Ricoh GXe3300n - wrong ink inserted!!!

[John G]

How are you going to get the cleaning solution along the tubes?

[Paul]

i am magician
I would have a go as i love challenge like this in worst case i would not success and chuck printer away

[John G]

in worst case i would not success and chuck printer away

:biggrin: nice one Paul, OK - it might be worth a go.

[Paul]

mind that... i never hd a ricoh so probably I dont know what i am talking about

[bms]

Many thanks guys, seems the price of inks compared to the printer mean that it's not going to be cost effective to try and clean it, especially as you say these printers seem to hold a lot of ink internally. The seller is very apologetic and I am therefore looking at either returning the printer or all the kit - lesson learnt - always check everything!!!

Hopefully I will get to sublimate things eventually :rolleyes:

Haze

Oh dear ... okay, so lets think what's happened here and why the seller has been able to print okay without problems but why you may have problems soon.

There is a reasonable amount of ink in the tubes going to the printhead, so when the cartridges are replaced then the printer starts to suck ink from these new cartridges, but continues to print with the sublimation inks as there is plenty in the printer. So you would probably print many pages and not notice any difference. The more you print though the more normal ink you are pulling into the printer which has to be removed eventually for you to print with sublimation again.

Now here comes the problem - do you replace the ink cartridges now to avoid further contamination, not knowing how much normal ink is in the tubes? If there is a lot of ink in the tubes then you're going to have to wait until the sublimation processes fails (knowing you've hit normal ink not sublimation ink) and then start flushing ink through the printer, possibly wasting up to 1/2 or more of the cartridges of expensive sublimation ink (possibly less depending on how much normal ink is in the system.

So there is a problem coming, how much of a problem depends on the unknown (unknown is how much normal ink is in the system which has to be flushed through).

[Haze]

How long is a piece of string ( Ricoh tubes) :biggrin:

Thanks Martin, I understand what you mean. I expect the seller managed to get most of his iphone covers processed with the last of the Sublijet inks still in the system. Hopefully we can sort out a refund and I'll be ordering a new printer from you soon!! I won't need reminding not to insert the Ricoh cartridges!!

Haze

[JSR]

I don't have a Ricoh, but I read concerns about "wasting" a lot of dye-sub ink. Whether you flush through the old ink, or have a new printer with empty tubes, the effect is the same - you need to fill the tubes with dye-sub ink.

How are you wasting any more doing the former than when doing the latter?

As soon as dye-sub ink starts coming through the printer, you just stop flushing it.

When I swapped out regular dye-ink for dye-sub ink in my Brother printer (like the Ricoh, the Brother has tubes between the cartridges and the printhead), I just printed blank pages of each colour until the colour changed (dye sub ink doesn't look the same as dye ink). I certainly didn't waste loads of dye-sub ink.

Back to the original question - how are you wasting more ink when flushing out old ink than when you have a printer with no ink in the tubes? In both cases, you need to flush through enough ink to fill the tubes. Same amount of ink.

Sorry if it's a daft question, but I don't have a Ricoh...

[Haze]

Hi JSR,

If I'd made the mistake and was stuck with the printer I would give the flushing a go, although as a complete beginner it would be difficult for me to judge whether any poor subli results were due to remains of the wrong ink or other reasons. I would worry the Ricoh ink would still be in the ribbons or print head etc and spoil the prints for a long time. As the seller has agreed a decent refund for returning the printer I will start afresh with a new one. I need to buy the cartridges anyway which is nearly 2/3rd cost.

From the research I've done I understand that when they're new the Ricoh Gelsprinters do "suck" up a large volume of ink from the first cartridge, this only means that the second ones need buying sooner than you'd probably want. The ink is not "wasted" it is simply sitting in the tubes ready to use rather than sitting in the cartridges. At least that's my understanding. I liked the reports of no mess, no blockages and apparently economical running of these printers and of course the PowerDriver support should make things easier for a beginner, no forgetting to mirror the image!

[Daniel]

Hi,

It will definately be cheaper to purchase a new unit from your supplier. the cost of fully flushing out your print lines with sublimation ink outweighs the cost of purchasing a new printer.

Dan

[MugMan]

I had a similar problem when a reputable supplier (not BMS who I now use) sent out my new printer with the incorrect inks. Unknowingly installed the inks and of I went trying to sublimate with the wrong inks wasting loads of mugs in the meantime. Spoke to the supplier and they agreed they were the wrong inks and sent out the correct ones. These then had to be then flushed through again wasting more mugs in the process to confirm the sawgrass inks had passed through. I am happy to say that these wasted mugs were also replaced, but wasted hours of my own time sorting it out.

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that all this flushing out of the ink has to go somewhere and this ink goes in to the waste ink tray and fills it up quickly. The waste ink tray isnt cheap at £36.00 +vat from BMS