Homebrew PCBs

I cleaned the C84 today.
WHAT A MESS!!!

It was full of gummed up ink, there must have been several hundred $ of  
ink dried up in there.
I took it apart completely, the vacuum hose was totally blocked, The waste  
ink pad is nicely large, but the problem is the ink only goes about a cm  
into it before it gums up and prevents more ink from being soaked up. So  
95% of the waste ink pad is pristine white while backing-up ink was  
already flowing out and over into other areas that were not designed to  
take ink.
I did try to clean a small piece of saturated wasteink pad, but gave up  
quickly, it's just too much in there. I ended up cutting off the saturated  
ares. There were dried ink deposits many millimeters thick in places, i  
could scrape them out with a screwdriver to discard them, the rest was  
washed in the sink. It seems best IMO to take the parking station out too,  
since it's usually very dirty and washes nicely in the sink without  
introducing fibers. The vacuum hose was cleared with a large syringe and  
hot water, i had to disassemble the peristaltic pump to straighten out the  
hose or it wouldn't clean. I also use the "wettex" strip again under the  
head, and saturated the parking pad with cleaning solution just before  
returning the head as per Steve's instructions.

When the thing was put together again i got a almost perfect nozzle test,  
only 3 or 4 out or missing. A single black head cleaning cycle later and i  
have 100% all OK. I left in the original (non-epson) ink because it felt  
still very heavy/full, i plan to empty the black and refill with mispro in  
the afternoon. I'll also have to sort out how to get PCBs through.


Anyway, apart from the obvious shortcomings of this printer (snaps instead  
of screws) it is still reasonably sturdy. And it is very quiet compared to  
the older models. It doesn't look that way at first, but this printer will  
work as a skeleton with all the plastic bodywork removed. Let's just hope  
now this printer will lay down a good resist and we should have a very  
suitable candidate. There are plenty out there with "clogged head"  
problems, and i'm fairly sure in reality most of them merely have  
obstructed vacuum plumbing.


I'll let you know how it goes with the mispro ink on pcb.

ST