Homebrew PCBs

I killed my print head. It was clogged so I went about trying to 
clean it out. Bad mistake. I guess I should have tried it when I was 
not in a hurry and in a better mood. I used Windex which I have used 
successfully before to clean heads with no problems.  I used a 
syringe to directly inject into the cart nipple. I was able to get 
printing from some nozzles after my first try so tried cleaning a 
little more. Same results. Tried again and it got worse. Used the 
cleaning cycle for fun and got a few more nozzles to work. Tried 
doing some regular printing and it went from bad to worse very 
quuickly. Used the clean again and printed for a little while. I was 
looking at the nozzles as I injected the windex and they did not seem 
plugged as I was able to see the streams from the nozzles.  This 
leads me to think that they were not actually clogged but not 
shooting the ink instead. Possibly the ink is not being pulled into 
the head? After my last try when I went to print I heard a sizzling 
from the print head (very bad sound). This was the end of any 
printing. Must have fried the board in the print head somehow. I may 
try one more time. Epson still has refurbished C88s for $50 with free 
shipping. I have a new mod in mind where I will not cut the frame but 
make new offset bushings for the roller bars to lower them. This 
should give plenty of clearance for a 1/16" carrier and 1/16" board.

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:29:29 +0100, wnnelson0 <wnnelson@...>  
wrote:

> Possibly the ink is not being pulled into
> the head? After my last try when I went to print I heard a sizzling
> from the print head (very bad sound). This was the end of any
> printing. Must have fried the board in the print head somehow. I may
> try one more time. Epson still has refurbished C88s for $50 with free
> shipping. I have a new mod in mind where I will not cut the frame but
> make new offset bushings for the roller bars to lower them. This
> should give plenty of clearance for a 1/16" carrier and 1/16" board.


Yes, the ink not being pulled in i a distinct possibility. Was the vacuum  
system on your printer working (hose not clogged etc..)?

Do you think you got some cleaner or something into the electronics from  
the outside, or do you think something inside the head broke and caused a  
leak?

$50 seems a bit much for a printer that's just going to be hacked up. Many  
dead ones from ebay suffer from a clogged vacuum hose, which is easy to  
fix. Typical symptoms are "i changed the cartridges, and since then it  
does not print". This always happens when the vaccum is clogged, because  
no new ink is sucked down (and piezo heads seem bad at pumping air). Sure  
you may get one with a head that can not be fixed, but if that happens i  
can still buy a lot of 1eur printers for $50, even with shipping if need  
be.

ST

Not sure where the fluid problem is. I will be taking it apart to find out but I believe it was
external. The only Ebay printers I see are new ones some with out ink.  I don't look very often
but I have not seen a used one when I looked. We have a elecronics recycling site nearby maybe
they will let me take a few dead printers.