I started having a problem with a large run of shirts. On the back of the shirt, I have a word outlined in white. The white is set as a heavy undercoat with the letters in blue over it.
The first few runs went through without a problem. I started having problems with the last few and have ruined several shirts now. I have seen two problems. First, during the undercoat I am starting to get some banding in certain areas. Secondly, the top of the words that have the undercoat are getting ink put down and is no longer white on the final product. The bottom half of the word remains white and looks great.
ANY HELP would be appreciated. I need to get these shirts out ASAP and can't afford to ruin any more product. As I said, the first several runs looked fine but started having problems. I have cleaned the print head and capping station, filled the ink bottles (of course not too high), run several head cleanings & nozzle checks.... Nothing working so far.
I am still having this same problem. Here is the issue.
I am putting a graphic with the word FIRE on the back of a ash colored shirt. It has been pre-treated. The first few runs will look fine. Somewhere later on in the run, I start having issues. The undercoat starts printing funny where the top of the word will be fine and the bottom portion does what you see below. Then, when it starts printing the blue overcoat, it does not print clean. There should be a white boarder around the letters however the print starts were the boarder should be and looks almost black.
I am attaching an image of what has been happening. It was stopped after the overcoat started so all you will see is the full undercoat and a bit of the blue overcoat. I have tried printing with both a normal and heavy undercoat and it still happens. The other issues that occasionally happens when this problem occurs is occasional drips from the blue ink.
ANY suggestions would be extremely helpful. I am ready to bang my head against a wall.
Since you had a very nice strip of bright white, I would imagine it could be an ink starvation issue of some sort. It started bad, them printed well, then bad again. Basically, it started to flow but for some reason, the pressure pulled back on the ink and stopped it from flowing. IMO, it's too drastic of a change to just be a clogged head. It wouldn't be pre-treatment because of the pattern, it's clearly in the printing.
__________________
BelQuette Inc, 877.202.0886 & Screener's Choice, 330-345-5877
Mod1 Direct to Garment Printer, Made in the USA www.belquette.com
Problems with the undercoat (I think??) 
with the main board .Regards j Austin Kennedy 
