I'll do my best to make this short but I have a lot of info to share about my problem. If you'd rather bypass the details reading the last three paragraphs should suffice. Thanks in advance!
I'd been having problems with my 1204 throwing "not original ink messages with approx 1/3 ink left. It started about 5 months ago when I updated my firmware.
Since then there had been no degradation in print quality so I resigned myself to making the bi-weekly call to fellers to get new chips sent out.
Well, Mutoh developed new cartridges which had the cards behind the labels and the new procedure for replacing ink. Mutoh sends out a new cartridge and you ship the old ones back.
At this point I hesitantly decided that I'd had enough with the hassle and I would systematically solve the problem with help from others from this these great forums.
My first step to clean out the tubes below the capping station. With the cover removed I watched the ink flow into the waist tray during cleaning. I installed all new cartridges and... still had the same problem, ink remaining but the printer says there empty.
My next step was to replace the capping station. Same problem, no improvement, all the while same great print quality and no missing lines in the nozzle check.
Again I had put off messing with the printer because I had never had a problem with print quality. I had a feeling that if I started fixing things that were not broken, I would eventually break something. Fast forward to changing the dampers, I didn't feel comfortable changing them myself because I wanted to stay away from the printhead and blown fuses that I have read so much about.
I decided to have a friend who had changed the dampers on his Roland stop by to help me. I went through the procedure of unplugging the machine, cycling the power on and off a bunch of times and we went to work. Well we accidently removed the screws the attach the printhead and before we knew it the print head was out of its carriage... sweet!
We put it back in, changed the dampers and it turned out that we hadn't seated the head correctly. We managed to seat it correctly my nozzle check now has deflected black nozzles (see attached picture) The rest of the nozzles appear fine but the print quality is real fuzzy. Obviously the head struck something causing the deflected nozzles.
My question: Is there a procedure for realigning the print head after removal, or are the deflected black nozzles causing my fuzzy problems? I realize the deflected nozzles can't be realigned, I’m talking about the entire printhead.
Notes: The attached picture was scanned and darkened to show deflected nozzles. I've soaked the print head in capping station numerous times already.
Thanks again for any help!
I'd been having problems with my 1204 throwing "not original ink messages with approx 1/3 ink left. It started about 5 months ago when I updated my firmware.
Since then there had been no degradation in print quality so I resigned myself to making the bi-weekly call to fellers to get new chips sent out.
Well, Mutoh developed new cartridges which had the cards behind the labels and the new procedure for replacing ink. Mutoh sends out a new cartridge and you ship the old ones back.
At this point I hesitantly decided that I'd had enough with the hassle and I would systematically solve the problem with help from others from this these great forums.
My first step to clean out the tubes below the capping station. With the cover removed I watched the ink flow into the waist tray during cleaning. I installed all new cartridges and... still had the same problem, ink remaining but the printer says there empty.
My next step was to replace the capping station. Same problem, no improvement, all the while same great print quality and no missing lines in the nozzle check.
Again I had put off messing with the printer because I had never had a problem with print quality. I had a feeling that if I started fixing things that were not broken, I would eventually break something. Fast forward to changing the dampers, I didn't feel comfortable changing them myself because I wanted to stay away from the printhead and blown fuses that I have read so much about.
I decided to have a friend who had changed the dampers on his Roland stop by to help me. I went through the procedure of unplugging the machine, cycling the power on and off a bunch of times and we went to work. Well we accidently removed the screws the attach the printhead and before we knew it the print head was out of its carriage... sweet!
We put it back in, changed the dampers and it turned out that we hadn't seated the head correctly. We managed to seat it correctly my nozzle check now has deflected black nozzles (see attached picture) The rest of the nozzles appear fine but the print quality is real fuzzy. Obviously the head struck something causing the deflected nozzles.
My question: Is there a procedure for realigning the print head after removal, or are the deflected black nozzles causing my fuzzy problems? I realize the deflected nozzles can't be realigned, I’m talking about the entire printhead.
Notes: The attached picture was scanned and darkened to show deflected nozzles. I've soaked the print head in capping station numerous times already.
Thanks again for any help!
