VS-540 no longer tells me it's out of ink

[Ed's Sign]

We have an older VS-540 that we use on a daily basis, but for some reason it no longer tells me when its out of ink. instead, it just keeps printing until it runs out and then i lose that color completely when printing. This is especially frustrating when it runs out on the last foot of a large banner .

This started happening a few months ago when I had done a longish head soak with the power off. We have since replaced the head, dampers, and captop for other reasons. Any ideas what might be causing this or how to fix it? Preemptively changing the inks is getting a bit annoying since I feel like I'm trowing away more than I have to.

 

[Ragnabrok]

Quite a train of things that could be at cause here. First thing, is it one bay causing this, or all? Each cartridge bay have their own ink empty button.

Things that can cause the ink empty to not trigger:
The cartridges themselves. When the bag holding the ink deflates, a piece of plastic is able to reach out of the cartridge and press a button inside the cart bay.
The cartridge bay empty button, literally a button.
all 8 cart bays then hook up to a ink tank board, then to a junction board, then servo board, and finally main board. I'd assume if any cables were the issue after that junction board, you'd be having other issues.

 

[Ragnabrok]

Dammit Pat, tell me when you have issues Then i can at least try to solve them.

Also this might help both of you.

Menu->Sub menu->ink control->empty mode

 

[Ed's Sign]

It happens on all of the inks, at first I thought maybe when it was powered off it reset something that kept track of the ink levels on the printer side, so I hoped once i replaced them it would correct itself but so far no luck. It always used to pause the print and beep at me until I changed it but it doesn't do that anymore. Versaworks will still tell me when inks are low, but I could usually still get a ton of prints through before it actually ran out.

I checked the ink control menu as you suggested, but it was already set to "stop". I guess it's probably a board issue then?

 

[Ragnabrok]

It's kind of open after that. somewhere along the data chain from button to board. A firmware update might help..

 

[Ed's Sign]

Good idea, just updated it from 4.2 to 4.9. We'll have to wait and see if that make a difference.

Thanks!