Capping station and pump

This post is a how-to on replacing the capping station and pump. It's just a draft post for now, as I just did this and don't have it put back together yet, but I thought I'd post it up just so curious people can see what's up. This post will be edited tomorrow when the supplies come in.

I'm shrinking the images smaller on my posts to keep the scrolling down, as Blogger insists on having narrow post widths. As usual, click on any of them to get much larger shots.

I also picked up a cheap loupe ($14) from a local art store, for looking at the printouts to analyze dot placement. This is important for good head alignment, so I'll let you all know how it goes.

First, this is the capping station and pump assembly. Note the pump line routing, and how it connects to the station. This is important.

Notice that the tubes connecting to the capping station are curved to enter into the pump in a certain way. That's how we can tell which lines will be going to the capping station. The lines don't cross, they will be going to the pump on the same side of the capping station as they are on.

Here's another diagram where I've written in the way the lines run. (Capping Station is abbreviated) It's kind of complicated, but basically, both lines enter the pumps in the same way, and both exit the pumps. Both drain lines exit out of the back of the pump. The hose basically runs in a "U" inside the pump, with rollers using peristaltic action to pump the ink through the lines. While the pumps could run either direction, having one of them hooked up backwards would cause one nozzle to not be pumped out, making ink spill or keeping the nozzle from being properly cleaned.
The little bit I circled in green is a cut in the drain line. Ink was prolly pouring out here, so this is most likely the culprit for one of my ink leaks.

Remove the screw holding the capping station into the holder.

This will release the spring further and allow the capping station to be lifted out by the screw side. If you are only replacing the capping station, it may be wise to mark the hoses, but if you are replacing the pump as well, that won't help.

Disconnect the hoses from the now-freed capping station. Mark them if you aren't replacing the pump, if you are, make note of how the hoses are routed. Here's removing one...

And the other.

The capping station is now freed, and can be removed from the assembly.

Now that we have removed the capping station, we need to remove the pump. Here is a picture of the assembly with the capping station removed, for reference.

Start removing the pump by unscrewing the screw at the base of the bracket holding the pump to the main assembly.

To remove the gears holding the pump in place, you also need to remove the two screws on the outside of the pump housing to allow the gear plate to come off.

The gear plate is removed. The small gears are attached, the long shafts are freed.

Now that the long drive shaft has been removed, we can remove the pump.