Air in Lines Question

[Melissam2505]

I have an SC 545.

I was hoping someone would be nice enough to give me some advice. I recently went out of town and came back to some printing issues. I cleaned all the heads and they were fine.. printing was good.
Then my magenta and light magenta started going out. So I cleaned heads and no improvement.

I did some research here and thought I might have air in my lines so I used the syringe to pull ink. I had air in both lines, the light magenta pulled some air then ink came through. The magenta just pulls air... I cant get any ink. I still pulled air for a while and ran a test print.. both looked great again. I then printed a job which looked good and ran another test print and both colors are going out again.

My question is what should I trouble shoot at this point before I replace cap tops? Does this definitely sound like a cap top issue or could it be something else? I was out of town for a month so the printer didn't run, but it does the automatic cleaning. Can anyone walk me through my next steps? I want to know if there are any other adjustments someone might suggest before I replace parts.

Thank you for any help.
Melissa

 

[rjssigns]

If you have trouble pulling ink with a syringe the cap top is going bad. Or in the case of 3rd party inks your lines may be clogging.(first hand experience, never again)

 

[Melissam2505]

If you have trouble pulling ink with a syringe the cap top is going bad. Or in the case of 3rd party inks your lines may be clogging.(first hand experience, never again)

I am using the Roland Eco-Sol inks. I was wondering if the line was clogged.. but the fact I pulled air.. the test print corrected and then went out again.. I am not sure?

 

[rjssigns]

Maybe a ribbon cable has loosened or a driver board is going out. Other than that I'm out of ideas. Lines will never clog with Roland inks.

 

[Solventinkjet]

If you pulled from the bottom of the cap tops and got air, the air came from the cap not sealing up properly and not from the ink lines. You can tell if there is air in the ink lines just by looking at them. Your dampers should be about half full and usually if there is air in the lines it is near where the dampers connect to the ink line. I would recommend replacing the cap tops and cleaning the bottom of the heads where the cap top comes in contact. That should at least help fix the problem if not completely fix it. If it doesn't, you most likely have an air leak between the damper and the ink line or somewhere eles in the system.

 

[Melissam2505]

If you pulled from the bottom of the cap tops and got air, the air came from the cap not sealing up properly and not from the ink lines. You can tell if there is air in the ink lines just by looking at them. Your dampers should be about half full and usually if there is air in the lines it is near where the dampers connect to the ink line. I would recommend replacing the cap tops and cleaning the bottom of the heads where the cap top comes in contact. That should at least help fix the problem if not completely fix it. If it doesn't, you most likely have an air leak between the damper and the ink line or somewhere eles in the system.

Thank you, I am working on it more today.