My oldie

[Gasper]

So agaain a weird problem. Im still using an old rj6100 with rockhopper 38 modified drivers.
Anyway as you cannot get a new capping station for this old printer i took a few days to repair/rebuild the old one. In the meantime i soaked the heads in cleaning liquid. The pronter was turned off for a few days. After assembling everything together i encountered 2 very weird problems.. 1. the printer wants to clean the head bwfore almost every print, which is annoying and expensive not to mention it doesnt really do good to the heads. The nextproblem is a bigger one.. test prints and nozzle check prints all four colors, CMYK, all good!
While printing from the computer software, (flexi 8.6), there is black missing at the lower right part of the image/print.. it doesnt matter if you reaize the image, move it to start printing in the middle of the printer at far left, far right, it always misses black at the same part of the picture.
I tried playing a bit with the printer connection settings, the computer etc. but theres not much.. and i didnt change anything, except if the printer lost any settings while it had no power for a few days. If it saves stuf in the eprom this is not the case. Anyway, if anyone comes up with an idea it would be really helpfull as i have some work to do for a customer that is waiting.
Thank you

 

[Terry01]

Check the file you are trying to print..Also replace all dampers as you could be getting an ink starvation problem,,Had one of those 6100's and it was a great machine.. Used to be able to buy the heads direct from Epson.. Bit harder trying to find them now but still available.

 

[Gasper]

I tried a few files. Same with all. The ink is flowing when cleaning and there are no air bubbles. Its really weird.
I think something changed in the settings.. i tried messing with a a few of them. But im almost sure something is not set as it should be after all im using 4 colors on a 6 color printer.
Any other ideas?

 

[Gasper]

I took the heads off.. found a burnt cable from the head board, but it was on the right head the magent and yellow one.. i changed the head board, i had a spare one..
And after that ive found out that the printer works fine on bidirectional.. on unidirectional printing the head doesnt suck ink like it uses the thats still inside and then its lwft with only magenta and yellow.
Anyway on bidirectional the quality is sh**.
Any ideas? Or is the head toast? I didnt try to swap heads yet

 

[Terry01]

Replace both heads. You have a printer capable of photo quality prints that have the cheapest heads available. Do yourself a favor.. Also check the Netherlands for new capping stations.. The capping station was used in many other epson printers.

 

[Gasper]

I wrote to many online shops for the capping station. Couldnt get one, thats why i reapired this one. Seems ok. Pump is 2 years old, lines were changed. Dumper also. Now i changed even the black and black.
I got these heads a year ago. They are refurbished heads but work like a charm, only the read channel has 1 nozzle with a bit of oversprayed, barely noticable.

I would change them right away but im not really sure its the heads fault. Why would bidirectional print normal and unidrectional would have something it seems as ink starvation? Doesnt make sense.

One thing im left to try is swap the two heads and see if the problem moves with the head or not.

 

[Gasper]

Did more testing.. actually when the head is returning all color channels print, when the head is going from right (cap station) to the left, the printer spits almost no color at the begining but prints perfectly at the end, far left.. i tried printing r copies of the same picture thats how ive found out that someting bothers the printer when printing from left to right, gradualy spitting less ink from left to right.. i hope i managed to explain the problem.
I cleaned the encoder strip, the sensor.. dont have any other ideas. Its driving me nuts. The printer, as old as it is, was printing just fine before i did some major cleaning

 

[Terry01]

Goto Rip and Print. >adjustment> drag the 100% down to 50% on that page.. that is for all colors. Then print again and post a picture of the print and your settings.
Then rotate the image 180 and print again and post that picture.

 

[Gasper]

I swapped the heads, flushed them, pulled some ink with the syringe and printed this.. The bottom picture is unidirectional printing and the upper bidirectional.
I didnt align the heads, you can even see a bit of the test print at the bottom of the picture.. so there is some banding. Anyway, after swapping the heads the problem is still with black/cyan head.. ao its not the printhead but something else.
I can print what you asked tommorow, its 4am here now and i just came from the office.
I remembered i still have a spare rockhopper or falcon motherboard somewhere.. dont know what else to change

 

[Gasper]

The things ive done.
1. Changed motherboard
2. Changed head board
3. Changed printhead cables
4. Changed dumper for the problematic color
5. Replaced connwction cable from computer
6. Tried another pc with a demo version of flexi
7. Pulled ink directly from the lines before dumpers
8. Pulled ink from dumpers
9. Pulled ink at the drain lines
10. Changed encoder sensor
11. Cleaned encoder strip
..probably i did more things but i dont remember anymore ive been at the office for hours every day! Im gonna go nuts!
12. Swapped heads (which didnt change anything, after more pulling ink through the lines i started losing magenta, before i swapped heads it was black and cyan(left head holds 1black and 2cyan and right one 3magenta 4yellow.
The only weird thing ive found when i swapped heads is, there was a burnt pin on the flex printhead cable.. but this was on the right head which wasnt really giving me any trouble, anyway later i replaced the cables and swapped heads)

The printer still wont pull ink when printing unidirectional, when bidirectional it prints/pulls ink but only going from right to left! So its kinda ok but not really as banding ocours.

Is there really noone else that could give any advice? Help or whateverr??
Its an old printer but not really different than other printers??
Im sure someone had at least a similar problem.
I have clients breathing down my nwck all the time and i dont even know whats wrong with the printer.
The

 

[Terry01]

We have yet to see a test print.
We do not know the condition of your inks.
We do not know if there is any restrictions with the inks or ink supply
We do not know if all dampers were changed out. (Dampers create a vacuum as inks are used and replenish at end of pass.)
The printer does not suck ink to replenish itself. (That little springbar moulded into the face of the damper does it)
Go back to basics as this will be my last reply to the post. Hopefully you find some one else.

 

[Gasper]

Test print. A test/nozzle check? It prints fine but yea i could make one just dont see why if test prints are ok as they were before.

Condition in like what? Im constantly using the printer so ink was not sitting there for a long time or anything.

Restrictions? I said i pulled ink from the pipe where the damper attaches, then i pulled with the damper attached.. then i pulled theough the lines/dampers/heads/station.
So no. I dont think theres any restrictions.

No i changed the dampers that were causing trouble.

True! the printer does not suck ink, which is not what i said. If i use your sentence literaly i could assume that just an ink tank with lines and a damper, without a printhead, would make the ink flow? Thank you for pointing me tothe basics.
I appreciate your answers, actually i did appreciate them.. but all the things i wrote in this post.. i already said before, you just didnt read it i guess. Thank you anyway.

For all others i cannot believe how big this forum is yet in a few days only one person replied to my problem.
But it is what it is.

 

[erlsigns]

the incredibley annoying thing with this( and many other) forums, is people asking for help with problems, then never coming back and letting everyone else know what the solution(if any) was!!..it drives me mad following a thread for pages only to have the poster dissapear without a conclusion...but, as you say, it is what it is..for free