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Encad Novajet Chinese Back Cartridge Problem.

bob_5793

New Member
Encad Novajet Chinese Black Cartridge Problem.

I have an Encad 850, running GX CMYK.

Since changing to Chinese Cartridges several years ago I have noticed a problem with the black cartridge, although in some degrees this can occur with the Cyan and Magenta cartridge - but rarely, probably because black is the most noticable colour.

The issue occurs when running a drop (2.4 mt) with only a small area of black, this patch being say just half way down the print, the cartridge takes a few swipes to get going, but even then it never properly puts down the full density of black, on prints where the black areas are more distributed this issue does not occur.

Images attached show, on 'more black text,jpg' that text should be black, you can see the first few swipes have even less density. The prime is before and after a 2.4mt drop. The second image 'Soft' should also be black text.

The jets are'nt blocked or failed, as you can pause the printer, dab a moist lint free pad on the carts jet plate, and away it goes fine, until it has a long interval in printing any black - then the problem returns.

Onyx RIP puts 'tram lines' either side of the print (CMYK Bars) - and this resolves the issue - by guess by keeping the carts running consistently (the spit interval is set to normal, but guess this is not enough to keep all jets available), problem arises when a print is tight against the margins and there is no room for the tram lines, wondered if anyone had another work around, I will assume the cart gets cold where its not required for 15 or so minutes (as its printing), and so doesn't fire.

Thanks
 

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  • CMYK blacks look terrible other times.jpg
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  • prime before and after 2mt panel.jpg
    prime before and after 2mt panel.jpg
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Last edited:

bob_5793

New Member
Yes, thanks, changed carts (with new), changed inks, run it on the left side of the 2x4 using the other set of lines.

I suspect the characteristics of the Genuine Encad carts is different to that of the Chinese carts, we use the Lecai brand - which are very good apart from this issue, the leaflet which comes with them states we should run them in 'Temp Control' mode, which we cannot do (we run preheat instead) - as the printer throws a deprime error - which is spurious, we run long drops with lots of ink, which wouldn't be possible if it was in fact depriming.
 
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