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One Color giving me fits

[Flexi-Jet Model L] 
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R

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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
I've been working on my flexijet for a couple days now, trying to get all colors to print. The cyan just will not work for me, and I've tried all the cleaning methods that I've seen on the forums (head, lines, dampers, carts, etc.) Nozzle checks won't come out with anything but a few little streaks of cyan. The kicker is the head is brand new, only have about 20 prints on it.
 
DAGuide

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#2 ·
Robert,

When you talk about having ink flow issues with just one channel, it tends to be one of the following issues:
- Problem with the ink cartridge / bottle or the height of the bottle to the print head if it is a gravity feed system.
- A crack or a seal in the ink tube line
- A blockage in the damper or the damper not seated properly.
- A damage print head

Since it is only 1 channel, I would not expect it to be a problem with the maintenance station. But you may want to make sure that this is very clean as well. Since it is a new print head, I will leave that option alone as well.

Do you have the same problem if you put your cleaning cartidge into this channel? Just trying to eliminate that the cartridge or bottle is not the problem.

Have you tried to use a syringe to gently pull the ink from the bottom of the damper to cartridge? The reason why I ask is the damper is basically a small resevior of ink that the print head will use to pull ink from. If there is a clog in the damper, then you will have resistance with getting ink from it. Just replace the damper. If replacing the damper does not work, then there might be a clog or airblock from the ink line to the cartridge. If you are able to get ink out through the damper, then you might not be putting the damper in properly (some people call this seating the damper). Make sure there is an o-ring at the bottom of the damper that makes a tight seal with the print head. You might need to clean the bottom of the damper and where is goes into the print head for it to create a tight seal.

There are some pretty detailed instructions at the forums on www.dtginks.com. Most of the Flexi-Jet owners also post on that forum as well as this one. Hope this gets you moving in the right direction. Best wishes.

Mark
 
R

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Discussion Starter · #3 ·
Thanks for the reply. I've been trying to get access to Dan's forum that you mentioned, having a technical difficulty getting in.

I did trim a small amount of the line where it connects to the elbow, thinking that maybe it had a crack in it. That didn't change much as far as I can tell.

I ordered some new cartridges today from Dan and I hope that will help with the flow. It does seem a little harder to manually plunge ink up from the cyan cartridge than the others, but it is hard to tell just by gauging the pressure I have to put on it.

I forgot to mention that I got all new dampers with the new head, so I don't think the dampers would be an issue. Of course, a defective one cannot be ruled out I guess.
 
DAGuide

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#4 ·
Robert,

Sounds like you are covering the standard items. There is the slight chance that it might have something to do with the ink. I have not heard of anyone else complaining about any type of ink in a long time. I know a lot of users like to strain their ink before putting it into the cartridges. If the ink was bad, putting new dampers or a print head into the printer would not resolve the problem. But again, I have not heard any problems with the ink in a long time.

Hopefully, the new cartridges will resolve the problem. Let us know what the answer is.

Mark
 
B

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#6 ·
zhenjie said:
Swap the Cyan line with another colour, that should determine if it sa line+damper issue or printhead issue.
Click to expand...
This is a very helpful suggestion as it helps to eliminate one section from the other. Thus if switch lines and now prints (albeit wrong color)that would mean the print head is fine. If still not printing through that nozzle then would be printhead.
Being new at this how is the ink flowing through the print head. Because why is it if you get ink to flow out during a head cleaning, you cannot get it to come out during the print process when it is a bad print head.
To me this symptom seems more like it would be some signal not telling the print head to print out ink. But I am not sure how the ink coming out during a cleaning differs from coming out during a print job. Any one with technical in the know on the prnt head operation? Can someone explain it?
 
A

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#7 ·
You said that there are some cyan nozzles firing when you do a nozzle check. Are they consistent between multiple nozzle checks? If they are than that tells me it most likely is in the head. If they vary between nozzle checks than it could a damper or ink starvation issue. I have had incidence where I replaced dampers and they failed from the start. You can try checking the damper and if it is hard to pull through or the ink doesnt pull through smoothly almost like it sputters than it is probably a the damper. If you are unsure try pulling with another damper. The in should flow smoothly into the syringe with very little effort when you pull back on the plunger. Also check the nib in the bay. Make sure that it is not caked with dried ink. If it is get a foam swab with a little bit of CPS or cleaning solution and clean it of.

As for the difference in why the print head pulls ink when your cleaning but may not fire when you try to print is because when you do a clean the capping station is actually pulling the ink through the head. The print head works by a process called piezoelectriciy or micro-piezo. In a nutshell this is when electricity is sent to a piezo material usually made of crystal or ceramic. When this happens these materials can expand. In side of the head there are channels were the ink is feed. On the walls of these channels is the piezo material.

So when the printer is told to fire it sends electricity to that material which expand pushing just the right amount of ink threw the nozzle. This process allows for greater control of the droplet size and produces very little heat among many other benefits. Now I may be off a little bit but if you would like to learn more you can check out this website which is very informative on the process and its many uses.

PI: Piezo Motion Control, Designing with Piezoelectric Actuators, Piezo Nanopositioning Tutorial | Piezoelectrics in Positioning

Hope this helps.
 
R

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Discussion Starter · #9 ·
Well, a lot has happened since I posted the original question. I spent a good deal of time on another forum and followed hundreds of post there. I did follow many of the troubleshooting methods posted here, I did not switch the lines but was already confident that the head was dirty.

I cleaned the head, flushed the lines, replaced all the carts with new ones, Cleaned the dampers, nothing seemed to help.

My final solution involved buying a used 4800 printer that was used for it's intended inks and basically swapped out many many parts from it to "revitalize" my flexijet. I replaced the ribbon cables, motherboard, head, several smaller circuit boards, one entire cartridge bay assembly, dampers, encoder strip, encoder strip sensor, light sensor, maybe more that I can't recall. Bottom line is I basically have a new printer now in many respects, the parts I installed were barely used.

You might be asking why I did all this, the reason is somehow thru the process of trying to clean the head, I managed to lose printing completely and then had to go part by part to find what electronics were not functioning.

For the guy that mentioned a cleaning service for heads, I am interested in that. Very curious to know what that involves. I gently push distilled water thru the head to clean it, I don't know of any other way. Thru the process of getting my printer up and running, I now have 2 spare heads (although one is delaminated).
 
B

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#10 ·
rbonamarte said:
Well, a lot has happened since I posted the original question. I spent a good deal of time on another forum and followed hundreds of post there. I did follow many of the troubleshooting methods posted here, I did not switch the lines but was already confident that the head was dirty.

I cleaned the head, flushed the lines, replaced all the carts with new ones, Cleaned the dampers, nothing seemed to help.

My final solution involved buying a used 4800 printer that was used for it's intended inks and basically swapped out many many parts from it to "revitalize" my flexijet. I replaced the ribbon cables, motherboard, head, several smaller circuit boards, one entire cartridge bay assembly, dampers, encoder strip, encoder strip sensor, light sensor, maybe more that I can't recall. Bottom line is I basically have a new printer now in many respects, the parts I installed were barely used.

You might be asking why I did all this, the reason is somehow thru the process of trying to clean the head, I managed to lose printing completely and then had to go part by part to find what electronics were not functioning.

For the guy that mentioned a cleaning service for heads, I am interested in that. Very curious to know what that involves. I gently push distilled water thru the head to clean it, I don't know of any other way. Thru the process of getting my printer up and running, I now have 2 spare heads (although one is delaminated).
Click to expand...
Glad you finally got it working. After 2 weeks of trying to fix our flexi we finally sent it to Belquette to let people who know the machine work on it. Some said we should continue to work on it, have more patience, and save money. Actually for us to continue to work on it was costing us more money (in time wasted) as we were unable to make money printing. Had I known 2 weeks ago what I know now I would have sent to be fixed right away. Hope to have a working machine soon!
 
M

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#14 ·
Is there any way to test a print head to see whether it is still good when trying to diagnose whether it is a main board problem or a print head problem when the head is not clogged ( ie, the capping station shows ink in the appropriate lines of color during cleanings) but when attempting to print no ink is printed- it just goes through the motions.
 
M

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#15 ·
rbonamarte said:
Well, a lot has happened since I posted the original question. I spent a good deal of time on another forum and followed hundreds of post there. I did follow many of the troubleshooting methods posted here, I did not switch the lines but was already confident that the head was dirty.

I cleaned the head, flushed the lines, replaced all the carts with new ones, Cleaned the dampers, nothing seemed to help.

My final solution involved buying a used 4800 printer that was used for it's intended inks and basically swapped out many many parts from it to "revitalize" my flexijet. I replaced the ribbon cables, motherboard, head, several smaller circuit boards, one entire cartridge bay assembly, dampers, encoder strip, encoder strip sensor, light sensor, maybe more that I can't recall. Bottom line is I basically have a new printer now in many respects, the parts I installed were barely used.

You might be asking why I did all this, the reason is somehow thru the process of trying to clean the head, I managed to lose printing completely and then had to go part by part to find what electronics were not functioning.

For the guy that mentioned a cleaning service for heads, I am interested in that. Very curious to know what that involves. I gently push distilled water thru the head to clean it, I don't know of any other way. Thru the process of getting my printer up and running, I now have 2 spare heads (although one is delaminated).
Click to expand...
So cool that you pursued this and got 'er done! Thanks for sharing your solutions.
 
R

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Discussion Starter · #16 ·
As far as the 2 spare heads I have, I know that one is delaminated so it is pretty much trash ( I just haven't got the stomach yet to throw it away). The other is probably good. I don't think I would spend the money to send it out and have it cleaned by someone unless I had a better idea of what is done to it, especially with a 60% success rate.
 
B

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#17 ·
I agree. Why not $70 if successful? free if not, but shipping paid by customer. Then at 60% success he would still make same or more than $50 no guarantee, and people would be less weary of sending. The risk to the customer is shipping costs of about $15 total.
 
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