Humidity is 40-50% for the past 48 hours. Ink cartridges are 80% or more. Wiper blade is perfect, capping station gasket is perfect. Ran 3 F1s over 2 hours, leaving time for any foaming to settle. All other lines are perfect (no air bubbles). Cartridge on #8 looks fine.
Hidden kink in white line...questions
Printed WUB perfectly yesterday. Perfect nozzle check. Perfect prints til evening.
This morning, ran our standard nozzle check and channel #8 (white) was zero. #1-7 were perfect.
Ran an F1 clean, same issue.
One of my guys was staring down the front middle of the printer and saw that one of the white lines was kinked closed. We never go in that slot at all, so he used his finger to unkink the line.
There's no white ink in that line so we disconnected it, primed the damper with a syringe to pull ink up to it, reconnected and tried another F1. Still no #8 channel.
Replaced the damper with a clean one per @23spiderman's damper process, reprimed into the damper, still no nozzle.
Anyone ever see an ink line kink itself? We did zero maintenance yesterday with the lines, just our usual daily maintenance (all cleaning). White was fine yesterday, but we didn't print a nozzle check at day end. From now on, we will add a nozzle check at end of day just so we can make sure we're shutting down with a perfect head.
When I look at line #8, again it appears there's no white in the line, even though we primed it up to the damper.
Head cleans are fine. We ran cleaning fluids into the capping station and it drains properly. The foam in the cleaning station turned "new white" after the cleaning solution, and after a head clean (F1) it returned to the usual inky blob that is usual, so the capping station is drawing ink as expected.
It's just white channel #8, the one that had a kink in the line.
This morning, ran our standard nozzle check and channel #8 (white) was zero. #1-7 were perfect.
Ran an F1 clean, same issue.
One of my guys was staring down the front middle of the printer and saw that one of the white lines was kinked closed. We never go in that slot at all, so he used his finger to unkink the line.
There's no white ink in that line so we disconnected it, primed the damper with a syringe to pull ink up to it, reconnected and tried another F1. Still no #8 channel.
Replaced the damper with a clean one per @23spiderman's damper process, reprimed into the damper, still no nozzle.
Anyone ever see an ink line kink itself? We did zero maintenance yesterday with the lines, just our usual daily maintenance (all cleaning). White was fine yesterday, but we didn't print a nozzle check at day end. From now on, we will add a nozzle check at end of day just so we can make sure we're shutting down with a perfect head.
When I look at line #8, again it appears there's no white in the line, even though we primed it up to the damper.
Head cleans are fine. We ran cleaning fluids into the capping station and it drains properly. The foam in the cleaning station turned "new white" after the cleaning solution, and after a head clean (F1) it returned to the usual inky blob that is usual, so the capping station is drawing ink as expected.
It's just white channel #8, the one that had a kink in the line.
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Pulled the damper apart and found that the "Short Ink Line" joint going into the damper has some edge damage. Pretty soft plastic. Going to order a bunch from DTGinks.com just to have spare parts. $0.69 a pop, so easy to replace, one more thing to add to the emergency toolkit.
That is quite strange. I've never seen a kink, and I don't why it would happen following successful printing. Though not optimal, most jobs can be done with 3 white channels when using hi-res. I do realize that doesn't fix your problem, but it might keep you moving. Do you have a pic of the kink? Showing where it is.
Unfortunately I didn't see the kink, but two of my staff did. If you're facing the printer, there's a "slot" in the middle front of it where you can see the ink lines run from the right to the left then bend up and around to go back into the main printer area. He looked down in there and saw a kink, so he unkinked it.
I'm hoping this busted "Short Ink Line" joint is the problem. Did a minor hack job on it and reassembled, primed all 4 white ink dampers again, and starting it up now.
I'm hoping this busted "Short Ink Line" joint is the problem. Did a minor hack job on it and reassembled, primed all 4 white ink dampers again, and starting it up now.
Once ink line is kinked there are no return. Rare, rare thing. Accidentally forced line? Bent?
Change damper. Defect. Can't trust cheap dampers. I hope it is DuPont ink. I heard many people are suffering with new ink on the market. Almost all are coming back after damage.
Cheers! Inks are on me always.
Change damper. Defect. Can't trust cheap dampers. I hope it is DuPont ink. I heard many people are suffering with new ink on the market. Almost all are coming back after damage.
Cheers! Inks are on me always.
I would change line, if kinked it would never go back to perfect round again which would cause not as good ink flow.
Since I keep saying doesn't stay primed there's a chance when it kinked and u kinked that during the pinch it got a tiny while causing air and a back feed if ink.
Since I keep saying doesn't stay primed there's a chance when it kinked and u kinked that during the pinch it got a tiny while causing air and a back feed if ink.
Also after I do a damper change I would so at least a f2 clean not f1
Kink never happens naturally with out force. I am worrying. I hope issue is gone.
Cheers! Inks are on me always.
Cheers! Inks are on me always.
I was off in Belize and Mexico for the week, but I'll follow up:
Peter: We only use Dupont ink, and we only buy ink from All American in liters. I think we're going to need to budget $500 a week in ink going forward, we've had some crazy order days. I'm not complaining!
The kink in the line wasn't due to anything we did specifically. Who knows what happened. I ordered a ton of spare 4880 parts that arrived while I was gone, but we haven't replaced anything yet. We must have done 150 WUB shirts over 3 or 4 days last week and none of them had a problem.
My guys DID replace CMYK with bulk ink carts, and after losing entire ink channels within 24 hours, we switched back to bagged. Bagged carts are the best, no doubt.
White is printing flawlessly. Humidity is in the 40%+ range. Daily maintenance (morning and end of day) is perfect, and nozzle checks are beautiful. Everything is just running perfectly. Most days while the Neoflex is printing all day, we keep considering where we will put a second printer in our storefront, ha. I think we can all feel the need for a second printer (CMYK only)!
Tigers took great care of us, as usual. Nothing but great things to say.
I'll repeat something that has been said on these forums for years; if you have a nozzle check error and run a clean or two, wait half an hour for things to settle.
Peter: We only use Dupont ink, and we only buy ink from All American in liters. I think we're going to need to budget $500 a week in ink going forward, we've had some crazy order days. I'm not complaining!
The kink in the line wasn't due to anything we did specifically. Who knows what happened. I ordered a ton of spare 4880 parts that arrived while I was gone, but we haven't replaced anything yet. We must have done 150 WUB shirts over 3 or 4 days last week and none of them had a problem.
My guys DID replace CMYK with bulk ink carts, and after losing entire ink channels within 24 hours, we switched back to bagged. Bagged carts are the best, no doubt.
White is printing flawlessly. Humidity is in the 40%+ range. Daily maintenance (morning and end of day) is perfect, and nozzle checks are beautiful. Everything is just running perfectly. Most days while the Neoflex is printing all day, we keep considering where we will put a second printer in our storefront, ha. I think we can all feel the need for a second printer (CMYK only)!
Tigers took great care of us, as usual. Nothing but great things to say.
I'll repeat something that has been said on these forums for years; if you have a nozzle check error and run a clean or two, wait half an hour for things to settle.
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