ink is leaching into one of my other colors in the print head

[mattsaloeltjen]

Mutoh VJ1204
If I don't print for a few days, when I do my red will come out dark brown for a few feet on printing. I know because when this happens I print just red ink until it slowly turns back to red. Once I get there print is fine. Sometimes I will have the red empty in the lines and have to run a few cleaning cycles or an ink charge to get the red working again.
Dampers have been replaced, but is this where I'm getting a siphon effect?

Thank you in advance for any insight.

 

[Solventinkjet]

If you are seeing air in the lines than the connection between the damper and ink line might be broken. If you didn't change the o-rings when you changed the dampers, that's a good place to start. If you did change them, make sure they didn't roll up inside the nut which can break the seal. You can use cleaning solution to help slide it up the line to prevent it from rolling.

Sometimes, especially on those older models, the ink line is actually indented from the o-ring and can cause a bad seal as well. You can cut a small piece of the line off right above the indent to give yourself a fresh piece of line for the o-ring to sit on without settling into the indent.

I also see this happen sometimes when only a few dampers have been changed instead of all at once. It can throw the pressure off and cause similar issues.

Other than that it could be a partially clogged maintenance station. I'd watch the waste tubes during a cleaning and make sure ink is flowing and the cap top doesn't still have ink in it after the cleaning cycle is done.

 

[mattsaloeltjen]

First Thank you for the reply
I'm going to replace the dampers again, a long with the orings. I have the orings but did not change them when I did the dampers.

 

[unmateria]

If ink doesnt go back to the cartdridge, look for a "dx5 printhead manifold". Be careful, buy only the solvent compatible one. Is a very normal failure in those models with aggresive inks (not original) so you should repair it and try another ink provider. Agressive inks kill the little pins where dampers connect, little by little... They still work during some time cleaning before jobs, but they will finally break completely. If ink goes to the cartdridge, yes, replace orings (wet them in ink before instaling) and dampers