I have the DTG Kiosk. It is about 7 months old. I've ran shirts on friday and then shut done for the night. Saturday upon starting up again, it ran through the initialization and then begain doing head cleans and did not stop until the ink lights and control lights flashed indicating that the waste was full. I reset the counter and it seemed fine after it went through the initialization again. I then loaded the bed with the bottom up to do a nozzle check. When the bed loaded it started doing head cleaning again and does not stop for about 5 cleanings at which point the power light, error eject light and the load light start to flash.
Reading the trouble shoot guide, I see that this might indicate that the board is bad.
Has anyone experienced this? This is a fairly new machine and has had less than 500 shirts ran on it.
I have several small jobs to do that might lead into doing a large number of shirts. This thing couldn't had picked a worst time to mess up again.
Rule out that it's possibly your computer at fault. Unplug the usb cord from your printer to your computer. Turn on the printer and see if it does the same thing.
Tried that and it does the samething (just tried it again to confirm this). I was mistakened on the lights. Only the Error Eject light is slowly flashing. Doesn't make any sense as it ran without any fault on friday.
Do you have the HM1, I had a problem where my machine was cleaning to much and they had to replace the firmware board inside the machine. They came out the same day I called and replaced the board so it was not a big deal for me as it could happen with any of the machines that do auto cleanings.
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
It's the Kiosk with white ink. Funny thing, when I eject the bed, the Error Eject light goes off. Reload the bed and the same problem occurs.
I lost more than $200.00 on Saturday due to this problem and stand to lose a lot more if it cannot be easily remedied.
Have you tried cleaning your encoder strip and maybe replacing your ink chips just to rule out that one of those are not your problem? Mine when it was doing it didnt have an error light on it was just cleaning way to much. I know the encoder strip can make the machines do alot of wierd stuff.
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
I have cleaned the encoder strip. I do perform the maintenance daily on the machine. I have gone through the entire trouble shoot guide that is in the pdf file and also the guide at DTG's website. This really makes no sense at all, as it ran good on friday. As far as I can tell, it must be a board that has gone bad. You said that the board in your HM1 went bad? Your HM1 cannot be very old as this machine was purchased in June of this year. I wonder if there is a problem with the boards they use? For what this machine cost, it should run without failure if all of the maintenance is performed daily. I'm completely dissappointed with it.
Yes my hm1 is not very old, unfortunately and any of the machines can have a board go out because that is just the nature of computerized boards. I dont think it makes a bad machine it is just a pain to have it happen. But yes my board for the firmware went out that is responsible for the cleaning cycles, it didnt actually go out, it had a bug in it that was making it clean to much. I would definately call and tell them you want the board replaced. That is what I did and they came out the same day and replaced it, I havent had any problems since.
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
I've sent an email to DTG and will be calling them first thing in the morning but do not expect much in the way of support from them. The last time I called them for support (machine taking several hours to get ink to the dampers) they were going to charge me more than $1000.00 for a service call.
If these machines have a problem with the boards it is because they used a low quality board. It is not the nature of boards to just go bad. The video cameras I use for skydiving go through a lot of abuse with moisture and dirt and not once has a board in the cameras ever gone bad. None of the boards in my Toyota ESP 9000 have ever gone bad. The board in my old IBM ThinkPad went bad in February but, it was a 1997 laptop that was used on a daily basis. This Kiosk has very few hours on it. There is no reason for a new board to just up and go bad.
I've sent an email to DTG and will be calling them first thing in the morning but do not expect much in the way of support from them. The last time I called them for support (machine taking several hours to get ink to the dampers) they were going to charge me more than $1000.00 for a service call.
If these machines have a problem with the boards it is because they used a low quality board. It is not the nature of boards to just go bad. The video cameras I use for skydiving go through a lot of abuse with moisture and dirt and not once has a board in the cameras ever gone bad. None of the boards in my Toyota ESP 9000 have ever gone bad. The board in my old IBM ThinkPad went bad in February but, it was a 1997 laptop that was used on a daily basis. This Kiosk has very few hours on it. There is no reason for a new board to just up and go bad.
I totally agree they should not go bad, I hope that you get your machine fixed quickly Support has always been great for me. I am on the west coast and they have been great. I also have only had to call them once as that is the only problem I have had with my machine.
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
THe problem you describe does sound like a bad motherboard. I have not seen one of these just go bad. When this happens it is usually because the board somehow got shorted out. Remove your printhead and see if either of the ribbon cable ends has a black/brown spot on it that looks like a burn. If liquid gets on the end of the power ribbon cable it can short the printhead, motherboard and cable. This is not a common thing to happen during normal operation, but it is possible that ink or some other liquid got down to this cable and caused the short. The board (and cable and printhead) that I am describing is an original Epson part, not an aftermarket product made by the manufacturer.
The good news is (not to belittle the problem) that motherboard, ribbon cable and printhead replacement are things that a typical user should be able to perform without the need of a technician.
Don With my printer there was no short in my cable, the board just started malfunctioning and cleaning to much. I dont know exactly why it did it but there was nothing else involved other than the board. It wasnt a big deal though they just came and replaced it and it was fixed. That was a couple of months ago and have not had another problem with my machine.
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
Hi Don, I talked with Rich (I believe that is his name) and we went through my problem and determined that it is the mother board. I then read your reply and took a look at the ribbon and the printhead connection slot and there is a burn on the strip end as well as a burn in the slot itself. The foam at the strip end is wet. The wet foam shows me that some water from flushing the head on Friday night had dripped down on to the strip, soaking the foam and causing the short when I turned on the machine on Saturday. I always flush the head with the syringe when the machine is going to sit for 3 or 4 days while I await blank shirts or for any other reason.
So, looking at the print head connection slot and seeing the burn as well as what appears to be a melt down on the connection tab, I am assuming that the print head curcuit board may have also been damaged. To try and use this print head again may cause another failure of the main board. Not worth the risk and another head is going to have to be ordered.
Oddly, all of this is good news as now the board itself is no longer suspect and the failure occured at the connection causing the malfunction.
Another check for the list of what to look for and to apply greater caution when flushing the head.
Also, support was extremely helpful this morning.
Been there done that. While I can't really give you any advice on how to fix your problem I do have a little advice when it comes to tech support. I had the same problem you had caused by the same leakage onto the head cables. After several discussions with tech support and an email to the manager at SWF I finally was sent a new mainboard. It came to me with no instructions however I managed to find instructions on how to replace it after hours of online research. Unfortunately no one bothered to inform me that when replacing the mainboard certain readjustments in programming the printhead are needed. Since that I did not make those adjustments it is now possible that I am looking at a blown printhead. Right now my very expensive printer is little more than a giant paper weight although it does come with a really nice red light show. Since after replaceing the mainboard all I get are flashing red lights. The error eject and the ink lights flashing constantly when it is powered on. I'm still working on this problem. By the way I also replaced the encoder strip, no luck.
My point is, please before you take any of the steps suggested by tech support, or for that matter anyone else. Do some research, and ask questions, such as is there any kind of adjustment software needed when removing or replacing a part. Rumor has it that just removing the print head to see if the cables are damaged as was suggested above could cause problem with the way the head communicates with the mainboard. Please just take caution following even the experts advice. I trusted these people to tell me what I would not automatically know and it didn't work out very well at all.
And by the way Good Luck I really hope it works out well and quickly for you.
Rebecca, Have you changed your ink chips on the machine? I know when mine has those two lights flashing, it is usually the ink chips that need replacing, and then doing the chip reading and initialization on the maintenance program, then restarting the machine. Hope this helps
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
My Kiosk does nothing but head cleans 
Support has always been great for me. I am on the west coast and they have been great. I also have only had to call them once as that is the only problem I have had with my machine.
Re: My Kiosk does nothing but head cleans 
