Scratched encoder strip.

[A&ESignShoppe]

So my machine has been making weird clicking noises lately, and I've been having weird banding issues with blue ink. So after getting an idea from these forums, I checked the CR encoder strip, and lo and behold, there's a big ol' nasty scratch on it. I've taken a picture so you all could see:

Is there anything I can do to fix this? Or is it pretty much screwed and needs to be replaced? This is for a Mutoh ValueJet 1204 that we've only had for 3 months and is otherwise brand new.

 

[GAC05]

Some people have had success swapping the strip end to end so the inner surface faces out.
The scratch looks like it might be low enough to not bother the sensor.
Take the left hand cover off the carriage and see if the scratched part passes between the pick up.
You might get away with just cleaning it really well, along with the pick up sensor.
The big issue is to find out what caused the scratch and fix that part. Sensor is held down with a single screw and it might be loose.
Good luck the OEM strips are pretty pricey.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[A&ESignShoppe]

What happened is it somehow actually got stuck *behind* the carriage somehow, which scratched it in that one area. It'll still print most colors just fine, but it's just not doing blue (and to a lesser extent orange) colors very well. I showed the results to my boss, and he said that for now it's "acceptable", but it's not something that I just want to ignore. Plus the ticking sound really drives me nuts.

For now though, I'm probably just going to have to deal with it and soldier on through the jobs we've got right now. It really just distresses me that this is already happening when the machine is only 3 months old. I'm thinking because we JUST got it, it should still be under warranty, but I'm not sure if that covers individual parts as well.

Anyways, thanks for the help. If anyone else has any suggestions, please let me know. I can most certainly use them. For now I'll just try cleaning the strip and pick-up really good and hope for the best.