Homebrew PCBs

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 05:31:02 +0200, Steve <alienrelics@...> wrote:

>> I have put spongeless carts on this, not a CIS.
>> The silicone stoppers are very likely airtight...
> If they are not, it will cause just these symptoms of wet park station
> and ink running out.
>
>> What could have happened is that i didn't raise the park station the
>> identically same amount as the head, would this cause this?
>> I'd assume the spring under the pad would prevent any problems there...
> That is possible, depends on how high you raised it. It isn't designed
> with this in mind, after all, however I don't see how it could cause
> theink to leak or the park station to always be wet.
>
>> The spongless carts would be an obvious place to seek fault with,
> but i
>> believe they are fairly standard items.
>> Also, i had all the ink leak out of the cart, twice (=each time i
>> refilled) with the old sponged carts...
> Hm. That is strange, almost like something in the park station or on
> the bottom of the heads is wicking ink out.
>
>> Do i need to observe something when filling those carts?
> The fill hole -must- be absolutely sealed airtight. Don't try to fill
> to the absolute tip-top.


Steve, you were right, in a way. There was a leak on top of the cartridge.
But not the stopper, i punctured the plastic membrane inside the cart with  
the syringe needle.

When filling it up i was worried about puncturing the plastic membrane on  
the one side of the cart which i knew was there, so i pointed the needle  
towards the other, seemingly solid plastic, side of the cartridge. Yea  
right. There's a plastic membrane on this side as well. I noticed the  
puncture after i took the cart out and removed the ink to try another  
cart. One could see the ink bloom out under the hard plastic cover between  
it and the membrane. I took off the plastic cover and fixed the puncture  
with a piece of sticky tape.

I was retting really suspicious about that leak after moving the head to  
the center for inspection and finding there are large droplets forming on  
the nozzles, quite quickly. Seems the parking pad actually held the ink in  
otherwise all would have leaked out.


I do not know yet why the sponged carts were emptied though.

Things are looking up now, made another experiment, see another post.

ST