1204 - Lost half of the black nozzles during a print job

[JHLC]

I have been beating my head against the wall with this one! Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I lost half of the black nozzles all at once halfway through a print job. (see pic) I swapped the black dampers and the same nozzles are still not showing up on the nozzle check. I've soaked the head and cleaned everything I can think to clean. I'm leaning towards something electrical because it happened all at once. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[gregwallace]

To me it sounds like ink starvation or air in the lines. If it was electrical you would have lost all of the nozzles or exactly half if the mutoh heads had two sets of jets in them. I don't know anything specific to mutoh printers so thats all I got.

 

[JHLC]

Thanks Greg. I checked and no air in the lines.

 

[heyskull]

How old is the print head?
Maybe a head cable issue.
I thought ink starvation but if damper is full their should be no issue.

SC

 

[JHLC]

The printer will be three years old in December. I've never replaced anything on it. Its run like a top up until now. I thought it was weird that it happened all at once. That's making me lean toward electrical too. I'm not really sure where to start with that though.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

This may be a heater related problem

If the heater kicked in extra hot, it will open the pores up in the vinyl and absorbe a lot more ink. This would make it appear to drop the color out.

 

[gregwallace]

I did some research before deciding to respond again. Because the ribbon is for the whole head doing a data swap is not possible. It doesn't look like there is a way to test the head ribbon short of replacing it. Somebody on this site may know a way but a lot of them do'nt respond on weekends for some reason. A lot of people have had problem with black nozzle dropouts and the most common answer is replacing the maintenance station or cap tops. You should also make sure the waste lines are not clogged. But that would only prevent you from recovering the head. If you're assuming the problem is related to your initial midprint dropout then the MS shouldn't be the problem. Is it always the same nozzles? If you had air or ink starvation the problem would not be very consistent. Did you have a headstrike when the dropout occurred? I've also heard of removing the damper and pushing cleaning solution through the head as a last resort recovery option. You could damage the head though. I wouldn't recommend it. You might try printing a cmyk black (if your not already) to help mask the problem until its resolved.

 

[Robert M]

That Mutoh

replacing the maintenance station or cap tops.X 2

we have them at www.solventinkjet.com

 

[JHLC]

Thanks for the help. I replaced the dampers and got most of the nozzles back. I have soaked the head overnight twice but still have a few missing. Robert- I ordered a cap top from you today, hopefully that will help get the remaining nozzles back. It still has the original top after almost three years. This has definitely been a learning experience! Thanks!