came into shop today and saw that my printer was leaving banding....new printhead only 1 week old so i did the usual cleanings and soak and still missing alot of them.....its also leaving ink as it is moving back and forth over the edge holder for material as well as almost like its got excessive ink on head....any idea or fix pics are below and im losing it over here
thanks
Although the photos are not very clear (very small) here are a couple things to look at:
1) I see you're in York, PA. Our weather (Gettysburg) this past few weeks has caused us issues too. It's not warm enough for air conditioning to run, and not quite cold enough for the heat to kick on, so our shop is not "regulating" the internal climate correctly. What is happening with the black ink on the paper, is due to MOISTURE. As the paper heats up, it is buckling up. For us, this is only occurring for about the first 12" or so of the print - until the pre-print, and printer heat catches up... and then it settles down.
2) There MAY be a small piece of fiber, from your cotton swabs, still holding onto the heads after cleaning. It can be just enough to keep the ink "globbed up", and dripping across the print.
3) Check your Wiper for excess goo. It may not be wiping thoroughly.
4) Do you clean around your heads thoroughly enough?
· Totally turn the machine off (switch at back, so it won't go into "auto-clean" mode while you work on it)
· Take off the metal cover plate at the far left end of the print "table".
· Carefully slide the head assembly over to the far left end of the machine, where you have better access to the complete head.
· Clean the heads as usual, and while everything is exposed, go over and thoroughly clean the capping station again.
· Although they say "don't touch the bottom of the print heads", I still take a paper towel, soaked with acetone, and carefully rub the bottom of the print screens.
If you place a dry paper towel onto a head, (if you have a good print paper, it's even better) you can see if there are still missing ink dots.
· I have also used an old capping station cup, attached it to a syringe with a hose, push it up onto the head (a bit tricky) and do a bit of a "push/pull" with solvent (Tractor Supply - GREAT selection of syringes!
)
· After cleaning heads with solvents, there is often a slight "vacuum loss", "vapor lock", or SOMETHING that seems to block some ink from flowing through completely. At that point, perform a "Fill Up Ink", to cause the machine to draw the ink through completely.
· ALSO... Check your Disway Wash, because it may be clogged enough to prevent proper suction, and complete ink fill.
· As if that's not enough, sometimes the tubes in the ink pumps get flattened, to the point that they are no longer efficiently drawing the ink, causing a vacuum issue, and allowing air to remain, and dry out heads - even though they are capped.
NOW, for a scary thought. I noticed that there were complete 1/8" sections of color that were missing, instead of the standard "few lines each" on your print tests.
I just lost TWO heads due to a very weird occurance:
I hadn't printed in a few weeks, but the machine was still going through its regular "cleaning" mode (or whatever it does when it wakes up, and makes noise)
Unfortunately though, since it had not Printed during this time, the heads had sort of "adhered" themselves to the capping station!!!
The seemingly slight amount of ink around the edges of the rubber capping cups, had held on JUST ENOUGH, that when it finally went through its pre-printing processes and motions, the heads CRASHED INTO THE METAL CAPPING STATION HOLD-DOWN SCREWS!!! >:O
This produced 1/8" dents in the print heads, and screwed them up completely.
VERY expensive lesson!
So, just a cautionary tale... if you happen to be slow, or just don't have any current print jobs - Make some damn shop decals every few days!
