink charge is initiated and the previous inks are 100% and completely displaced. There are no ink lines with carts to keep and hold old inks.

And the carts are not designed to allow "back siphon" as you are describing.

In fact Sawgrass has advised_ thousands _of their users to install the OEM carts first then install sub carts, no issues with contamination of inks that come in contact with each other.

From the attached file, bold emphasis mine ...

"*Before you install the ArTainium bulk ink system, you should set up the Epson 1400 printer with the Epson supplied inks and driver.*
Conduct a nozzle check to make sure that the system is working properly. Record the alpha-numerical value from the nozzle check (on
far left side of the page). This is your firmware number which will be needed later on in the ArTainium ink profile installation. Once this
is completed you can begin the ArTainium installation process. Note: Please remove the Epson cartridges before moving to step
number one."


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

llian said:


> Cleaned it out, put SUB ink into brand new refillable cartridges. It won't print! Printer goes through all the motions but colour won't print. Paper does show some black ink which we presume to be some residue still from the dye, but no colour from the sub ink will come through.
> 
> We did use a syringe to start the ink flow and remove any possible air but still nothing


The likely problem is that the cartridges are not properly primed. Sucking ink out isn't enough; on many of these there's an internal reservoir that must have proper pressure (it's not just trapped air) or the ink will not flow. 

See if there are any instructions/videos for the specific cartridges you use. If the printer shows the carts are low on ink, which they will much sooner if you keep taking them out, they must be reset, per the seller's instructions. 

I think I would have just kept the regular dye ink in the one set of carts, and bought a new set for the sub ink. With that set up your printer can serve double duty. You can swap them at will, and as Mike points out, the inks purge quite quickly.


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

Thanks folks. We're still trying!! 

So we have managed to clear all error messages and low ink messages. Reading the above we thought we would put back the cartridges with the dye ink in as that was all working correctly.

Guess what? Those aren't working now!! argh!

GordonM, not sure what you mean about resetting the cartridges. They are refillable ones and didn't come with instructions.


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

Many refillable carts need to be "manually" reset in order to make the printer think it's a new cartridge. How this is done depends on the cart, but you should have gotten instructions. There's a technique for filling them so that there's proper pressure in the internal chambers.

It's possible your carts self-reset after being out of the printer for a few minutes. Ask the vendor of the cartridges for the details. 

I see you're not in the US, but here we have a great vendor, Cobra Inks, that has very nice videos of working with their cartridges and continuous ink systems. Watch some to see what's generally needed, but understand your carts may be different in the details.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

llian said:


> Thanks folks. We're still trying!!
> 
> So we have managed to clear all error messages and low ink messages. Reading the above we thought we would put back the cartridges with the dye ink in as that was all working correctly.
> 
> ...


If you are not getting low ink messages or out of ink messages then you don't need to worry about reset, at least for now. But you will need to find out for later for sure.

Depending on the cart the "priming" may involve pulling ink from the bottom with a syringe OR it could be pulling ink from the top, it depends on the design of the cart. Carts with the round circle inset inside need primed from the top with a bigger syringe.

You also must make sure there are no plugs in the cart that are intended for storage left when in when you go to print. Typically these are the plugs at the back of the cart, the other plugs usually closer to the front of the cart get pulled out just for ink refilling then re-inserted.

When you mention "Those are not working now" you should be more specific.

Are you getting an error message from the Epson driver or printer front panel in the form of a blinking light(s)?

Are you just missing colors or banding?

I always keep a set of original factory carts for troubleshooting, inserting a "known good" set always let's me determine if the printer itself is OK.


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

The printer is not blinking any errors or low ink messages anymore.

Attached are the results after pulling ink. 
Colour-Test.png is what was printed
DYE-WF7110001.jpg is what the dye ink carts produced
SUB-WF7110003.jpg is what the sub ink carts producted

The jpg files here are much brighter than the actual prints.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

llian said:


> The printer is not blinking any errors or low ink messages anymore.
> 
> Attached are the results after pulling ink.
> Colour-Test.png is what was printed
> ...


I assume you have been trying head cleans? Likely is that your carts aren't primed correctly. Make sure the rubber bladders on the carts that are not supposed to be there during printing are removed.


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## djque (Feb 5, 2013)

sounds like you have a bad set of refillable cartridges I had that same issue with my 7510 my magenta was not printing. it worked b4 then stopped. brought a brand new set from inkpro2day and it pronted again. and as stated these printers don't have ink lines so no need to flush. and if the oem aint working now the you have a head clog. how old is the printer.


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

As in my OP, the printer is brand new.

Have cleaned heads several times

Both sets of carts are brand new. From different places but look identical. First lot (with dye ink) had brief instructions, pulling ink from bottom and leaving clear cap off. We did this with both sets of carts.

One thing that we did do and should not have is, when I found out he had put dye ink in we read that we should clean the printer out thoroughly (we now know not this make of printer!), and we did this using a cleaner that we had been given with a load of sub ink. I am now beginning to wonder if this could possibly have done something to cause this problem, although I can't really see that.


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## djque (Feb 5, 2013)

Ok how did you clean the printer.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

llian said:


> As in my OP, the printer is brand new.
> 
> Have cleaned heads several times
> 
> ...


I think the possibilities are: 

1. Poor cart vacuum (priming)
2. Heads are clogged at the printer itself.
3. Bad carts
4. You damaged the printer by cleaning out old inks. The only way to know is to substitute known good carts in that case.

If you want to get a set of cleaning carts those can be used for getting rid of head clogs that won't clear from normal head cleaning.

Or you can move the print head out of the park position and use 50/50 distilled water and Simple Green soaked into a paper towel and careful placed under the print head for a couple of hours.


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## Sacman (Jan 20, 2014)

I've run 91% isopropyl alcohol through mine without any ill effects. I can't imagine that any cleaner that is designed to go through the head for one ink would have any ill effects when using it with another type of ink. The cleaner is likely just an alcohol based cleaner designed to dissolve any remnants of ink left in the head. I guess it is remotely possible that the cleaner would mix with the ink and gum it up but I just don't find that to be reasonable. 

I know others have said this but just to be clear. There are two rubber stoppers on top of the cartridge. The one that is to the rear when in the printer is most likely the fill point and the one closest to the front is the air valve. This is the most likely case but I guess it could be different. Why don't you remove both plugs? It can't hurt and it is possible that you have them mixed up. I don't think anything would stop you from filling through the air ports but I know from experience that the air will not flow correctly through just the fill ports so if you have them backwards, it would be a simple matter to test. The fill port should connect directly with no interference to the main tank. The air port has a divider a little below the port or down that side. That might help you determine which is which. 

On my R230 eco-solvent printer, there is a fuse that goes to the print head and I blew mine when I replaced the print head once (didn't turn the printer off) after replacing the fuse (not at all an easy task) I found that I had a bad transistor that I also had to replace. Even harder to replace. Since you have done nothing inside the printer, I would think it unlikely that you blew this fuse. However, depending on how the cleaning solution was applied, you could have gotten it into and/or around the FFC that connects to the head, this could blow that fuse. So was the cleaning solution in a bottle that you injected into the nozzles, or was it in cartridges? 

Now that I have said all that, looking at the images of what is printing, if you blew that fuse it wouldn't print anything. So that is not what has happened. I didn't want to erase it in case it becomes helpful to someone else later. There is also the off chance that you got the cleaning solution into the FCC and it is only affecting certain channels. I don't even know if that is possible. 

What both of those prints look like to me is that you are seeing what is left in the head and no ink is traveling from the cartridges to the head. When I first loaded my cartridges in my 1400, I didn't have to do any priming. I put them in and they printed. I actually forgot to pull the plugs and knew better but as soon as I did, it printed. If you had a vacuum lock, surely it wouldn't be on every channel. You would think you would have at least one that printed right and you're not seeing that. 

My 2 bits. Hope it helps some.


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

Hi

Thanks all but the curtain has closed  we have been defeated before we even start!

We purchased yet another set of cartridges - from a link somebody else has used. Guess what? Don't work.

Yes we have cleaned the heads
Yes we have primed the carts
Yes we have followed instructions for clearing air out
Yes we have left off the correct cap and tried leaving both off
No we are not getting any error messages

Hubby has had enough. We have spent far too much money in trying to get this all to work and he is fed up with getting covered in ink; he has had enough 

We know the heat presses work, but we simply can't get the printer to print!!! argh!

I guess we've now got to try and sell the heat presses and the sub products. I don't expect we'll get out money back, which, tbh, we can ill afford as I am disabled and we have no income. So much for an enjoyable hobby


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## RayD (Oct 19, 2014)

Depending on where you bought it, you may be able to send it back for a refund. I did this with the same printer as you and got a refund - no quibble.

I bought another and have had exactly the same issues! That's going back as well.

If you go this route just pop the original cartridges back and don't mention the sub ink. I understand that Epson don't even look at them! With the number they must have returned to them they won't have the time!

I have got a couple of Brother printers that work like a dream. One I bought as a back up cost £22.00 on eBay and is great.

I'm so sorry you have reached this state and do blame Epson for producing what, for many people, is a piece of garbage. Having said that, I am aware that some have used this same printer without problems.

Best wishes,

Ray


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## llian (Mar 22, 2012)

Hi Ray. Have replied on other forum, but for info... Hubby did not keep the original setup cartridges!


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