Over the years, I have assisted other photographers to get their beloved Epson R3880 going again after what appears to be a blocked print head.
It usually starts out with a poor nozzle check and we automatically think of the printer head been block due to dried ink clogging up the tiny exit holes.
Printing a nozzle check is easily done and I usually do it from the menus right on the printer itself. I use regular 80gsm paper, nothing special.
The image below indicates that something is not quite right as we can see breaks in the lines.
When faced with this. situation, the first thing I do is to run a head clean from the menu on the printer. After the head clean, I will print another nozzle check and if the results are the same then I would then move onto the next stage which is to try and break down the dried ink from underneath the head.
After sliding the printer head all the way to the left hand side of the carriage, I place a strip of kitchen roll onto the bed and then spray it with Windex the one that contains ammonia.
I then move the head back over the kitchen roll and leave it for an hour or so and then remove the paper towel. I would do this 3 or 4 times or until there is very little ink deposited onto the towel.
The next thing I would turn my attention to is the pump cap and head wiper blade which is located on the right hand side of the printer looking from the top.
Using some isopropyl alcohol 99% pure, I would clean the rubber wiper blade with a cotton bud and remove all the dried ink and dirt which it accumulates. After that, I would take a small syringe, draw up a few millilitres of the isopropyl and gently deposit into each of the two pump cap chambers.
After leaving it for a minute or so I would then gently wipe it with a clean cotton bud. I would repeat this process until both chambers are nice and please like we see above.
In most cases, doing the above should be sufficient to release the dried ink and give you a clean print nozzle check.
Can anything else cause the issue.
In the worse case scenario, yes, the actual ink nozzles themselves can become blocked and this is a little more involved as we have to flush the offending nozzles out with a syringe . This procedure is a little more complex and so far, I have only had to perform it twice on both an Epson R3800 and an Epson R3880.
