Ricoh GX 7000 leaks ink

[Randy Digby]

Hi gang. I spend a lot of time on the engraver's forum but today I have hit a brick wall I hope you all can help me with. I have a Ricoh GX 7000 I use for Dye Sublimation. I use it quite often but I use very little ink since my patterns are large thin grids and a little text. I just changed my cartridges for the first time last week (all except cyan). An hour ago I discovered an ink spot on the carpet under the printer where the front hangs over the table (and tilts forward slightly). The black ink is leaking but it does not appear to be coming from the cartridge connection. The black cartridge is in the left position and the ink is dripping from the far right/front corner. I did some quick searches on the net and have discovered that this may be a fairly common problem.

I just purchased the printer maybe a year or year and a half ago to get away from the Epson Workforce 1100 jet clogging problem that made me go bald. I will be on the phone tomorrow with Coastal Business, but I can see this turn into a Coastal says call Sawgrass and Sawgrass says call Coastal kind of day.

Two parts to ask you about:

What are my options with this printer?
What is the best present day solution for dye-Sub printing, printing from 8-1/2" x 11" to 13" x 10" paper sizes?

[Joe Pelonio]

I'd heard that while much cheaper, the Ricoh GX3300 is much more reliable. At $150 you can easily replace it if it does go bad on you. I think the one you have now and the one you had before are the most popular for sublimation. For really good quality products you have to go to large format (such as Roland) and spend $15,000+ for a 54". Unfortunately small inexpensive printers tend to be disposable, but that 7000 should
be worth getting repaired.

[Randy Digby]

Yea Joe, it will be worth repairing. I've got a new Epson 1100 in the box I had for a spare before - but no inks. I just put $500.00 worth of ink in the 7000 and it was the first ink change. Problem with the 3300 is that I don't think it will do 13" wide, which is a lot of what I do. Now it looks like I'll have to spend a grand to have a spare 7000 because I can't stand the downtime to get it repaired.

[Randy Digby]

UPDATE:
Called Coastal, they said call Sawgrass. Called Sawgrass, they are sending replacement ink cartridge and that that is the problem. Got almost all of the ink out of the carpet. Glad it didn't happen two weeks ag when we were on vacation for four days. Now to build a drip pan for my printer.

[Albert Nix]

I had a cart leak on my 7000 once. Sawgrass sent me a new one and problem solved. After going through two other 7000 before this one. Be sure you keep the ext warranty up on it.

[Dave Gates]

I see that this is a kinda old thread but I thought I'd put in my $.02.

We have a GX7000 at the shop. It's about 2 years old I think. The only time I had an issue with ink spilling out was because the Ink Collector Unit in the back was full. I changed that out and no more ink spills for us. I think it was around $35 for the part. I've never had a leaky cartridge but will keep an eye out for that.