Full Version: Morning Problem #1
From: gt350ed [#3]
27 Apr 2006
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#2] 27 Apr 2006
My colored rectangles (shades of color) are fine except for the lines in the cyan rectangle.
HELP!! Work is piling up.
From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#4]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#1] 27 Apr 2006
When that happened to me DSSI came through with a suggestion.
- Unlock the heads and unplug.
- Move the head over and use a few drops of Fantastic in the cup that seals the head when not in use. Let sit for a few minutes. Use a straw or something plastic and soft and gently rub the hard surface inside the cup.
- Put a few drops more Fantastic on the cup and gently rub again. Let stand for a few minutes while finishing this procedure.
- Clean under the head well. It gets a buildup.
- Clean the front side of the head and the rear side of the head also. You will be surprised at the amount of buildup there that transfers to the bottom with all of the jiggling the head takes.
- Plug in and you should be set for quite a while.
EDITED: 27 Apr 2006 by HARVEY-ONLY
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#5]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#3] 27 Apr 2006
Sounds like a simple case of banding, even though the nozzle check shows up as perfect.
It happens.
From: gt350ed [#6]
27 Apr 2006
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#5] 27 Apr 2006
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#7]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#6] 27 Apr 2006
As Harvey suggested, a physical head cleaning.
From: gt350ed [#8]
27 Apr 2006
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#7] 27 Apr 2006
From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#9]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#8] 27 Apr 2006
That is a strange one. No ideas.
Can you post a picture of one of the squares so we can see exactly what you are talking about?
From: UncleSteve [#10]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#8] 27 Apr 2006
It prints out a set of vertical lines for each color and you select which of 1 through 8, IIRC, lines has the best vertical alignment, as in looks like a straight line.
From: gt350ed [#11]
27 Apr 2006
To: UncleSteve [#10] 27 Apr 2006
Here is some clarification which I sent to Mick in response to his email asking about what I was using the FRP for...
within the last several days which came out perfect.. But I did my typical
morning nozzle check yesterday, which was fine. Then I ran two name badge transfers and noticed that the deep red background of the logo had fine, perfectly straight horizontal lines. I pressed the FRP anyway but the lines were still visible. This caused me to go back and print my CMYK color rectangles. It was then that I noticed that these same horizontal lines were present in the Cyan color rectangle and, throughout the day today, I am unable to get rid of them so far. The lines are probably 1/32" apart leaving a fine corduroy pattern. I'm thinking maybe there is debris on the bottomside of the printhead...or a partial clog. Otherwise, I'm stumped.
From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#12]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#11] 27 Apr 2006
If the manual head cleaning did not do it and the nozzle check is good, it is a real puzzle.
The cup cleaning first should have removed the last possibility. (The cup builds up right under the nozzles and imparts new garbage on the nozzles after a while.)
The only other thing I can think of is a corrupt driver that is not putting out the data properly. Personal opinion, very slim chance.
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#13]
27 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#11] 28 Apr 2006
Did you clean the bottom of the printhead(s)?
From: RALLYGUY (RALLYGUY1) [#14]
28 Apr 2006
To: gt350ed [#8] 28 Apr 2006
If the lines that you are getting run parralel to the print head movement, it is likely banding....Any way you could post a picture?
Have you switched to a different print resolution? Have you changed anything else like paper, or has nothing else changed? What about the environment. Has the printer environment gone from cool to warm in the last few days? Temperature and humidity can be huge when it comes to banding issues.....cooler and wetter is better...Think of Seattle as being ideal. ;)
Usually you can get the printer clean enough to run a few good prints and then it starts banding...is this what is happneing to you, or is it banding from the get go.....?
Could the rollers be worn, allowing the paper to slip while printing....Allignment would help with this....I know you did a test, but not sure if there is vertical allignment or just horizontal with a desktop.....
Does the allignment take into account the vertical movement of the paper, or just the horizontal movement of the print head?
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#15]
28 Apr 2006
To: RALLYGUY (RALLYGUY1) [#14] 28 Apr 2006
Print head alignment -- on the small format printers I use and I would assume most, if not all, ink jet printers -- controls the accuracy of printing in the vertical position.
Example:
Create a single-line border, on an 8.5" x 11" page, with a line width of 4 or 5 pts.
If the printheads are out of alignment, the vertical lines -- lines along the 11" length of the page -- will be fuzzy, while the lines across the 8.5" width will be crisp.
Sometimes, it takes magnification to spot the irregularity, before pressing. After pressing, the malady becomes very noticeable, to the naked eye. >.<
If all lines, across all four sides are fuzzy, it's very likely that dirty printheads are the problem.
From: RALLYGUY (RALLYGUY1) [#16]
28 Apr 2006
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#15] 28 Apr 2006
From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#17]
28 Apr 2006
To: ALL
Print heads are a grid of jets that interleave and if one whole column of jets is not firing you get a set of evenly spaced stripes going side to side. Besides the clogging issues mentioned earlier, there are a few other possibilities. None of which bring good news.
It's possible that the print head is defective. Each column of jets share some electrical traces in the head and if the trace for a column breaks, that set of jets is broken.
It's also possible that one wire in the flexible wire going to the print head is bad. One wire can take out a whole column of jets.
Another possibility is a bad connection where the print head connects to the flex wire. That is usually a gold plated grid of contacts and not too likely to get a bad connection, but anything is possible. It can even happen from a small impurity in the gold mixture when manufactured. If it is a bad contact, it may be possible to remove the print head, clean the contacts, and put it back. I don't know what kind of printer you have and whether that is something that is simple to do.
If it's a bad head, you would need a new head. If it's a bad wire, that may be more difficult to replace than the head. If it's a bad contact, then that's the easiest and cheapest to fix of these three possibilities. Or it might be none of these. It's certainly a lot easier to clean clogged jets than to have to deal with any of the above.
From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#18]
28 Apr 2006
To: RALLYGUY (RALLYGUY1) [#14] 28 Apr 2006
New food for thought. If something stuck to the driver roller it would increase the amount of paper that is pulled at that instant when the gunk increases the diameter of the roller. Since the heads do not print all of the colors in the appropriate place at the same time, that could cause banding.
Try a sticky printer cleaning sheet from Staples.
One fairly simple sounding problem, too many possible causes.
From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#19]
28 Apr 2006
To: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#18] 28 Apr 2006
If Ed's seeing banding in the Cyan segment of his purge pattern (separate blocks of his 6 colors) and if paper slippage were the problem, all colors would show evidence of the same type of banding.
From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#20]
28 Apr 2006
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#19] 28 Apr 2006
From: RALLYGUY (RALLYGUY1) [#21]
28 Apr 2006
To: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#20] 28 Apr 2006
If he getting a good nozzle check on all colors, and the printer is printing accurately horizontaly and verticaly in tests that are made for that printer, it could be a software or file issue.....Has he checked more than one image for the problem? Is he sure that the nozzle checks are perfect?
I would really like to see pictures to help get closer to what the problem is...I hope that he shows the tests and the pattern that is being printed so we can get a better idea of what's going on.
In this case I think a picture is worth 1,000,000 words.....
From: gt350ed [#22]
28 Apr 2006
To: RALLYGUY (RALLYGUY1) [#21] 29 Apr 2006
Let me reiterate some things....
1. The printer is a fairly new 1280. The inks are Artainium in MIS spongeless carts. Just 4 days ago, I did a set of logo mugs, interestingly with blended blues. They came out esentially perfect.
2. I switched to another project: FRP name badges. The customer's logo has a darker red background.
3. When I printed the image on Accuplot transfer paper (always used), I noticed that the red background color had tightly spaced horizontal lines. I imprinted it anyway, thinking it might migrate and blend.
4. Although it did blend somewhat, the lines were still faintly visible in the finished product.
5. This caused me to print four (4) rectangles; not six as has been mentioned. The colors were black, magenta, yellow and CYAN.
6. Each of the rectangles were fine EXCEPT for the CYAN. The Cyan had tightly spaced horizontal lines.
7. Specifically, the height of each rectangle is slightly more than 7/8". Within this dimension, there are about 27 horizontal lines.
8. Upon magnified inspection, each line is absolutely straight and equally spaced, one from the other.
9. Also, upon magnifed inspection, each "line" appears to actually be a white (omitted color) and a darker shade of blue abutting each other to make the perceived "line".
My theory is that the reason that logo dark red background has lines is because the blue is mixing with magenta to make the shade of red. Does that make sense?
In any event, I cleaned the bottom of the printhead (I think), I've performed distilled water cleanings through the nozzles, I've cleaned at the docking pad (per Harvey), I've changed the paper thickness lever position, I've changed resolution from 1440 to 720 and I've performed the alignment test (yes, it's a "vertical" test).
My printed nozzle checks are perfect.
Interestingly, when I changed resolution to 720. I started to see these horizontal lines in all 4 color test rectangles. When the resolution is set to 1440, the lines only appear in the CYAN color rectangle.
Show messages: 1-2 3-22 23-42 43-48