HELP! I'm Pulling my hair out trying to fix this overspray issue on my FB700

[LeiftheLucky]

As you can hopefully see from the image, there is an over spray in one direction and not the other. This image is flipped 90 degrees so the spray is horizontally not vertically. Ive done everything I can think of to fix it. manual calibrations of bidi, Head-head, jet map. I even wiped the memory and re-calibrated al 17 parameters (head height, camera, thickness sensor, carriage motion/maintenence, etc). Ive cleaned the crap out of the heads, rail, encoder strip, and lubed everything that should be lubed. Conveniently our warranty ended a couple months ago otherwise I would have called this in a while ago. I'm really hoping this is something that I can fix in house to avoid a very costly maintenecy call that would likely not get approved by the powers that be. The machine still prints OK with a lot of things so I can still run jobs but text comes out blurry to the point where it has been noticed by a couple clients. If anyone can throw me a bone here I might save what hair I have left. Thanks you in advance.

Leif

 

[lgroth]

If you don't have a failing head, either your heads are set too high, or it could be static electricity... Static usually pulls the ink in one direction like that.

 

[LeiftheLucky]

re:

A failing head would show up in the jet pattern right? By heads being set to high you mean the head height in general? wouldn't that make everything overspray (all colors, all directions)? It doesn't seem to happen on all the heads. I hope its just static and haven't really explored that option much. In the past I've had that problem and just sprayed with anti static spray when loading media. It still worries me as it seems to happen on all media, not just one. Thanks for the input

 

[LeiftheLucky]

update... no dice

I cleaned the ionizers very well and sprayed the board with anti static spray and the result was the same. I was really hoping it was that simple but unfortunately it is not. I just got a vacuum pressure error yesterday but I'm not sure that a vacuum issue would have this result. I will fix it anyway obviously but I'm not holding my breath on the outcome being much better. Any other ideas?

 

[lgroth]

There is always a possibility that a head is just wearing out from age....

 

[ChrisN]

What media are you using? I've seen almost the exact same thing with my printer when printing on the textured surface of foamed PVC. My theory is that the texture catches the ink droplets differently and makes it look mis-aligned. Try your calibration on a smooth substrate such as vinyl and see what that looks like. You could also try some sort of paper to rule out static.

 

[Mspec]

FT mode...

 

[Mspec]

Have you tried fine text mode?

Dont think your overspray issue is a Black head anyways, looks like magenta to me.

Small text with a composite black is a pain, change the text to a pure black on the rip and it will be better, fine text should make it crisp again.

 

[Typestries]

carriage motion direction overspray. Steps that would help -

Correct partially blocked jets that may be firing at an angle other than straight (deflecting) out by cleaning head or replacing, or correcting ink temperature/viscosity at jet plate, increase head firing voltage,

Lower head, slow carriage down, eliminate static. I put static last, because that is not likely static dot spread, that happens in both axes. printers are such fun. good luck!

 

[LeiftheLucky]

Thanks guys

Thank you all for the troubleshooting ideas. I have tried everything that has been suggested and am still having the same outcome. 'typstries', you said a couple things which I'm not sure how to do or if its possible at all on my machine. I'm including a picture of fine text to show a different example and it seems like if some jets were clogged and firing "sideways" it would have this result. But knowing is only half the battle as I have no idea how to go about fixing that issue if it were the case. I could map out jets but that would mean knowing which jets are the culprits. The Jet health pattern seems to be fine with no MISSING jets but that doesn't mean they are all firing correctly.

 

[particleman]

Sounds like you are seeing the issue on multiple materials which to me eliminates static. If you have tried poster paper or something that doesn't hold a static charge and it still does it then that is not your issue.

You should try the same test using the cyan or magenta ink only and see what the results are, try to isolate the problem to a print head and not a mechanical motion of the print carriage. If the problem is isolated to black only you likely have a head issue or board issue in my opinion based on what you've already done with the jet mappings. win

My main advice would be to call HP and get a tech out, not carrying some sort of service on these machines usually doesn't pay off from my experience.

 

[supersignmart]

jet outs

I would imagine if you printed your jet outs you would see that you have several jets with deflection. Black and Cyan are bad about it.

 

[GrantX01]

Have you tried running it UNI directional to see if it looks any better?

 

[GP_Oz]

Go to "print tests" and then do a "prime bar"
A nozzle test shows not a lot IMO
You should have nice SQUARE blocks - ie all nozzels start firing at the same time and finish at the same time.
The should be the same density from top to bottom - ie no light sections in middle (not going to be your cause but good fyi stuff)

 

[BigJerm]

I know this thread is over a year old and no one may reply, but did you find a solution? I’m having the same problem and have taken all the same steps to try and remedy this issue to no avail. It’s driving me mad as well!

 

[US-Signs]

Hi there everyone!

Following BigJerm, I am resurrecting this thread because I'm having the same issues with my FB700. If you take a look at the file uploaded, you can see pretty serious overspray on my magenta and cyan.

Unfortunately, we bought this printer used and this is what we got. We've tried all them self maintenance we could do.. and we even took the problematic heads out and sent them to PrintHeadDoctor to get them cleaned. They came back yesterday, we installed, and this is still what we got.

The guys at Printheaddoctor are saying that the storage solution they used may not jive well with our OEM UV inks so we just need to do more purges and head soaks.. but I don't know.

Anyone have any ideas? Do we just need new heads?

 

[BigJerm]

Hi there everyone!

Following BigJerm, I am resurrecting this thread because I'm having the same issues with my FB700. If you take a look at the file uploaded, you can see pretty serious overspray on my magenta and cyan.

Unfortunately, we bought this printer used and this is what we got. We've tried all them self maintenance we could do.. and we even took the problematic heads out and sent them to PrintHeadDoctor to get them cleaned. They came back yesterday, we installed, and this is still what we got.

The guys at Printheaddoctor are saying that the storage solution they used may not jive well with our OEM UV inks so we just need to do more purges and head soaks.. but I don't know.

Anyone have any ideas? Do we just need new heads?

What got us the best results was adjusting the head height. I was totally reliant that picking the option "Less than .125" for the thickness was actually doing what it's supposed to do. Once I started inputting the actual thickness using a Electronic Caliper, the problem resolved itself, for the most part. I can still see a slight halo around all gray and blue text (converted to paths). But it's not visible from 3' away anymore. Hope this helps you too.

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

i was going to ask what all your head heights were at at the time of printing. i had this issue when i was a lad and someone had left the heads at .120, when standard is usually .85 or .9. moved em down, took care of most everything. can't say its what is definitely causing us-signs issue but BigJerm, yours looks like that. i wish i had seen this head a bit sooner.

 

[US-Signs]

Thank you for your inputs, BigJerm and drifta.

My head height is currently at 0.85" so I'm not too sure that it's the issue. Also, I've only noticed two colors (cyan and magenta) that is having most of the overspray.

If it were indeed head height issues, shouldn't all color inks be overspraying?

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

I've really only seen it in cyan and black, but it does happen from time to time. then id say at that point if its set at standard, that could be a head alignment issue. you said you had gotten it used eh? id have a tech check alignment. we got a brand new 750 and turns out a bum head was sent with our original unit. then after that was replaced, that new head threw all the others out of wack and then needed to realign all the heads to print effectively. if alignment is perfect, then yes it may be time for new heads.