Epson 9600 will not print!

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Tommy P

Tommy P

MGF, Master Grumble Framer
Joined
Nov 16, 2003
Posts
870
Loc
Mid North Indiana
I'm desperate. Printer will not lay down any ink. Have run 6 cleaning cycles. Dumping a bunch of ink doing it. I can see the ink flowing through the lines as it's working. Run several nozzle checks and they have progressively gotten fainter to the point where there now is nothing showing on the paper!

Printed the day before fine. When I printed yesterday something looked very wrong and things went downhill from there.

All cartridges are at least 90% full.

I'm pulling my hair out.
 
Not sure what the cause of the original problem was but those 6 head cleanings has pretty much clinched it for you. As you noticed, with each cleaning, the nozzle check gets fainter and fainter. What is happening is that when it is done with the cleaning, it then wipes the heads of excess ink.

Normally, that wouldn't be a problem but after a while the wiper blade gets gunked up with ink and instead of cleaning the head, it actually spreads ink back into the nozzles, clogging them even more. As the ink on the wiper is also old ink that has built up over time, it has the consistency of peanut butter and no amount of cleaning can push that out of the nozzles.

This is something that is more of a problem with the 9900 but can happen on the 9600 as well. Epson SHOULD have made it so we could/should change the wiper after so many months.. sort like doing an oil change on your car... but they didn't.

I'm convinced that if I had known about the wiper problem and how to replace it when i got the 9900, i would have never had the fatal clog.

The wiper just gets old and gunky and also frayed.. not having a sharp wiping edge anymore.
The news is not good for you, I'm afraid.
The head is pretty much clogged to the point of needing a new one... AND as it is an old model, you might not be able to get the parts for it.

I had a 9600 that never gave me a day of trouble and replaced it with the 9900 and was constantly having nozzle clogs to the point that it had a stroke.. the green channel was permanently clogged and the only fix was going to be a new head and cap assembly with parts costing around $1500 and the tech visit to make the repairs more than that.

My solution was to buy the 11880. Almost a year old now and it is doing fine with needing only the occasional in pairs cleaning.

You really need to consider that the 9600 is very long in the tooth.
 
Although the printer is probably 10+ years old, these are still popular and reliable. Hopefully the fix is something simple.

I see a lot of forum posts and articles have this suggestion of "Puddling the cap", for such an issue where the cleaning cycle no longer is effective. Some even suggest distilled water, not tap water.

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk :)

Puddling the Cap
It is recommended to do this procedure every 3-6 months, or whenever you experience a decline in cleaning efficiency. If you have never done this procedure before, repeat it several times in succession to soften up the capping pad. Lines through nozzle checks, clogged nozzles and “missing” colors on your nozzle check can usually be solved with this procedure.

1. Open the main window/door
2. Press down on the cutter and move the carriage to the left
3. Locate the capping pad. It should be a multi-color fabric pad, usually orange and black.
4. With an eyedropper of tap water, soak the pad to the point of spill over.
5. Allow the water to be absored (3 minutes should do the trick)
6. Repeat, and return the carriage to it’s home position while still wet
7. Wait 3 minutes for absorption
8. Run a standard clean cycle (not power clean)

If you still experience trouble, try the following:

A. After step 2, lay down a half-folded wet paper towel (do not fold more than once as this will be too thick) in the carriage path
B. Run the carriage over the paper towel and center it
C. Grab the edges of the paper towel and “shimmy” the back of the carriage. This will wipe off some of the more stubborn dried ink chunks around the edges of the print head. *Be careful not to tear the paper towel as this can leaves hard to remove pieces of paper towel lodged in the back of the carriage.
D. Continue with step 3 in the “puddling the cap” procedure.
E. After step 5, reach in and locate the rubber wiper blade.
F. Wipe the blade with a damp paper towel until clean.
G. Finish the “puddling the cap” procedure
Click to expand...

One source (of many) http://www.spectraflow.com/tech-tip-puddling-the-cap-epson-4000-7600-9600.html

Mike
 
This could be a bad print head, sorry to say. I would try one last approach. We use 2 9880 and 1 4880 and from time to time have to do some things. I am not sure if the 9600 is similar. The head has docking point where it dumps the ink in the cleaning process. This can get very dirty and actually clog your nozzles as you are cleaning them. Release the head and slide it away from this "pad". Put a couple of drops of windex on a wet paper towel and blot this area until it is mostly clean. We also will run the head back and forth over the windex and towel pad (clean one) to speed up the process. Not everyone will agree with this method. We are a professional photo lab and can not afford down time in our dye sub department so we get kinda crazy. This has not harmed any of our printers. I dont like the fact that you have no ink transfer in any color. Reeks of a bad head....
 
wow in the time it took for me to write the post you got your answers....great forum!
 
We also have the (elderly) 4880 model, which has never required outside service of any kind. It had a tech problem once, but I was able to fix it.

We love that printer! It has certainly earned its keep over the years, and gets used almost daily to print photo restorations. It is plugged into our Ethernet network, so three Windows machines have access to share it.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. Tried the recommended procedures to no avail. I know she is an old girl and may have to go to the retirement home.

Anyone know of current good deals on a new Epson or Canon?
 
Check out Omega for Epson printers since they have had some of the best deals I've seen. You can also check with Jason at All Square but tell him I said to be nice on pricing.

http://www.allsquare.com/
 
LexJet (http://www.lexjet.com/smartfilteritem.aspx?producttypeid=12&manufacturerid=3) often has great prices.

Not to sound treasonous, but you might look at the Canon printers. We have an Epson SP 7900 and a Canon ipf8300, and all in all I greatly prefer the Canon. It never clogs (not once in close to 2 years), is frugal with ink and is quieter and faster than the Epson. Print quality is excellent on both, so nothing to compare there. The Epson clogs every other day, particularly Cyan for some reason. So I start the day with a nozzle check and then clean color pairs as needed. This never comes up with the Canon.

The only negative with the Canon is that printheads do go every year or 2. So far, I had to replace one, which cost me $350 and about 5 minutes to do myself. The 2nd print head is still the original.
 
I have a 7600 which is about to be retired after 10 years of printing pretty much everyday (sometimes running non-stop for weeks on end). Not sure what it's called but the problem you have here can be cleared by sitting a wet cloth over the nozzle for a while, then a power clean, if that fails it's new printhead time (should be cheap 2nd hand surely). I would also question temperature/humidity being the cause.

I have bought a 9900 which is to be installed in the next few weeks (running via Onyx x10), we chose this over its competitors primarily because it's the only one that can run matboard.
 
Another Possibility!
Did you know that there is a tiny white plastic joiner that connects the pump tube to the waste ink tank tube. It is about 4-5mm long and the hole through it is maybe 0.5mm. Mine was completely blocked.
A soak in cleaner solution and a clear with a syringe and voila - everything back to normal!
I have found nowhere that this is documented.
 
Welcome to the G!

This discussion is almost 8 years old, but someone may find this advice very useful in our archives.

Our 4880 from 2007 or 2008 is still going strong, and gets daily use. The generation after ours *900 were notorious for failed print heads, but the corrected it in the models since. The print heads would develop some kind of electrical fault and the printer would fail. The print head usually cost about the same as a new printer, etc.

I know at some point we will be shipping for a new printer, but it could very well be another Epson. The Canons look great too, but I believe the ink is pricier.

We are at the point with ours now that Epson has discontinued the ink, and it is very difficult and expensive to get the Epson brand product. (about twice the price)
 
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