[parkst23]

Hi I bought a najajet printer and every time I try to print print an image on a black tshirt the white ink is not consistant. Sometimes on the top part of the graphic it will be perfect and then toward the bottom of the graphic it look extremely dilluted. Other times it is vice-verses, and other times it is just all bad. I was told by my distributor that I was pretreating my shirts correctly but still this is not working for me. I am very frustrated and would apreciate any help. Thanks Ken

 

[zhenjie]

Is it gradual or can you see where the saturation changes in the print? Sounds like an ink starvation issue.

What you can do is first a nozzle check before your print. Then do a test print. After that you do another nozzle check and find out which line is suffering. Then you need to clean out that line.

 

[tpope]

Try printing your white image onto a piece of plexiglas (a clear sheet of plastic). This will show you if you have a problem in the image or the shirt.

You can also try a simple image of say 50 percent white that covers the entire image area and see if it varies. It should not change to watery. If it does... this is an ink type problem..

Wash the plastic sheet off and dry between prints..

 

[parkst23]

Try printing your white image onto a piece of plexiglas (a clear sheet of plastic). This will show you if you have a problem in the image or the shirt.

You can also try a simple image of say 50 percent white that covers the entire image area and see if it varies. It should not change to watery. If it does... this is an ink type problem..

Wash the plastic sheet off and dry between prints..

What do you mean an ink type problem? Thank you for your patience I am new to this. Ken

 

[sunnydayz]

I have a question. Are you shaking your ink daily? If not your ink could be seperating and this could cause this problem as the titanium oxide in the ink can be settled and not mixed right.

 

[zoom_monster]

If you are printing a huge design, and it seems like its fading out at the same point on subsequent print, I would think that points to starvation. If you determine it is starvation, Check your lines for kinks, Call Tech support. They may have you pull the top off of the carrage and check your dampers. On your pretreat, are you using full strength? If you dilute it, are you mixing it well? I like the idea of the plexy glass test. Another thing you can do is go into the EK software and do the Chanel purge on just the 4 white channels on your platen. If the blocks of white are banding or inconsistant, adress a clogging issue.

 

[parkst23]

All set that worked.

 

[ledpenny]

OK, Ive got a similar problem, and tried the print head purge, even took print head cover off and tried to force air through the tubes. I have never had the same opaque white as shown in their videos; I shook the cartridges weekly, but suspect maybe they dried up as they don't slosh. Any ideas on how to safely clean the tubes out? Although I have had this machine a few months and printed less than 100 cymks and less than 10 trying the white ink, Anajet wants me to pay shipping and another 425 bucks for service and a new print head.... I'm disappointed... and I don't think it needs the print head, as cymk's still print fine.

 

[parkst23]

Did you download the epson promgram from the anajet website. I had that problem and I use the epson program not the ekprint studio version and it fixed everything. How long did you wait to print white ink?

 

[raise]

OK, Ive got a similar problem, and tried the print head purge, even took print head cover off and tried to force air through the tubes. I have never had the same opaque white as shown in their videos; I shook the cartridges weekly, but suspect maybe they dried up as they don't slosh. Any ideas on how to safely clean the tubes out? Although I have had this machine a few months and printed less than 100 cymks and less than 10 trying the white ink, Anajet wants me to pay shipping and another 425 bucks for service and a new print head.... I'm disappointed... and I don't think it needs the print head, as cymk's still print fine.

If you suspect the lines are clogged, you can pull all of the ink cartridges and insert your cleaning cartridges to load cleaning fluid into your machine.

Download the epson adjustment program from the Anajet site and run the ink charge utility after you have inserted your cleaning cartridges. I find it takes about 3 ink charges to flush the majority of ink out and have mostly clear fluid in all of the lines.

Let your machine sit over night to try and dissolve/loosen any old ink and run another charge of cleaning fluid in the morning.

Also check your dampers to see if any of them are clogged with dried ink. If the dampers will not loosen up with a soaking of fluid, then you'll have to replace them but they are not too expensive ($15 each I think).

Those would be the steps I would take to try and avoid paying for shipping and service.

 

[ledpenny]

I printed cymks from April to July, then converted the white channels as they ran out of the cymk... this was advice from Anajet: get comfortable with one before tackling the other. The white ink, though regularly shaken probably has coagulated... I'm working on the tubes later today. Thank you. wl

 

[DAGuide]

Raise and the others have given you some great advice. I would only expand upon it by getting the refillable cartridges for the cleaning fluid. By the time you do that many ink charges, you are going to notice that you have gone through the majority of your cleaning cartridges. By purchasing the refillable cartridges and a liter of cleaning fluid, you will save money not only this time... but in the future. I strongly recommend to any dtg user to flush the lines on your printer once a month. This is just like doing an oil change on your car and will help extend the life of your print head (and possibly your dampers). You will also want to flush the lines any time the printer sits idle for 4+ days depending on the environment your printer is in unless you are using the auto maintenance like programs. This includes if you are not printing white ink for 4+ days, but are printing CMYK ink. The white ink can't sit for that long unless it is in the ideal environment and you still on going to have to run head cleaning most likely. Save yourself the time and headaches - flush the lines when the printer is idle.

You will also want to keep an eye on your waste tank as you go through all of this. Failing to catch it before it overflows is a messy situation as the ink can leak back into all the corners of the printer. It is extremely difficult to get this all cleaned up properly. So just keep an eye on it while you go through the cleaning / repair process.