Solvents

So, I got the tracking number for my refurb kit today. It ships out of Canada, Quebec, to be precise. It's on the way, and scheduled to be here Monday, and since that's my day off, I'll be here with my friend to work on it. There will be a huge post and lots of info!

So, to kinda get ready, I decided to start mixing up some of the solvent mix that I've seen on the forums, to see if it really works. Here's what I did:

I started with a normal quart tin purchased from Lowe's. I was worried about the enamel finish inside would be affected by the solvents, but it appears that it is not, but that's from a short period of time. I'm going to let it hang out in here til Monday and see how it's affected.

By the way, red Solo cups are polystyrene, and they don't like Acetone!

Usually, the mix is mentioned as being 4 or 5 parts Butyl Carbitol to one part Acetone. I mixed at 5 to 1.

I mixed 2.5 cups Butyl Carbitol to 0.5 cups Acetone. Poured them into the tin together and stirred. Mixed it is a clear liquid; the Butyl Carbitol is a more viscous liquid, like a light oil, and the Acetone is very watery, be careful when pouring it.

I then tried it out on the electronics lid, which looked pretty nasty. It worked spectacularly.
Here's the lid, after a little cleaning, as a before picture.

This is after about three seconds of rubbing with a corner of the paper towel dipped in the solvent.

And the after, as you can see that whole area rubbed is just clean beneath. I didn't do a whole lot more, I'll wait a little to work on that, but it really works well on the dried ink. I even used it on an old, very dry ink spill, and it came right up, no problems. I'm excited for how this should work on the insides of the printer.

Ribbon cables

So I since I've been idle for a few days, I thought I should write a little more here, take some shots, and show off what I'm working on.

I set up my little studio here so I can get some good shots of the work I'm doing.

Basically, I found someone (Atlantic Computer Service) who had the ribbon cables for cheaper than other places online. I bought a pair of them there (used, of course) yesterday, and because they're in Seminole, FL, I got them today!

I ordered "The Big One", aka the refurb kit for my printer from CMYKParts.com. Hopefully it'll get here soon. I also ordered a bulk ink tank (to fill with cleaning solvent), and a syringe kit with tubing to help work the solvents through the system.

So what I need to do today is explain more about ZIF FFC (Zero Insertion Force Flat Flexible Cable) connectors and cables, and show how to replace them in the printer. The ones I bought also had ink on them, but just a little bit here and there, so nothing as bad as the ones that came out of my printer. The important thing is that the plastic covering is in great shape and they ohm out properly (I'll show more about how to do that later on as well)

So, first we'll start with the heater control panel, as it's pretty important. First, you need to remove it from the printer with the two screws on top. This is pretty easy. After that, disconnect the cable from the electronics box and pull it out (carefully) through the holes it's routed through.

Now that you have it outside the printer, we can work on it. First, we flip it over onto it's face. I've covered some of the old cable with paper towel cause I don't want the copious amounts of ink on it to mess up my backdrop.

First, you'll need to remove the two screws holding the ribbon cable to the metal. They have attached washers.









 Then, remove the metal plate and place it aside (It's a good idea to keep the screws with the plate so you know where they go when you reassemble!)

Now, remove the four outer screws holding the gold plate down to the silver face.

These have washers that are NOT attached, so don't lose them!

Flip the cable over to the other side of the panel, and remove the gold plate from the front panel assembly.

Now, remove the four screws holding the circuit board down. They are the large ones on the outside corners. They may be in tight, so make sure you use an appropriately-sized screwdriver so you don't strip them, and press down on the screw while turning! These screws are longer than the other two types of screws, so it shouldn't be hard to keep them separate.


Then, lift the board up and out of the front panel. You'll notice the long pushbuttons, be sure not to bump them around too much.

The ZIF socket for the cable on this board is a press-in type, so there is no lever or slide to move. It relies on the rigidity of the cable, fitting much like an old NES or GameBoy cartridge would, it slides against pins on the inside.





To remove it, carefully pull straight back, wiggling it very slightly side to side. You will see it slowly move outwards until it pops free. Don't bend it very far to either side or you risk bending pins inside or breaking off the cable within the connector.

The cable and board are separated. Now to install the new cables.

You can see here, that the old cable (paper towel) matches the curves of this used cable. This is how I'll determine which end and which cable to use here.

First, look into the end of the connector. You will see a side with pins, and a side without. The side with pins is where the silvery side of the cable goes. The blue side (stabilizer tape side) goes down, in this case.

Position your thumb very close to the connector; this is to ensure the cable does not buckle as you insert it. Gently slide the tip of the cable into the slot, and while doing so, keep the cable pressed against the board to keep it rigid. Wiggle it back and forth slightly while applying even pressure inwards.

The cable will start to slide in with some resistance, then the resistance will suddenly drop and it should slip in all the way. Ensure it's fully seated (without buckling the cable) and you're done!







Now, to reassemble the rest of the panel, we do the above in reverse. Place the LCD face-down onto the front panel, align the holes, and install the four long screws. Ensure the long buttons are seated properly in the holes before tightening the screws.

Then comes the gold plate. Fit it on with the angled side fitting against the large angled piece on the silver front panel, and install the four screws with washers.

Last, fold the ribbon cable back over the panel, and install the strain relief bracket. make sure there's a bit of slack in the cable, so that it's not rubbing against the sharp edge of the gold plate.

Now, in my instance, I didn't really need to replace the heater cable. In fact, the one that came was kinda beat up, moreso than the one I had. After washing the cable under some hot water (keeping the ends dry) and paper towel, I found that the cable itself seemed to be in good condition, and the only one with an issue was the main control panel cable. I did this purely for the tutorial and photos, and to see what was inside.

Next up, we have the main control panel. I'm going to show this one as well, because it's using a different socket, and there's a lot less disassembly required.

This is the control panel removed from the unit. It's cable follows the same path as the heater control panel, only it attaches to a different point in the electronics box.

To remove the cable, first you need to release the cable strain relief. This is done by loosening the screw on the strain relief. You don't need to fully remove it, loosening it up is plenty to remove the thin cable.

This is the ZIF connector we are dealing with. It is the locking/unlocking type, which you can tell by noting the two shells, and the ridge about the bottom shell which is to provide an area to grip when sliding it.

After the strain relief has been loosened, you need to unlock the ZIF connector BEFORE you pull out the cable. If you don't, the pressure against the pins inside can damage the cable AND the pins within. To release it, use your fingernails (or fingers) to GENTLY pull the large outer shell with the ridge downward.

You may wiggle it slightly, after it loosens up it will slide to the bottom and stop, looking like the photo to the right. Do not pull it past this or you will break the connector!

Now, carefully pull the ribbon cable straight out with both hands, and it should slide easily free. Note the orientation on the cable, as it is more difficult to see inside these connectors to find the pins. The orientation on this panel is with the silver side of the cable facing away from the board.

Replacement is easy as well. Simply slide the cable into the slot and push it gently to the rear of the connector (until it stops). If it does not slide in, make sure the little latch is down all the way (don't pull it hard, it just sometimes slips upwards a little)

Then, using two fingers, push straight up on the ridged shell until it stops, which will lock the cable in place.

When you are done, it will look like this.

Re-tighten the cable strain relief (make sure you leave a little slack) and you are done!

Small update

Here's just a slight update on what I did today.

Headed down to Sherwin-Williams' commercial store and picked up a gallon of Butyl Carbitol ($60), and then hit Lowe's for a quart of acetone ($8). This mixture should (as mentioned in other forums) with a 4-5/1 ratio of Butyl Carbitol to acetone, give me a similar solvent to what's in the inks themselves. Hopefully this will work well for cleaning the printer.

I thought I'd take a couple more shots of the problem areas to show what I'm dealing with in terms of ink problems.
Here we can see the fan housing, where the ink has dripped down from the mis-fitted spit cup, and caused the cover to this housing (removed, along with a foam filter) to melt. The cover looks salvageable, so hopefully that will be alright. The filter will need to be replaced; we plan on tracing it onto some similar foam and cutting it out, then reinstalling it after cleaning up the mess.

Here's another shot of the spit cup mount. The issue here is that the plastic on the spit cup is solvent-proof, while the plastic that it mounts to is not. Stupid design. Though, this printer was originally made just for pigment inks, so they probably cut corners in making it solvent-ready.
Basically, the problem here is that the spit cup slips down onto a pair of pegs, which are no longer there. One was broken off by a previous service job, the other came off when I attempted to remove the spit cup. I had a hard time removing it, because the ink acted like model cement and melted the peg into the spit cup. It also weakened the plastic here, causing it to break. I'll need to figure out another way to mount the cup back in.


Well, that's all for the moment, I know I mentioned I'd be cleaning it today, but my friend couldn't make it. I'm currently investigating some options for the FFC cable that ties the control panels into the main board, so I'll keep updating with what I find on those. I've sent out a request to a couple companies who manufacture the cables to see if I can get small quantities made, and I have a lead on another company which might be able to do it. FFC cables of this type are readily available, however, not in such long lengths. The longest I've seen on eBay is about 600cm, which is too short.

Keep checking back!

Rocking and Rolling..

Alright, so here we go, going to start diving into this thing. It seems a bit daunting, but I'm going to go at it and see where we can get.

A friend is interested in using this printer with me, so she's offered to help with some costs and work involved in getting it back up and running again. It's just the drive I need to work on it, so she came over and we proceeded to tear down the printer to see just what I'm going to need to get this thing up and running again.

While I don't have any in-depth pictures of the teardown, it's pretty straightforward. Everything is held in with screws that can be easily found, so nothing too hard there. Here's a few pictures, and comments on disassembly:

Starting out, this is the left side of the printer. The cover is removed with two screws at the bottom of the cover. You can see the metal band idler to drive the head, and the belt to drive the grit roller.

This is the right side of the printer. Here you can see the lever to raise/lower the upper pinch rollers, the large DC motor to drive the steel belt, the hoses routing to the waste ink bucket, and at the top, the switch to enable/disable the printer based on the lid position. If your printer keep saying to close the lid, or allows printing when the lid is open (or you want it to), adjust the switch mount until it engages properly.

This is the front panel area, with the cover removed. In this shot, We also removed the front lid, which you can see is missing. The front cover is removed with one screw near the top left of the control panel; the rest of the metal panel needs to be unscrewed from beneath the heater controller to come out. The ribbon cables are standard ribbon connectors; they have plastic pieces that slide downward slightly to release the cable from the connector. Don't try to remove the plastic piece completely or do anything else than slide it up and down, it will break.

As you can see here, the front panel and heater board have been removed. This allows us to see the ink pump (black object to the left), the capping station (two pads on top) and the waste ink hoses (white/clear hose leaving to the right). The white hoses are from the ink pump, and the clear large hose is from the spit cup. A word of caution about removing the spit cup: While it is made of solvent-resistant plastic, the piece which it is attached to is not. In my case, this ended up with me removing the small supports that hold the cup in place, as they had been damaged by misdirected printer ink. I will need to come up with another way to affix this. (pictures soon) 

 Another shot of the control panel area. You can see where the control panel was affixed, as well as where ink splattered/dripped from something being improperly aligned. The hole near the center of the picture which goes down into the electronics enclosure, is covered in ink. This caused the following problem.
Just to the left of this (behind the black plastic piece we removed along with the spit cup) is a foam filter used to clean air going into the vacuum fan area. This was also soaked in ink, so we removed it. We are going to try and locate some high density foam to replace it with, by tracing the old shape and cutting it out of new foam.

As you can see, the ribbon cable coming from the heater assembly, going down into the electronics enclosure is covered in ink. This is a problem, because the plastic on the ribbon cable is not solvent resistant. While it does not appear to have attacked the cable in this instance too badly, I have not cleaned it yet to check the damage.

However, on this cable, the one coming from the main control panel, going to the electronics enclosure, the damage is apparent. The cable has been pinched by someone who rebuilt the printer, and at the same time, the solvent worked to soften and strip the plastic insulation from the lines. The bare wire from the ribbon cable is visible. I will need to replace this cable as it is unusable in it's current state.

This is the lid of the electronics enclosure, also covered in ink. Luckily, it does not appear that any of the ink got down inside the electronics, which is thankful, or much more would have had to be replaced. The warning sticker has been damaged by the solvent inks.

This is the right side of the electronics enclosure. Here we can see the main power supply (beige board at the bottom), the heater control board ( board with the ribbon cable at the top) and the main control board (to the left). We removed the ribbon cables from this board.

This is the left side of the electronics enclosure. Here we can clearly see the main control board. This has memory slots (bottom), expansion slots (lower left) and the ribbon cable to the control board (top).

Moving up to the top of the unit, this is the head. In this shot, we removed the top cover (six screws, two in front, four in back), and the head dust cover. In this shot you can see the six ink lines coming in from the hoses, as well as the plastic holder that supports them. The two round objects near the bottom of the head are adjusters for head height, and there is a general adjust on the right side of the head as well. The cable coming from the left is from the paper cut solenoid which I removed.

This is the board atop the head. It contains small driver electronics to run the print heads, sheet cut solenoid, and detectors. The barely-visible strip along the back of the machine is the encoder strip, how it senses where it is along the print width.

Next up: A quick head disassembly tutorial. First, remove the ink lines from the dampers. This is done by carefully loosening the nut (should only need to do a little bit with a small pliers), and unscrewing it. Pulling gently straight upwards will detatch it from the damper. BE CAREFUL at this point, as the ink is a solvent, and the plastic piece which supports the dampers is made of ABS, a plastic which the solvent will attack, soften, and ruin. Make sure you have adequate paper towels on hand for this job, as ink will continue to drip from some lines.
Next, remove the dampers by pulling each STRAIGHT UP. You will need a bit of force for this one, but make sure not to bend it, or you run the risk of snapping off the coupler on the head. Heads are way more expensive than dampers. Make sure you put some paper towel over the damper's outlet when you pull it out, as you will squeeze it and this will squirt out ink.

We already removed the dampers and one head (and as keen eyes may see, the head cable) to take this series of pictures. To remove the head, you need to first unscrew the screw holding the head down to the plastic carriage. This can be done before or after you remove the spring, and although I did it before, I think it may be easier to use the screw to loosely hold the head in place while installing/removing the spring.

You will be left with a washer on the pad, which usually sticks there. Pull the washer out with a pair of needle nose pliers.

Next, remove the spring. I am using a pair of small needle nose pliers to compress the spring on the die-cast side to avoid possibly breaking the plastic side on the head. The die-cast metal side is also shallower, and easier to get the spring off of.

Showing the spring removed. The head is now loose and can be pulled out of the unit by lifting the base up, and gently sliding it out.

The head is now free, and can be carefully lifted out.

Epson DX2 Printer head (uses 2)

While some people claim some success with solvent and ultrasonic cleaners, parts of the head cannot be submerged. At this point, since people have difficulty reviving heads that have been sitting a few months, while these have been sitting a few years, I will be installing new heads to save the hassle.

 

 Here is the printer in it's current state. It's torn apart, the electronics are dropped, and it's just awaiting the solvent cleaner. I also need to find a syringe and silicone tubing, though I may just use the old tubing from the ink pump, as I am getting new tubing with the refurb kit from CMYKParts.com

I plan on looking up the ribbon cables on Mouser or Digi-key, as they are standard electronic parts and I should be able to get them from one of those companies. Barring that, I'll need to locate somewhere to get parts from.

I'll take some more pictures either tonight or tomorrow morning, and get to work on cleaning it, hopefully I'll be able to get the Butyl Carbitol tomorrow (Sherwyn-Williams' commercial/industrial store was closed today) and start flushing the system. Once I can get some solvent in the lines, that should help keep things liquid until I can get some bulk cartridges to put cleaning solution into and finish flushing the system.

I plan on ordering the refurb kit around this time next week, and hopefully can get it up and running in a few days after that. Then begins the tinkering...

If you're finding this helpful, feel free to drop me a line via the links here, or at chorca@gmail.com. Any questions about what I'm doing, or if I'm doing something terribly wrong, please let me know! This is my first time working on a large format printer, so I'm bound to make some mistakes. I'll document them whenever I can, so that you guys don't make the same ones!