[WeAllWearShirts]

Hi, im new to these forums and garment printing in general and have looked through about 50 pages of posts in the tjet category for the answer on this one and didnt see one with the exact answer i was looking for. I have a refurbished tjet 1000 with EZPro bulk ink system and have been printing some shirts within the last week with white underbases with no problems. Yesterday i printed a few shirts with no problems and then suddenly the underbase was obviously weaker so i performed a nozzle check and i have no ink printing from one of the whites, the other colors are just fine. Is my printhead clogged? Maybe im wrong about this but i would assume printheads to become clogged during a period of not using it allowing the ink to settle inside the printhead, however this happened about 5 minutes after it printed just fine, so im wondering if it could be something else... i dont want to go buy a new printhead and find that it wasnt the problem. I ran some head cleanings with the cleaning cartridges and still no help. Please let me know what the problem is. Thanx

 

[FatKat Printz]

how old is the printhead ?? you say you just bought the machine was it new when you bought it?

 

[WeAllWearShirts]

ive had the printer (and printhead since ive never replaced it) since last december. bought it refurbished from equipmentzone

 

[FatKat Printz]

What you can do is ..did you trying pulling through the tops of the printhead (nipples) with a syringe??

if you have done all this..you can pull the printhead out and soak it overnight in Windex and distilled water.

If its still doing it tomorrow..try this test take a piece of Plexiglas and do two nozzle checks one on top (don't wipe it off ) and one on the bottom. . hold it up to the light if they are identical..missing lines etc etc then you have a clogged printhead

 

[WeAllWearShirts]

the nozzle check doesnt show missing lines, it simply doesnt print anything out of one of the whites, the other 2 whites print perfectly as do the colors.

 

[IYFGraphics]

What does the bottom of your print head and capping station look like? clean?

Hope this helps.

 

[WeAllWearShirts]

they appear to be fairly clean, i perform cleanings every few days since i dont print more than about 5-10 shirts a day... it was fairly dirty a couple weeks ago but its printed fine since ive cleaned it since then.

 

[binki]

Turn off and unplug the printer. Move the print head to where you can get it. Soak a lint free cloth (those blue shop towels you can buy in auto stores and costco/sams club work great) in cleaning solution and gently wipe the bottom of the print head to remove any stuck ink. Then take another cloth and soak in cleaning solution and gentle press to the head. when you pull it away you should see an ink draw on the cloth for each channel.

If that doesn't work, turn off the machine and soak the capping station in cleaning solution and let sit over night and then do 4 or 5 head cleanings and a nozzle check.

If that doesn't work then get some empty carts and fill with cleaning solution and put them in place of the ink. Do this with the machine off. Then do several head cleanings and turn the machine off for at least a day. Turn the machine back on and print with the cleaning solution. We have a test print that uses all the channels. Then replace the ink and recharge the print heads and resume your normal checks.

If that doesn't work, get a new print head.

 

[IYFGraphics]

If that doesn't work then get some empty carts and fill with cleaning solution and put them in place of the ink. Do this with the machine off. Then do several head cleanings and turn the machine off for at least a day. Turn the machine back on and print with the cleaning solution. We have a test print that uses all the channels. Then replace the ink and recharge the print heads and resume your normal checks.

If that doesn't work, get a new print head.

I agree with Binki, you probably got a set of cleaning carts with the printer from EZ, load them in the printer (turn it off first and disconnect the ink chain from the carriage), turn the printer back on and do a couple ink purges until the capping station shows no ink color in it only cleaning fluid, at this point you can let it set for awhile or go ahead and put your ink carts back in and give it a try.

If you think the channel is plugged/clogged I'd let it set a few hours with cleaning solution in it, then fire it back up do a few more ink purges, then put your ink carts back in and see what you get....once you put your ink carts back in and fire it up you need to do a few more ink purges to clear the cleaning solution out of the head, do a nozzle check and hopefully you'll be back in business.

This is the procedure we use when we are going to let the printer sit for a few days without printing, works great on our T-2 and we always get perfect nozzle checks.

Hope this helps.

 

[WeAllWearShirts]

thanx guys, i put my cleaning cartridges in and let it sit for a while then did some power head cleanings and doing nozzle checks with the cleaning solution i am getting almost perfect tests, i will let the cleaning cartridges sit in there until tomorrow and do some more cleanings then put the bulk system back on and see how it works