Epson 9800 died suddenly after black ink swap

Hi all, I'm new to this forum, I hope that some of you guys can give me a direction where to look at regarding this problem.

I have an Epson 9800 on photo black ink. It's always been printing perfectly without a single problem at all, until last night.. I decided to give a try with the matt black ink, so I did a ink change. I followed the official method, ie, flushing lots of ink and used the black conversion kit. When everything was done, I tried to print something, then it turned out printing nothing..

I tried both printing from the printer command panel and from the computer, the printhead carriage was moving and no error message appeared, then I tried a number of initial fill from the servicing menu, then a number of ink swap, but I noticed that the right maintenance tank was never used (I installed a new one as the consequence of the constant ink swapping & cleaning).. I also noticed that some air gaps are in the black tube which did not get fill up after all these fill and swaps... Also the ink bubbles did not move at all.

It is weird because even until the moment before I swapped ink the printer printed perfectly, as I am a regular user of this printer.

I read some forums that the printhead or the pump might be gone.. but no error message saying that?

I would be greatly appreciate any ideas you guys may have. Thanks in advance, and hope I don't have to spend a fortune on replacing this and that..

Thanks.

 

if you didn't yet - try to run "Printhead cleaning cycle" few times. I have just finished fixing a 9800 we had standing in our shop for a while. Once I got to the point that printer said "ready", initial Nozzle test came almost blank and there was lots of air bubbles due to the fact that I had to disconnect ink lines, some inks spilled out and air took it's place. Several cleaning cycles and air is gone and printer prints like a champ - perfect nozzle test.

 

thanks UnlimitedBT, can I just confirm which cleaning procedure is "Printhead cleaning cycle"? I've done around 5 times power clean, which in theory, ink should start to suck in, but the air bubbles didn't move at all apart from those little displacements when I move the cartridge level up and down... In fact, I noticed that whenever I switch on the machine, the air gaps do move slightly as the printer initiates itself, but not sufficient enough to fill up the whole tube. Also, there is no ink being flushed at all to the waste tank.

 

Than you might have a problem. When cartridge is inserted, it should form air-tight seal on order for pumps to work. Try to visually inspect cartridges or compare them to the ones you had before, see if there is any defects. Also you can try to put color cartridges back and see if it changes anything. If I'd be about to do what you did, I'd just install all Black inks and ran "Clean Nozzle" a few times. Any color ink left in lines would turn to be black anyway. If nothing comes out in to maint. tank - that could be the problem. Drain tube could be clogged. I had to watch my printer "clean nozzels" with cover off - It does discard plenty of ink while cleans.

 

I put back all the cartridges which were in the printer before, but the problem still exist. Also usually in the "Printable pages" menu from the printer, it should say how many pages the cartridges can do, but now they are displaying "-----" . I guess the problem appeared after black ink was flushed into the tank, then new ink couldn't be sucked into the tubes. It just doesn't make sense because the printer was really functioning fine even before I swapped ink!