Vs-540 Ink Cartridge Issue

[Patentagosse]

Hi folks, I'm experiencing an issue on my VS-540 for few weeks. As the magenta slowly empty near the "!" level, the printer starts printing REDS as ORANGES so, from there, I figured it's clearly a problem with one of the magentas (CMYK + LC + Lm + CM). I check on the monitor for ink status and it shows a remaining ¼... while the other colors are showing empty for over 2 days and still print fine (w/o beeping yet). 'Made a Medium Cleaning but still got a full track of magenta missing in the print test (that's why it looks more orange than red because of limited magenta saturation into the yellow). To solve the problem I swap the cartridge for a new one. Instantly everything goes back to normal...
Ok, problem solve but what 'bout the remaining 30-35$ of ink in every magenta cartridges??? I'm not only relying on Roland's monitoring, I can feel it when shaking the cartridge (you can feel the wave of ink running top to bottom).

Any clue how to fix it? 'Called my local tech 2X but never got called back after 2 messages. I'm not in a position to waste all that precious liquid at every cartridge. All other colors empty fine 'til the last drop "allowed" except that magenta.

 

[Patentagosse]

They finally called back to say they have no idea... well

 

[ProPDF]

The best way to fix this is buy a bulk refillable cartridge on eBay or signinchina along with a permanent cmyk chipset....crack your roland cartons open and pour into the bulk cart. You may have a damper going bad but you can eliminate this headache all together and just switch to Nazdar ink since your machine is probably out of warranty if its the original VS or your a second owner which roland does not transfer warranties anymore. The Lyson 2000 is a plug and play match.

 

[Mysticalvibes]

Just thinking out loud here but there's a tab on the side of the cartridge that comes out when the ink runs out. Perhaps there's a problem inside your machine where the switch makes contact with it?

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

[Patentagosse]

All the hardware (sensors) are running fine according to the fact that the ink level on screen as the one when physically shaking the cartridge are true: there's a ¼ of ink left. The "Doctor House" tech at my Roland dealer says it could be inside the head itself. He's going to make a trip here very soon. I cross my fingers

 

[lexsigns]

Hi
I had a similar problem a while back. After opening up the printer I realized one of the inks was leaking. One of the tiny clamps that connect the tubes underneath had broken. It was getting ink but not consistently and colors were all off Small chance it could be the same issue but thought it may be worth mentioning just in case.
Good luck!

 

[Patentagosse]

Thanks for the input. The tech will be here Monday morning so we'll be fixed, I hope. He'll bring new dampers and will look closely at all tiny details inside (hardware)... if he doesn't, I'll do don't worry. It's gonna cost me aweek of profit and I already have transfered my prod at my friend's place, which also cost me lost of $$$ (even if he's giving me a fair price per sq.ft.)

Can't wait to be up-and-running to try to catch up on jobs. Damn I'm so back on schedule...

 

[tdgraphics]

Did your tech get the machine fixed? Was there any issue with the tubing? I have a similar problem with one of the Cyan inks. The right most cyan as you look from the front has a tenancy to run short of ink after a long print. Printed 12 meters of blue wrap and the next day started to print the other side and 400 mm in to the print, ink starvation and I could not get it to print.

If you managed to resolve your problem, I would appreciate knowing what the fix was.

Thanks,

Neil

 

[Patentagosse]

Did your tech get the machine fixed? Was there any issue with the tubing? I have a similar problem with one of the Cyan inks. The right most cyan as you look from the front has a tenancy to run short of ink after a long print. Printed 12 meters of blue wrap and the next day started to print the other side and 400 mm in to the print, ink starvation and I could not get it to print.

If you managed to resolve your problem, I would appreciate knowing what the fix was.

Thanks,

Neil

I put 2 new ink cartridges into Magenta's slots hoping the full gravity pressure of new ones will help push enough into printhead... it did. ! 'Told my tech no way I'm gonna leave 30$ of the precious liquid in cartridge in order to get my printer print properly. If it cannot sucks every drops out of it, I'm gonna sell it and go to competition (latex?)

'Will try to put the old cartridge back in it to empty it... we'll see if it still starves

 

[ewded]

On my Mimaki I always open the "empty" cartridges, roll up the bag inside like a toothpaste tube and using a clean syringe I pull out the remaining ink (about 40ml/40cc) pump out the air from the syringe and flush in the ink in the new cartridge. it's important that the new cartridge is held with the mouth looking downwards otherwise you can poke a hole in the bag and voila, no wasted ink.

 

[Pitzu]

Back in the old days, we had a Mutoh Rockhopper II that had a similar problem. The cartridges were not fully emptied. I kept them, and using 6 syringes (one for each color) I transferred all the ink in one cartridge. From 3 used cartridges I made one full cartridge. Not bad at that time.

 

[0igo]

i had similar problems on my mutoh. i would get random errors a lot and finally decided to look around to get my printer (unlocked). found a tech out in germany who unlocked my machine and its worked great ever since. all he did was make it so my printer would bypass reading the ink levels but that helps out so much

 

[Pitzu]

It's just an ink level sensor (optocoupler). Inside the cartridge was a plastic lever pressing on the ink bag. When the bag was almost empty, that plastic lever would trigger the low ink optical sensor. At least that how it was on Mutoh.