MP5: White Ink Dampers Emptying

4876 Views 9 Replies 4 Participants Last post by abhobden, May 11, 2012

killerwebs

Discussion Starter · May 8, 2012

While the printer has been doing great on light garments, we now have quite a bit of darks to print.

Now I am having issues with the white ink dampers emptying while printing and banding the white.

Any other MP owners see this? Unfortunately Anajets tech support line hold times are 60+ minutes all day long....

If anyone has some ideas let me know.

Thanks

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zoom_monster

· #2 · May 8, 2012

Chad, you would think that on a system that re-circulates ink this would not be a problem. Is the circlulation constant or is it on a timed repeat. If so, would upping the frequency possibly help? Also, if the circulation is happening before the dampers, perhaps removing and flushing the dampers may clean out the filters(from settled pigment) allowing them to flow more smoothly.

I have the old syle, so I'm just taking a stab a what may work. I wish you luck.

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killerwebs

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 8, 2012

Thanks, the dampers fill during the circulation process but then empty shortly after. I dont know how to remove and clean them at this point.

It almost seems like its air in the lines, soon as the circulation process stops it sucks the ink back in, thats a guess but looking at it it seems like whats going on. I dont see any large gaps though. Strange stuff, I do need to get it working. Going to mess with it some more I guess.

I am at 80% of white left and hardly printed any white ink shirts, so I know its purging and cleaning the lines, I can see the white in the maintenance tray, and the nozzle checks are great

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abhobden

· #4 · May 9, 2012

Hi, we had that exact problem a couple of weeks ago. Spent about an hour on the phone to sort it. Talked us through running the pumps through the hidden menu on particular channels and then running several cleans whilst holding slight pressure on the top of the printheads, seemed to eventually fill them up but by the time we had finished we had pretty much run out of ink! Have been waiting on a valve replacement and more inks for a week or so. Finally got them today so will be "restarting" the machine with filling print/purge lines etc tomorrow. Once we are back up, we'll be trying the white ink prints straight away so I guess we'll see if it is ok now. I wrote the instructions down but unfortunately its at work and its now 6.30pm here so I can dig them out tomorrow if you need me to. (it'll be about 13hours away though!)

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killerwebs

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 9, 2012

Sure, send the instructions you have or post them here. I did get to run the 8 shirts I had to do yesterday. I set the white to fine, normal as suggested by support, the dampers didn't really seem to fill up while printing, but the white layer printed well.

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abhobden

· #6 · May 10, 2012

hmmm, they never gave me that suggestion! Sorry, I couldn't find the notes I made until I was about to leave work, then I found them, then I forgot to bring them home! sorry bout that, now I know where they are I'll put it up tomorrow. Got our first mostly successful dark T printed today after finally getting our machine back up and running. Fantastic bright reds/yellows as well

Heres hoping we can replicate it consistently...

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dougie54

· #7 · May 10, 2012

We had a white ink damper on our M10 doing the same thing your damper is doing. We finally ended up replacing the damper with a new one and that solved the problem.

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abhobden

· #8 · May 10, 2012

We ended up doing a complete refill with ours and it cleared it. Here is the instructions we got:
Go to the hidden menu (may not have to with the new firmware) (press menu/jobs/enter together)
Module Tests
Maintenance Station
Pump on
Ink Slot controller
Controller: 1
Channel: 1 (white pump second from back of machine)
Channel: 2 (white pump at back of machine)
Speed: Medium
Direction: Counter clockwise

Ran that for approx 2 minutes! on each white pump.

Then carried out a level 1 clean, then a level 2 clean whilst putting a bit of pressure on top of printheads so it sucked up more ink into the dampers.

Use this at your own risk, it used quite a bit of ink and it was under instruction from John at Anajet for our issue of white banding and fading during a print which he assessed was caused by white dampers not being full enough.

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zoom_monster

· #9 · May 11, 2012

Alan,
I'm most familiar with the old style machine. Do you have pretty easy access to the dampers? Rather than wasting the ink, If there is a way to prime the dampers (remove settlement and all air) with a syringe and then do a simple head clean, you may be able to create a routine that will clear the problem from where the ink enters the damper down to the nozzle plate. to me, if the ink gets circlulated through the send and return tubes, this would be the main problem area.

The problem with "normal" tech support solutions is they are afraid of telling a new client to do something that is too invasive. I've found after printing with my Anajet for the last 5 years, that you'll need to explore the nitty-gritty of how the system works. This will give you the courage and also the insight to be able to solve most any problem.

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abhobden

· #10 · May 11, 2012

Appreciate the input, thanks. Fortunately we are comfortable getting into the "nitty gritty" of machines

Thats one thing I love about the MP5 is that there is so much room inside the machine to explore and watch whilst its printing. We have our damper problem sorted now thanks and Anajet were very good in sending us replacement cartridges due to our initial problems.

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