Question Roland VS-540 Prints going into the ditch

[IslandSignWorks]

This is a VS-540 about 5 years old, set up for LcCLmMYKWW. Had been having some banding issues, mostly in blue. They were bad, but not completely terrible. Tech suggested a manual cleaning, cap replacement and a powerful cleaning. Cap replacement was easy, and did a very solid clean of the head edges and the wiper.

Shortly thereafter the print quality got REALLY bad. No amount of cleaning will bring it back. The whole second pass is hosed, and I'm getting bad deflections in the first pass. I did a 20 min. head soak in Roland cleaning fluid, and then an overnight soak. Tech can't come until next week, but until then I'm shut down. Any ideas?

If it wasn't a $2000 part, I'd be tempted to take the whole head assembly out and soak it in a tray of cleaning solution.

 

[PMac]

This is a VS-540 about 5 years old, set up for LcCLmMYKWW. Had been having some banding issues, mostly in blue. They were bad, but not completely terrible. Tech suggested a manual cleaning, cap replacement and a powerful cleaning. Cap replacement was easy, and did a very solid clean of the head edges and the wiper.

Shortly thereafter the print quality got REALLY bad. No amount of cleaning will bring it back. The whole second pass is hosed, and I'm getting bad deflections in the first pass. I did a 20 min. head soak in Roland cleaning fluid, and then an overnight soak. Tech can't come until next week, but until then I'm shut down. Any ideas?

If it wasn't a $2000 part, I'd be tempted to take the whole head assembly out and soak it in a tray of cleaning solution.

I am most certainly not a tech. But it looks to me like your pumps may not be pulling ink into those heads. Try disconnecting the cap tubes at the pumps. Take a syringe, and pull ink manually through those heads. I've had to do that before when my pumps weren't working right.
Find some big 50ml syringes. Little ones won't create enough suction. I purchase mine at Tractor Supply. Maybe you have one local? Or a CoOp of some kind?

 

[Patentagosse]

I've swapped mine 'bout a month ago for like 75% better print test results than yours. I'm quality-oriented so when I couldn't recover 2-3 lines missing in black and some issues with Lc, I called the tech and got hit by the invoice (...) In Canadian dollars it cost me 3888$ (including labor, head, tech time / milage and taxes). 'Bought it in 2012, never changed the head... 'been told some are on their 3rd... (depending on volume and maintenance)