Black Ink not flowing ...

[Morph1]

Mimaki JV3-160 Sp CMYK x 2 config.
One more question,
My printer just stopped printing black the other day,
I had a bad head test print for black so I soaked the head gave it a good clean and wow, no print at all at test swipe.... ????

What I did is gained access to the pumps at the back, the pump thats pushing magenta and black it working there is no leaks however I am not getting any black sucked out onto the discharge container...,
I thought a Line clog, what I did next was gained access to the black and magenta ink tray under the cover on the left , disconnected the black lines one by one, took the line off the head, took a syrenge and squeezed some cleaner through I seen it coming out on the other side by the head... so I know there is no line leak or either blockage....,
I repeated the same thing through the other black line and same thing,
now the lines are clean no inks in them at all, I connected everything back up ran a clean up cycle and I can see the inks are not being sucked ouf out of the ink cartridges... ???? it must be the pump, but how could that be the pump when it sucks the magenta out no problem????
can anyone help out ???? I don't wanna leave the printer in this state over the holiday ....

any help would be appreciated.

thanks
Drew.

 

[tbaker]

First off, your pump is split into 2 sections, one section handles the black, the other section the magenta, so it IS possible for HALF the pump to go bad.

Secondly, being a service tech, I would never recommend a user disconnecting the ink lines and trying to manually flush the system, too much pressure and you can destroy the diaphragm inside the head.

That being said, let's try to get past that.

Step 1. Insure you have ink in both cartridges. I know it sounds simplistic, but trust me, you never know. Even if the chips read full, the carts can be empty.

Step 2.

Carefully remove the dampers and try to syringe ink through the ink lines, after a syringe of air, you should see ink traveling up the lines. Syringe all the air out of the lines until the damper is at least halfway full of ink.

Step 3.

Go to the back of the printer to the pumps, disconnect the pump line above the pumps and manually try to syringe ink through, GENTLY!!!. You should get ink flow through the ink lines, and into the syringe.

If you don't get ink through the lines, then it could be 1 of 2 things, a bad capping station, or a bad head.

Check to see if you can get fluid ( cleaning solution ) to go through the capping station.
If so, the lines are clean, but that doesn't really mean the capping station is good.

Once you have ink flowing, do a nozzle wash, observe to see if the cap station holds cleaning solution, if not, your pump is bad.

 

[Morph1]

thanks for your reply,

The pump is good I checked I ran disway clean and it does hold the inks and it does discharge them, I filled the dampers with clean solution and I could see them fill up, can both dampers go at the same time ???,
The capping station looks in mint condition and the rubber seal looks good as well, I can see the the black lines are clean right from the source left side cartridge bay, I ran ink fill up for black and magenta and no ink is moving, next step I will see if I can pull some in before the dampers with a syringe right through the entire line...
Can that be also an electronic component like that circuit board in the head compartment ????,

thank you for you help.

Drew

 

[tbaker]

It's "possible" for a head's electronics to go bad, but having it go bad immediately following a cleaning is suspect.

I'd suggest bringing ink up to, and completely fill the damper.

Manually syringe ink through the head at the pumps. Be careful when you do this, it's possible to destroy the head by sucking too hard with a syringe.

DX4 heads can become, for lack of a better term, vapor locked, when the dampers are removed, or air has been introduced into the system.

If none of this helps, I'd suggest filling the dampers with ink, connecting them up to the heads ( be careful, remember you can damage the manifold by breaking the nipple on top) Then, tell the machine to do a nozzle wash, fill the caps with solution and then turn off the printer in the back. and call your service tech.

 

[Morph1]

Hey , thanks again,

Well I got the ink all the way 7/8 volume in the dampers,
no I'm soaking the head, will try a test run in a few minutes,
if the head is clogged the dampers would fail to fill - is that right ???
I think I got the inks up to the reasonable level in the dampers, I suspect now the head maybe clogged, see if "head wash" helps....
this printed ran flowless for the past 5 years....
anything else that I can do ????

thanks

 

[tbaker]

first step a nozzle wash

After that it's trying to manually draw in from by the pumps.

 

[Morph1]

hey Tbaker,

Back at the cat this morning,
What do you mean to draw the ink from the pumps,
do I disconnect the pump, hook up a syringe and draw the ink
from dampers through the head and down through the capping station ?

this is gonna be the last thing that I think of , other than that I am lost...,
thank you for all your help,

Cheers,

Drew

 

[tbaker]

Turn off your printer, then unplug, cycle the power button on front a couple times to insure there is no residual current in the system.

go to the back of the machine find the media reel.

unload the media

Move the left media roller to the right

remove the bottom left panel, it's held in place by 2 screws on top, and 2 screws underneath, these are trap screws and only need to be loosened and not removed entirely.

when you look at your pumps, you will see that each pump controls 2 colors, find the black pump, typically it's paired with magenta.

Each pump has 4 tubes coming from it, 2 long drain tubes, 2 short tubes that come from the capping station, disconnect the short black tube, they are normally spliced together with a small metal tube-like fitting.

Afix a syringe to the drain line that comes from the cap station (black)

With the head in the cap position, gently draw ink through the line until you have approx. 10cc of ink in your syringe.

Reconnect the drain line to the pump.

Load a SHEET of media to test.

If you have a good test print, you know that the head is good, if not, then I'd say your head is dead.

If you get a good test print, but the black head drops out, the head isn't the issue, there's a problem with the delivery system some place.

If everything starts working at this point in time, turn off printer, put it all back together reload media and you're set, if not, call your tech.

Good Luck.

 

[artbot]

couple other diagnostic things you can do. first to insure that both sides of your pumps are working properly do a pump tube swap. just cross the lines so the black side of the pump is pumping magenta and vice versa.

if you suddenly can't pump magenta and black flows...yada yada...

also as far a clogs go, you can get a clog at the very top of the pump tube directly beneath the cap. so the lines can look clean but be clogged out of view.

to diagnose if the head is suspect (electronically) do a data swap. i attached a diagram. but please pay close attention to the way it is configured. i don't know how many people do data swaps only to say "oops, hooked it up wrong" and crackle goes your slider board.

and of course the damper swap. but if both sides of black disappeared, i'd figure dampers are not to be looked at. unless you have had the printer down for some time and they may have gummed up causing a secondary issue.

 

[Morph1]

thanks again guys,

well I am pretty much covered in black ink by now !!!!
well I filled the dampers again I dont believe they are leaky, if they were would they leak ink ???, now I was able to pull the dampers out connect a small line onto the syringe and pushed some cleaner through the head....
it does comes out out of the head, then I syringed some black ink and also slowly shot through the head, the head does not appear to be clogged, but who knows, I did ink fill and hooked up the syringe to the black discharge line tried to pull some ink and am not getting any..... , I am gonna try the pump next swapping the black over magenta pump.., is there a way to do this without pump removal or do I have to remove the pump and rerun the line...

thanks

 

[tbaker]

just swap the pump lines. Disconnect the metal fittings above the pump for both lines and run magenta to black and vice versa

 

[signcrafters london]

thanks again guys,

I am gonna try the pump next swapping the black over magenta pump.., is there a way to do this without pump removal or do I have to remove the pump and rerun the line...

The tubing between each cap top and the pump is joined together by a stainless steel union. It sounds like you haven't had these apart, so it may be a PITA to get them loose. The first time I had to deal with this there was very little extra tubing; everything was tight and it was hard to get them loose without damaging a cap. When I replaced my caps I made sure I had plenty of extra tubing to make it easier to work with.

 

[Morph1]

thanks for the help guys,
back after holidays, and back at the cat....,

We had a Tech in today, dampers gpt replaced, pump got replaced, still not filling dampers, he thinks its the capping station... the rubber seals worn out although they look fine ..... again the only ink not flowing is the black, we syringed some ink into the dampers, did the ink fill, got some ink in the dampers, started printing looks not bad, about 75 % of the head swipe test shows positive - currently soaking the heads....

any other thoughts ... anyone ?


thanks.

 

[tbaker]

you can swap dampers magenta/black (just put the black dampers on magenta and vice versa) run a strong clean after that. If the problem persists it's probably cap station, if it follows the black dampers you've got other issues.

 

[Morph1]

dampers are new - replaced today, so is the pump...

 

[Morph1]

thanks a lot to all the good folks that replied,
I got the problem resolved, it was combination of problems .... pump and the docking station...., I learned a lot in the process and I'm very thankful for it.,
the total cost came up to about $800 bucks, I think that's nothing concidering the printer ran for the past 5 years without a problem pretty much every day !!!!

Cheers !!

Drew