Print head fix or replace?

[amw]

Hi Everyone!
Happy New Year!

A friend picked up a Roland SP-540v for a great deal and I was showing him how to do a test print, clean, etc. and here is what it looks like.

When printing anything with black ink..it is very "fuzzy".
I am figuring it is the print head as the file prints perfect when we tried on our own roland printer. (our test print is pretty much perfect though)

So I am wondering where to go from here...should he have the black head replaced or is there something that can be done to "fix" this?
The printer has very low hours for its age (6+ yrs) from what I have been told it wasnt used very much.

Thank you for any help!
Marsha

 

[amw]

Would a print showing the fuzzy black help?

Thanks,
Marsha

 

[SlightlyChilled]

I don't have a roland but It looks ok to me maybe a head soak. Why ask just print and see for your self.

 

[tomence]

I would say that is not too bad of a test print, i think you should be able to fix it without changing the printhead. Just let it soak for awhile and see if it gets better. Also do some printing, the more you print the better, it could get better just by printing.

 

[kanini]

Have the exact same issue with a SP-300V, prints fuzzy black. My test print looks almost the same, maybe a tad worse. I've tried one head soak and it seemed to get better, but it also seems to get a bit better the more I print, as tomence said. So I keep running the prints where the fuzzyness doesn't matter on that machine so let's see if it clears out soon or I'm going to replace the head. I'm lucky to have another Roland to print the higher quality stuff on... I think the lines out of alignment comes from head strikes and are irrecoverable, but you could be lucky to get them back in line with a soak.

 

[truckgraphics]

Try cleaning the encoder strip with a lint free cloth and alcohol.

Test print looks good.