[synful prod]

Today my employee was running a few shirts. i looked at the first one printed and the blue ink dropped out about half way through. I checked the shirt printing and it looked very very close to the head. Almost touching but not enough to see any major light between the two. I turned off the printer instantly, deleted the job and did 3 consecutive nozzle checks and cleans. they def changed as i did them but the blue was being very problematic.

I switched out all carts to cleaning carts and ran a bunch of cleans and purges. I also soaked and wiped the head surface (arcoss the head) with a rubbing alcohol soaked towel and continued on some more cleanings and purges. I can see the ports are all firing normally when it spit purges at the end of the cycles. so it appears that there are no major clogs or issues.

I left the shop and set the printer to auto head clean ever 8 hours with fluid carts installed over night as a precaution. In the am i will switch back to ink and see if i have any issues once ink is running through the head.

My question is has this happened to anyone else, did i do the right things after the possible head/pretreat contact and its there anything else i can do or use to clean the surface of the head of any left over pretreat?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

[synful prod]

ok so today came in and did a nozzle check with cleaning fluid in the printer. spit over the tray all looked perfect on ALL ports from all the head colors. swapped out cleaning fluid for ink and did a few charges. nozzle checks looked good after two purges.

I proceed to print a shirt and like clockwork the same design started out great and then practically ALL of the blue dropped out at the same spot. so i did a nozzle check and it looked bad so i did a purge and nozzle check and it looked great. Loaded another shirt hit print and same exact thing happened. I checked the damper it looked ok but i replaced it anyway and primed the damper, line etc. nozzle check, two purges until perfect nozzle check. of course same thing happened.

Now i switched out the blue cart for a cleaner and after a few purges it fires 100% ports over the spit tray? it seems as soon is put ink in it doesn't want to fire 100%?

someone have any ideas??

 

[synful prod]

ok so now its getting even worse. the more purges i do to try to solve the problem the more ports on channels are getting worse. i have done everything you would normally do. can to many purges with fluid cause this to happen? it was working fine then blue, then red, now they are all starting.


anyone...........

 

[lazographics]

Your print head is damaged to the point of no return. It will need to be replaced.

 

[shirts456]

Before you go for a printhead, change the damper(s) and see what you get.

 

[synful prod]

i changed ALL the dampers last thursday with the head and white carts.

I believe there is air in the head.

I concluded that the BLUE o-ring was bad on the cart side. once i switched it out did a few purges they were ALL firing perfect. I did a few cyan square prints and it worked great. Went back to the image i was printing when it all started. It printed 3/4 way through then the RED dropped out. when it went to the red i checked the o-ring and sure enough same problem with the o-ring on the cart side of the line. this would explain why the blue was failing. I replaced that o-ring and it seemed to hold pressure on the damper off the head.

During this whole process i did switch around some of the cleaner carts to see if any of them has air coming in from the seals. THIS is what i feel caused more air into the other lines.

Before i left last night i did a pull and slight waterfall on the yellow channel and i got it to fire 100% after two purges. I am HOPING that once i do it to the other 5 channels that are giving me trouble it will solve the issue.

Pulling in reverse is this the recommended way of getting air out of the head?

 

[DTGPRINTERPARTS]

Next time this happens just put alcohol in the maintenance station and do some head cleanings and swipe the print head gently with a foam swab. Then start using some cleaning solution and do the same thing. If the head grazed and you took it out it will be clogged and you will need to replace it

 

[synful prod]

ok so after some swapping out of o-rings, dampers, a cleaning cartidge or two its running again LIKE NEW!

Turns out the o-rings i got were a dif size than factory ones. I reordered them from another company and BAMM no air in the lines which was causing VAPOR LOCK in my head. This is why it would show 4 or 5 nozzle spit sprays then give a bad one.

CMYK has been running great for two days. After the weekend i will change over the white lines from cleaning fluid to ink.

THANKS EVERYONE who gave some insight or input. It all helped in the end.