Epson Stylus Pro 4900 stopped printing any ink after a flush with cleaning solution

[mario errico]

Hello all,
Wanted to share my headakes about trying to unclog the printhead of my Epson 4900, plus what I have tryed so far and what the results are.
History:
Received the printer from a photographer who did not have the inclination to try to resurrect it after it had been sitting unused for several months. Nozzle pattern check was very fragmented with the Orange/Green and the Cyan/Vivid Magenta not printing anything at all.
What I did so far:
1. Used the Windex technique: Folded a paper towel twice along the length and sprayed well with Windex "Original" until it almost dripped. Unlocked the printhead carriage, placed the soaked paper towel in the printhead path and manually moved the printhead over the paper towel. Left it overnight. By next morning, the paper towel had lots of ink on it. Printed the Nozzle pattern: The O/G and C/VM channels still printed absolutely nothing but the others were almost fine.
2. Did several nozzle cleanings, both using the control panel on the printer and the nozzle cleaning tool in the Windows driver software. The result was actually a little worse!
3. Decided to try a cleaning solution from BCH Technologies and their "Titration" tubes. I followed Kevin's procedure in his Youtube video. It consists of exposing the printhead input ports (there are 10, by removing the Ink selector device that sits right on top of the printhead), then using a small syringe to try to gently push 5ml of cleaning solution into each color port (actually, pushing and pulling to get some of the old ink from the ports, as well), then plugging short sections of tubing onto each port, to be filled with cleaning solution, and letting that sit overnight. In the morning I was able to push most of the solution still in the tubing into all the ports of the head with the syringe. I am guessing I had succeded in unclogging all the colors channels!
4. Now I needed to get ink into the printhead again! I did several nozzle cleanings and nozzle print checks, however the prints were completely blank, no ink at all! I even tried deep cleaning of selected ink pairs from the printer control panel, no luck. I tryed printing a regular photograph, still a totaly blank page!
5. Called Epson tech support: They suggested that I first do "powerfull" head cleaning cycle to fill the head with ink; in the software driver I could only find a regular head cleaning option: I did that to no avail! Using the printer control panel I was able to do 2-3 cycles of manual deep cleaning, still no ink at all shows in the Nozzle pattern prints.
In summary, help!
Does anyone have any ideas of what is going on and might have some suggestions on what to try next?

[Peter De Smidt]

I expect you'll need to replace the dampers. The cleaning solution probably partially dissolved dried ink, and clumps of that clogged the dampers.

[mario errico]

I expect you'll need to replace the dampers. The cleaning solution probably partially dissolved dried ink, and clumps of that clogged the dampers.

Hi Peter,
Thanks for your comment. How likely is it the ALL the dampers got clogged by my possibly partially successful cleaning with the cleaning solution?
On second thought, I only injected cleaning solution in the Printhead ports, after I lifted away the dampers/ink selector box (which I set aside and wrapped with a zip-lock bag to reduce drying). How could dirty cleaning solution have gotten in the dampers?

[Peter De Smidt]

I have no idea. If nothing else works, I'd personally try replacing one of the dampers to see if that helped. It worked for me with my 4990, but the issue might not have been the same.