While printing large images, something big- say a solid 11X17 size image, on the printing of the white undercoat, everything is going great, then right when we're getting finished with that pass, our T-Jet 2 stops- flashing the error light- along with the three white cartridge indicator light blinking. All three. I keep an eye out keeping the bulk white bottle above the CMYK inks. I keep everything clean (cap station ... to the encoder). The print test patterns always look good and strong- solid- clean. Guess I'm running out of white ink in the head/cartridge while printing. Normal, smaller images work fine- even with two passes of white undercoat. No errors. I've noticed that the print head doesn't stop over the capping station much while printing- except when the pass is done and the bed re-loads (which I guess is when the system re-charges the heads with ink).
I've read that when this happens I could press the INK button to do a head charge, but when I get the three white light and Erorr light blinking, the system gets stuck and I have to re-boot the printer.
Tomorrow I'll try the suggestion of raising the inks more to get the ink flowing to the heads better, but for the most part, the final print (other than wen the printer quits during a job) looks great. So I'm not sure if it's a "not getting enought ink" through the system problem or not. Maybe just raising the WHITE higher would do the trick.
Thanks for all the help!!!
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Thomas Florimonte www.ka-blam.com - Digital Printing
While printing large images, something big- say a solid 11X17 size image, on the printing of the white undercoat, everything is going great, then right when we're getting finished with that pass, our T-Jet 2 stops- flashing the error light- along with the three white cartridge indicator light blinking. All three. I keep an eye out keeping the bulk white bottle above the CMYK inks. I keep everything clean (cap station ... to the encoder). The print test patterns always look good and strong- solid- clean. Guess I'm running out of white ink in the head/cartridge while printing. Normal, smaller images work fine- even with two passes of white undercoat. No errors. I've noticed that the print head doesn't stop over the capping station much while printing- except when the pass is done and the bed re-loads (which I guess is when the system re-charges the heads with ink).
I've read that when this happens I could press the INK button to do a head charge, but when I get the three white light and Erorr light blinking, the system gets stuck and I have to re-boot the printer.
Tomorrow I'll try the suggestion of raising the inks more to get the ink flowing to the heads better, but for the most part, the final print (other than wen the printer quits during a job) looks great. So I'm not sure if it's a "not getting enought ink" through the system problem or not. Maybe just raising the WHITE higher would do the trick.
Thanks for all the help!!!
Sounds like you may need to raise your white ink bottles slightly or keep them filled up a little more than usual. Not sure about the error light but if it does run low of white ink normally you can press the ink button once, and once the head comes to rest hit the ink button again for a quick recharge. In most cases the ink lights will begin to flash before anything errors out.
Raising the white bottles might help. You might also want to look at the settings in the RIP to see if you are doing it correctly. Below is a link to Harry / Equipment Zone's instructions on how to use Fast RIP / Fast Artist. Maybe that will help you determine if you are making the correct settings.
Raising the white bottles might help. You might also want to look at the settings in the RIP to see if you are doing it correctly. Below is a link to Harry / Equipment Zone's instructions on how to use Fast RIP / Fast Artist. Maybe that will help you determine if you are making the correct settings.
Personally I'd like to see more white ink print with one pass of the undercoat. I set it for two to get a good solid base. One, to me, doesn't look good enough. And two is to much. I wish there where better/clearer videos that showed what the correct coverage should look like. Are there settings in the Rip to make more ink come out with one pass?
But for my other problem, I'll try raising the white ink bottle a 1/4 inch and see what happens. Maybe 1/2 inch.
On my machine, when I get the error light and the 3 white cartridges lights start blinking, pressing the INK button does nothing. Actually, other than the power button, the others buttons don't seen to do anything either at that stage. Don't you wish that FastRip had the ability to read the printing status of the machine and give us some feedback on whats going on...
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Thomas Florimonte www.ka-blam.com - Digital Printing
Personally I'd like to see more white ink print with one pass of the undercoat. I set it for two to get a good solid base. One, to me, doesn't look good enough. And two is to much. I wish there where better/clearer videos that showed what the correct coverage should look like. Are there settings in the Rip to make more ink come out with one pass?
Thomas,
My recommendation is to leave the white ink bottles where they are for right now. I have a hunch I know what your problem is.
The printer, internally, thinks that you're using tiny Epson cartridges, and not the bulk ink system you have on there now. So when you print a lot of white, (and only when you print a lot of white) sometimes the printer thinks it's printed so much that it's exhausted all the ink in the cartrdige. That's what gives you that error. But remember, you've got a bulk ink system--your cartridges are never empty.
When that happens, all you have to do is press the INK button once. Then click out the three white ink cartridges and lift them up and out of their slots for a few seconds before clicking them back in. Press the INK button once again and the T-Jet will resume printing. You will NOT have to reboot and you will NOT lose your print job.
As for wanting to see more white ink print in one pass, I'd wager that by making some small changes to your print settings or by perfecting your pretreating technique you can get a really satisfying white in one pass. For some tips, you might want to check out our "Idiot's Guide" to FastArtist and FastRIP.
I am wondering if in fast artist (this is the rip for the tjet right?) are there sliders for the amount of ink that is output, like in rip pro? If so, could the poster maybe lower the amount on the sliders by say 20% and do a double pass, to get somehwere in between what he is getting on one pass and two passes? Did I totally confuse you haha I know in rip pro I can adjust mine this way for wanting a certain amount of ink flow.
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
I am wondering if in fast artist (this is the rip for the tjet right?) are there sliders for the amount of ink that is output, like in rip pro? If so, could the poster maybe lower the amount on the sliders by say 20% and do a double pass, to get somehwere in between what he is getting on one pass and two passes? Did I totally confuse you haha I know in rip pro I can adjust mine this way for wanting a certain amount of ink flow.
Ha, you only confused me a little. It is getting late over here by the way.
There is a way to do what you're saying by adjusting settings in the Underbase Wizard in FastArtist. But I think if he just makes sure everything is at its optimal setting and that he's pretreating right, he'll be able to get a good white in one pass, which should be faster than printing two passes.
No haha I dont, but I did one time when I was having issues ( I clogged my printhead one time when I was sick because I let me machine sit for 4 days off ) and I only had 3 nozzles firing, had to get a job out really quick and so that is how I did it haha. Actually even on one medium layer on my machine I have to back off my white output by 10 percent because I have too good of flow
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
White ink starvation... maybe?? HELP! 
) and I only had 3 nozzles firing, had to get a job out really quick and so that is how I did it haha. Actually even on one medium layer on my machine I have to back off my white output by 10 percent because I have too good of flow 
