cyan drop out plague

[artbot]

For the last few days we’ve been having cyan drop out. It prints fine for a few hours then it won’t print for two feet until we get
all kinds of dropout. It seems to get better with a pause/head clean but we have a non-functioning printer because it’s so bad.



I thought I figured it out by super purging the head (head raised so that I could see all the bubbles disappear (we do have this one cyan
head getting air). We’ve replaced the filter and all the lines coming down from the cleaning bulkhead. But I think I have two different
Cyan issues. One electronic, the other maybe clogging/air/heat dropout?


One thing I noticed the other day when I was babysitting the printer to get an order out was this ink dropping on the printer from the cyan
head (a few tiny hits from the magenta as well). I’ve seen versions of this when I hit “stop” and on the way back the printer will electronically
sprits the print on the way home. i've attached a photo of this issue.

also attached is an illustration of an odd test pattern immediately after at dropout. it's very intermittent. ...not natural or random like air or clogging.
to me it looks like data.

i'm going to do a proper data swap to see if i can get the magenta to drop out the same way from data.

i'd love to here some feedback on if anyone recognizes these to attachments and "telling" of a certain issue.

i'm assuming that most likely i need a new cyan head. i'll be pretty much sure of that is the case by the end of the day.

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[artbot]

maybe this thread is in vain? maybe it will help someone out seeing the same anomaly. i did a data swap and the same odd on/off (but less so) pattern appeared after the printer was booted
back up from the cyan head running magenta data during a test print. so, we are rotating a cyan head (usually print from the front bank of heads because we print white under almost everything.

does anyone know of a good source for a km512?

aa

 

[Z SIGNS]

They are great machines when they they behave properly.
Sounds like data if the problem travels from head to head.
Wish I could help you but I can't.
But I wanted to thank you for all your posts
I've kept my machines running and become an almost printer tech reading them.
If anyone on this forum can figure this out it's you.
Please keep us posted.

 

[SightLine]

Make sure you get the right part number Alan. There are multiple part numbers for the Konica KM512 print head.... it's the 3 letters after KM512 that make the difference.


http://www.industrialij.com/pages/downloads/Printheads_3_0508.pdf

Those are some spendy heads! Not really any cheaper than the good old Epson heads I'm used to.

On the second page on Google though it looks like one of our merchant members, Fieldcenter does sell them and has 3 of the 512 types.

http://www.fieldcenterusa.com/konica-printhead/


"Printheadsite" dot come also shows them for stupidly cheap, as well as DX5 heads. Not too sure I trust that place. Prices like that are generally too good to be true for a reason.... I mean cmon' a new solvent DX5 head for $256.90 lol. I cannot find any reviews on them. Their domain is registered through an Australian registrar, hosted in the USA, and their about me page indicates they are based out of a province near Borneo in Indonesia.

 

[artbot]

fixed! exotic theory too.

well, my last mention of needing a new head was incorrect. i did the data swap incorrectly by switching the cables at the head board. this of course did move magenta data to the cyan head. and they cyan head did still do the weird pattern. and the cyan data did print fine at the magenta head. but!!! it still left in place the cyan data cable connected to the cyan head at the base (head end). now we move the cyan head and we then get the same issue showing up on the rotated head. ...obviously something's up. we figured we isolated the issue to the cyan head and away from a data issue. so it would be impossible for a different cyan head to display the same behavior. except for the fact that i did the test with they old cyan data cable still attached at the head. oops. i even mentioned not to do this to the printer operator then did it myself. but still the air... hmmmmm?

so here's my theory. i've got inter-related data/ink starvation issues.

i believe that this on off jets all the way across the head... CAUSED BY A BAD DATA CABLE, can cause a venturi effect inside the head. you'd have one row of jets firing. and the adjacent row not firing. this would create a pressure see-saw inside the head and the weight of the ink being unbalanced. and the firing heads would then begin to pull ink out of the nonfiring rows at the top of the inlet. this would then draw in air into the non firing rows from the BOTTOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ...!

we now have a new data cable (stolen from varnish) and printed an 8' x 4' block of solid CMYK bars and not a peep. we believe the ink "pooping" on the acrylic could still be the data cable issue, or maybe less likely static (because we've seen less intense versions of this with cmy and k occasionally)

 

[artbot]

!!!

 

[MikePro]

wow, trippy
grats on the fix! i'da gone bonkers for sure, but most likely lucked-out by just replacing data cables and forever not knowing exactly why it started working again

 

[Ben Bramwell]

Make sure you get the right part number Alan. There are multiple part numbers for the Konica KM512 print head.... it's the 3 letters after KM512 that make the difference.


http://www.industrialij.com/pages/downloads/Printheads_3_0508.pdf

Those are some spendy heads! Not really any cheaper than the good old Epson heads I'm used to.

On the second page on Google though it looks like one of our merchant members, Fieldcenter does sell them and has 3 of the 512 types.

http://www.fieldcenterusa.com/konica-printhead/


"Printheadsite" dot come also shows them for stupidly cheap, as well as DX5 heads. Not too sure I trust that place. Prices like that are generally too good to be true for a reason.... I mean cmon' a new solvent DX5 head for $256.90 lol. I cannot find any reviews on them. Their domain is registered through an Australian registrar, hosted in the USA, and their about me page indicates they are based out of a province near Borneo in Indonesia.

Make sure you get the right part number Alan. There are multiple part numbers for the Konica KM512 print head.... it's the 3 letters after KM512 that make the difference.


http://www.industrialij.com/pages/downloads/Printheads_3_0508.pdf

Those are some spendy heads! Not really any cheaper than the good old Epson heads I'm used to.

On the second page on Google though it looks like one of our merchant members, Fieldcenter does sell them and has 3 of the 512 types.

http://www.fieldcenterusa.com/konica-printhead/


"Printheadsite" dot come also shows them for stupidly cheap, as well as DX5 heads. Not too sure I trust that place. Prices like that are generally too good to be true for a reason.... I mean cmon' a new solvent DX5 head for $256.90 lol. I cannot find any reviews on them. Their domain is registered through an Australian registrar, hosted in the USA, and their about me page indicates they are based out of a province near Borneo in Indonesia.

DON'T but from Printheadsite, or any Indo supplier, all scams, only purchase with PAYPAL or alike service so you have a leg to stand on.

 

[Ben Bramwell]

fixed! exotic theory too.

well, my last mention of needing a new head was incorrect. i did the data swap incorrectly by switching the cables at the head board. this of course did move magenta data to the cyan head. and they cyan head did still do the weird pattern. and the cyan data did print fine at the magenta head. but!!! it still left in place the cyan data cable connected to the cyan head at the base (head end). now we move the cyan head and we then get the same issue showing up on the rotated head. ...obviously something's up. we figured we isolated the issue to the cyan head and away from a data issue. so it would be impossible for a different cyan head to display the same behavior. except for the fact that i did the test with they old cyan data cable still attached at the head. oops. i even mentioned not to do this to the printer operator then did it myself. but still the air... hmmmmm?

so here's my theory. i've got inter-related data/ink starvation issues.

i believe that this on off jets all the way across the head... CAUSED BY A BAD DATA CABLE, can cause a venturi effect inside the head. you'd have one row of jets firing. and the adjacent row not firing. this would create a pressure see-saw inside the head and the weight of the ink being unbalanced. and the firing heads would then begin to pull ink out of the nonfiring rows at the top of the inlet. this would then draw in air into the non firing rows from the BOTTOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ...!

we now have a new data cable (stolen from varnish) and printed an 8' x 4' block of solid CMYK bars and not a peep. we believe the ink "pooping" on the acrylic could still be the data cable issue, or maybe less likely static (because we've seen less intense versions of this with cmy and k occasionally)

Ok I have the same issue with Cyan, I have tried, all filters, changed heads (recovered head), flush etc. so cable is one of the last things too check, I'll let you know ho I go.

 

[FireSprint.com]

I am sorry I didn't see this sooner, but yes we have had similar issues and it tends to be a data issue.

I used a toothbrush and electronic parts cleaner to literally scrub the contacts of the print head and the data cable. In the end, this solved our issue. It wasn't actually a bad data cable but a bad connection. Putting a new data cable on would temporarily fix the issue until it didn't. That's when a good deep cleaning helped.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/CRC-5103-Quick-Dry-Electronic-Cleaner-11-Wt-Oz/16817418

 

[Ben Bramwell]

so changed out the ribbon cables and cleaned scrub all the terminals/connects, unfortunately no joy. ..... So when i purge the inks, all shot fine, perfect but the cyans (cyan lite) puerge ok but not to the volume of the others?Cyan is also the color that drops off during print. any ideas?

 

[FireSprint.com]

If you disconnect the ribbon cable, and reconnect it,does the problem change a bit, like different nozzles drop out? Maybe cycle through a few times. If that happens, then scrub the contacts more. We really had to scrub them alot to make this problem go away on our old Jetrix.

Otherwise, your mission in trouble shooting is to swap out one part at a time until you can get the problem to move predictably. Then you know where it is. Swap the data cables between the Cyan and Magenta. Does that move the issue to the Magenta head? If it does, then you know it's the cables. Move all the way up the line until you find the issue or realize it's the printhead itself. Good luck!