Need Help Did I ruin my Roland SP-540v printheads?

[ZissouNW]

Hi All, forgive my cluelessness here...

I just bought my first solvent printer, an old SP540v and think I made a big mistake in taking out the carts while transporting it home on a crazy-hot day a week back. Before buying it (about an hour away) I saw it print and it had a good nozzle check. I agreed to buy and we put it in my mini-van, which has just a tad over 8' of bed length with all the seats out. The way it's set up I couldn't really fit it in without taking out the carts and so I took them out. Oh, the torment of hindsight

I've been running aqueous printers for years and those can be safely left out a while but I'm realizing this is not the case for an eco solvent unit! I'm still waiting on a copy of Versaworks coming this week but in the meantime I've done all the basic cleaning and my nozzle check went from bad to not much of anything pretty quickly. I've tried a few cleaning cycles and another manual cleaning of the heads, capping stations and wipers but there's no improvement and I'm getting nervous. I noticed tonight that it looks like the ink lines are empty.

I wanted to do a head soak but the brass tool thing that comes with the printer to drop the capping station wasn't included. Does anyone happen to know where I can get one?

Can anyone tell me the best way to proceed? Did I kill my new (old) printer?

Thanks in advance for any advice! And yes, I realize those were the actions of a moron
Help!
Justin

 

[ams]

Taking the carts out should not affect it for one hour.

 

[Tizz]

Sounds like you've got air in your lines.
I would personally draw ink from each damper untill you get the air our of the lines. Then draw the ink again from both captops (obviously with the heads parked in the capping stations), draw gently. Ink will flow through the heads removing any traces of air.
Then run a clean and nozzle test afterwards.

I did the same thing when I transported mine.

Hope this helps!

 

[greysquirrel]

save yourself the headache...call a local tech to come out. You bought the printer used and should have saved a few bucks. They should have versa works on a thumb drive if they are any good..

 

[Ray Casiano]

This happens often during transportation of a ROLAND machine. Pull ink with a syringe from under the caps.. find the caps and pull from the line. Don't pull from the dampers EVER.
that is a very old printer so hopefully it wasn't on its last straw when this happen.

 

[Jim Hancock]

If you have air in the ink lines, you want to pull from the dampers absolutely, not the caps. To draw ink through the lines requires too much suction and time to pull through the heads and you will probably damage the heads in the process. Now if there is no air in the lines and you are trying to "charge" the heads with ink, then pull through the caps, but very slowly and gently. There are possibly several reasons for your nozzle test going bad, the primary one being misalignment of the heads and the caps. Do you have a service manual for this printer?

 

[ZissouNW]

If you have air in the ink lines, you want to pull from the dampers absolutely, not the caps. To draw ink through the lines requires too much suction and time to pull through the heads and you will probably damage the heads in the process. Now if there is no air in the lines and you are trying to "charge" the heads with ink, then pull through the caps, but very slowly and gently. There are possibly several reasons for your nozzle test going bad, the primary one being misalignment of the heads and the caps. Do you have a service manual for this printer?

Hi Jim, I managed to get a good test print after figuring out how to do a powerful cleaning, what a relief! Just received the versaworks software today so I'll finally get to try printing something with it.
No, I don't have the service manual but would love to find it. Do you happen to know where I can find the tool that drops the caps?
Thanks much for the help!
Justin

 

[ZissouNW]

This happens often during transportation of a ROLAND machine. Pull ink with a syringe from under the caps.. find the caps and pull from the line. Don't pull from the dampers EVER.
that is a very old printer so hopefully it wasn't on its last straw when this happen.

Thanks, Ray--much appreciated.
Justin

 

[ZissouNW]

save yourself the headache...call a local tech to come out. You bought the printer used and should have saved a few bucks. They should have versa works on a thumb drive if they are any good..

Thanks for the suggestion, I might eventually do that but did manage to get the heads printing a good test after a powerful cleaning cycle. I appreciate the help!
Justin

 

[ZissouNW]

Sounds like you've got air in your lines.
I would personally draw ink from each damper untill you get the air our of the lines. Then draw the ink again from both captops (obviously with the heads parked in the capping stations), draw gently. Ink will flow through the heads removing any traces of air.
Then run a clean and nozzle test afterwards.

I did the same thing when I transported mine.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the help! I ended up doing a powerful cleaning and this seemed to clear up the problem. I'm sure this advice will help in the future though--much appreciated!
Justin

 

[ZissouNW]

Taking the carts out should not affect it for one hour.

It was a relief to read this--happy to say you were right! A powerful cleaning got me back to a good test print. Thank you!
Justin

 

[Jim Hancock]

Justin,
Send your email to the email in my signature line and I will get you the manual you need...