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Epson XP-15000 Conversion Some Answers and Some Questions


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Got it all cleaned up did some maintenance and cleaned the print head with a paper towel and cleaning fluid per inkjetmall.com and cleaned the wiper and cleaning head pad thingy. Installed the refillable carts with cleaning fluid and ran some head cleanings and test prints. The cleaning fluid only had enough to fill the carts with like 20ml. So during the test prints it was still printing with the ink in the system. Good news not a single clog. I'm going to order some more refillable carts to put ink in, some 3880 chips/remanufactured carts for the chips, more cleaning fluid and chip resetter for the waste tank.

The other printers he gave me I can sell for like $500.

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11 hours ago, cartierusm said:

Got it all cleaned up did some maintenance and cleaned the print head with a paper towel and cleaning fluid per inkjetmall.com and cleaned the wiper and cleaning head pad thingy. Installed the refillable carts with cleaning fluid and ran some head cleanings and test prints. The cleaning fluid only had enough to fill the carts with like 20ml. So during the test prints it was still printing with the ink in the system. Good news not a single clog. I'm going to order some more refillable carts to put ink in, some 3880 chips/remanufactured carts for the chips, more cleaning fluid and chip resetter for the waste tank.

The other printers he gave me I can sell for like $500.

Nice find, are you going to get to using that one or keep going with the 15000 first?

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Both I think LOL. I spent $1500 last night for 1 liter of CMYK and 4 liters of White, Another set of refillable carts. Remanuf 3880 carts so I can harvest their chips, more cleaning fluid, etc...

Haven't used the 15000 in a few days. Had cleaner carts in now I'm doing my start up. Heads are pretty clean. A few dots missing from black. I've got orders already from friends.

I took the maintenance tank cover off and just drilled and tapped the maintenance box itself and put a snapple bottle to catch with a hose. Works great so far. Also ordered that CISS system with dampers. It'll be a relief refilling the carts 2-3 times a day sucks.

I'm about to test out EKPrint. I'll report back on my results. Weird EKPrint doesn't accept vector files like AI.

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Ok tested out EKPrint. Not much color difference at all. Same pixelization I see in this one color from CADLink. And complete opposite from your results. CADLink prints very fast. EKPrint it took like 15 minutes to print with no quality difference at all. I'll test a little further though. Seems like 1440x720 on CADLink and 1440x1440 on EKPrint doesn't change anything at all.

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2 hours ago, cartierusm said:

Ok tested out EKPrint. Not much color difference at all. Same pixelization I see in this one color from CADLink. And complete opposite from your results. CADLink prints very fast. EKPrint it took like 15 minutes to print with no quality difference at all. I'll test a little further though. Seems like 1440x720 on CADLink and 1440x1440 on EKPrint doesn't change anything at all.

I haven't tested them in about a year, this was before cadlink supported it. On my end and my printers cadlink has been slower. If it's faster and offers good results, thats good news.

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When I get time I should go back and compare them again. My main comparisons right now are on the other printers I currently run. I have Acro 10.5 instead of 9 now, so that'll also yield much better results i'm sure. 

Edited by johnson4
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Ok printing a real paying job today. Got my process mostly down. You were right lots of little things come up. Gotta pop that maintenance tank out after every print to reset ink or it think you run out. the CISS will be a god send, sent? Not sure.

Called CADLink with an issue. You leave a message and they call back. Which they did and I gotta say it was pretty great tech support. They have a menu in CADLink to allow you to share screen. So super easy no downloading software and creating a login. They don't answer your questions directly, they guide you through how to actually accomplish and why you're doing it this way, they're educating. I liked their approach.

The questions I had were the 1440x720 and why not 1440x1440. I had to check mark a box in one the drop down menus to show ALL options in the Queue > Properties. Then there's all sort of color adjustments and graphs and all sorts. I had to make a new Queue (just so I don't mess up the one I have) and then set it to 1440x1440. I thought the prints looked great before, but now Oh wow they're amazing. I'm getting great laydown on the inks and whites.

Also asked some other questions about how many nozzles and drop size. They said it's all dependent and try it and see if there's a difference.

It prints slower now cause it's 1440x1440 but it does a great job.

Also if I do a test print from the printer to check the head sometimes I get a few pixels missing and sometimes I do a head cleaning and then another nozzle check, mind you these are right after each other nothing in between, and then I get complete missing colors. So if figured those aren't completely clogged as it literally just printed a test print. So I remember reading on here that someone get better ink flow from removing the cartridge colored plug and leaving in the clean plug. So I did that, bam problem solved (knock on wood).

Also if I load multiple sheets of film in the back manual tray it starts printing like 2" down the page. So I load single sheets now and that seems to have done the trick so far.

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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.

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2 hours ago, cartierusm said:

Ok printing a real paying job today. Got my process mostly down. You were right lots of little things come up. Gotta pop that maintenance tank out after every print to reset ink or it think you run out. the CISS will be a god send, sent? Not sure.

Called CADLink with an issue. You leave a message and they call back. Which they did and I gotta say it was pretty great tech support. They have a menu in CADLink to allow you to share screen. So super easy no downloading software and creating a login. They don't answer your questions directly, they guide you through how to actually accomplish and why you're doing it this way, they're educating. I liked their approach.

The questions I had were the 1440x720 and why not 1440x1440. I had to check mark a box in one the drop down menus to show ALL options in the Queue > Properties. Then there's all sort of color adjustments and graphs and all sorts. I had to make a new Queue (just so I don't mess up the one I have) and then set it to 1440x1440. I thought the prints looked great before, but now Oh wow they're amazing. I'm getting great laydown on the inks and whites.

Also asked some other questions about how many nozzles and drop size. They said it's all dependent and try it and see if there's a difference.

It prints slower now cause it's 1440x1440 but it does a great job.

Also if I do a test print from the printer to check the head sometimes I get a few pixels missing and sometimes I do a head cleaning and then another nozzle check, mind you these are right after each other nothing in between, and then I get complete missing colors. So if figured those aren't completely clogged as it literally just printed a test print. So I remember reading on here that someone get better ink flow from removing the cartridge colored plug and leaving in the clean plug. So I did that, bam problem solved (knock on wood).

Also if I load multiple sheets of film in the back manual tray it starts printing like 2" down the page. So I load single sheets now and that seems to have done the trick so far.

Yea, it’s pretty neat overall. They also have that self help thing in there too. Compass I think. 
 

what’s your time on the prints now? 

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2 hours ago, cartierusm said:

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.

One of the plugs is an air vent, it should be removed permanently to allow the cartridge to work correctly.

One is the refill port, it should be in place all the time unless refilling. 

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9 minutes ago, cartierusm said:

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

Any time I did that it bled ink everywhere, that’s how I lost the first one actually. 
 

Crazy how much stuff varies from person to person. 

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9 minutes ago, cartierusm said:

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.

Yea, Usually you end up with a 030006 error or something like that after a few days or so. Ink drips down into the head, Or it fills up the capping station and "wicks" up the head and shorts it out. I had mine sealed with silicone top and bottom and it still found a way in there. If this happens, The printer is done for generally speaking.

 

Just in case it does happen, you'll know its irreparable. hopefully it just works for ya though. 

Mine worked for months and I neglected it, so it's not like an immediate thing I don't think. 

Edited by johnson4
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12 minutes ago, cartierusm said:

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

I'm not judging, To each his own.

Personally I did it differently, doesn't mean either of us are wrong. I didn't want to come off as an ass, I don't care what you do. 

If that works for you then it is $400 for a DTF printer guaranteed to last 4 years is a pretty sweet deal.

I broke mine in a couple months and it was a learning experience and a loss for me. 

Edited by johnson4
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I've had similar problems with very stubborn air clogs in my xp15000 heads that were resolved by pulling both cartridge plugs, at least for a while until flow seemed back to normal. Haven't tried just leaving out the fill plug and plugging the breather hole instead, I'm going to try that.

As you probably know, there are 3 types of head clogs. 1) extraneous particles/contaminants, 2) dried ink, 3) air bubbles, of which the third cause is supposedly most prominant, and underestimated by users. On my XP15000 some air clogs just get worse with head cleans, ink charges, or purge prints.  There are nozzle test result characteristics that help differentiate air clogs from the other causes.

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7 hours ago, cartierusm said:

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

You can find articles online that go into more detail, and I'm not sure there is one definitive way to tell, but signs include when relatively large bad nozzle areas suddenly appear, whole color channels or most of a color channel go out, and bad nozzle checks that move around after head cleans, appearing/disappearing.  Air bubbles tend to move around if they don't go away. I would consider a bad cart flow or bad ink line flow as one cause of air problems.

Non-air clog typically start as just a few bad nozzles that are basically the same each time, some may go away or more may come over time, but basically the same pattern in subsequent nozzle checks... and, in my own experience, more random looking. Typically they don't move around.

 

Edited by TeedUp
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Air clogs will often improve on their own if left alone for hours or overnight.  I don't have the patience, neither do my customers.   Multiple XP15000 so one can be down, as long as one up.

Dual XP600 head printer coming on slow boat from... yeah.  I can't wait. My life will finally be blissful, right?

Edited by TeedUp
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