Fuji Acuity Problem

[mbartels]

I have a Fuji Acuity Select— It's about 6 years old. I was running a job yesterday & got an ink system error; the two white bags read empty on the computer.

There is ink in the bags & they are not expired— we don't print white.

We swapped RFID Boards & the issue stayed with the white.

Has anyone else had this issue?

We have new white bags on order— The only other thing I suspect is the main board which is not available for 6-weeks.

 

[AlsEU]

It may be the faulty RFID PBA, lack of power there, any of the cables connecting the RFID PBA with the ink control PBA or the ink control PBA itself (located in the ink box, under the table vacuum valves, it has three yellow air tubes - meniscus, purge, degas - connected to the pressure sensors). When you swapped RFID boards, have you noticed the LED being lit on? If you have power on both RFID boards, I would say that either the data cable or ink control PBA is suspected.
If you have 8 channels, what about the other colours located in the right ink box? Are they ok?
Are there any errors except the ink pouch empty message?

 

[mbartels]

We did run new network cables between the RFID & Ink Bay Board & that didn't change anything. Also checked for a short in the power connector & didn't find anything .

No other errors aside form the "Empty" bag status in both white channels. All of the other colors / bags read completely normal.

I'm not sure what you mean by PBA— This may be what I'm calling the "ink bay board" as it has lines for meniscus, purge & degas. Lines are clear on my machine. My original post I called it the "main board"— Didn't know what it was called at the time.

 

[AlsEU]

PBA is an abbreviation for the Printed Circuit Board Assembled, Oce/Canon uses this in their manuals. So PBA is an electronic board.
You could try another test - connect the ink pouch with another colour to one of the W channels. The firmware should recognize the colour and give you the warning, that the wrong colour is connected. That would confirm that the RFID board itself works properly.
Anyway, I would say that the first suspect for me is the ink control board (the one with air tubes connected). Could you take a look on the board and search for the LEDs:
- V5 (blinks when the FPGA is running)
- V6 (turns on green when the configuration is done)
- V60 (monitors 12V PBA logic, turns on when it's >approx. 8V. This voltage is supplied by the ATX power supply or created onboard from 24V DC input)
- V65 (turns on when a fault within FET output is detected)
- V69 (monitors 24 V input voltage, turns on when it's >approx. 17V)
- V72 (monitors 12 V DC input voltage, turns on when it's >approx. 8V)
- V73 (general purpose green LED under FPGAware control)

Check how these LEDs works in your printer.

 

[ToTo]

You just have an ink pump problem or main ink filter is blocked. Or recirculation valve is not working. Machine doesn’t know ink amount. If pump is running certain time and reservoir isn’t filled software reports end of ink

 

[ToTo]

Check for carbon debris under white ink pump. This means that brushes are gone. Replace pump with new brushless type

 

[AlsEU]

You just have an ink pump problem or main ink filter is blocked. Or recirculation valve is not working. Machine doesn’t know ink amount. If pump is running certain time and reservoir isn’t filled software reports end of ink

And the same problem is in two separate channels? At the same time? I don't believe that.

 

[ToTo]

In the ink window you can only see if reservoir is filled. OOI pops up if machine is applying power to recirc valve and pump (ink fill) but reservoir isn’t changing its filled-status after a while. Anything else doesn’t make sense in a logical way.

 

[AlsEU]

In the ink window you can only see if reservoir is filled. OOI pops up if machine is applying power to recirc valve and pump (ink fill) but reservoir isn’t changing its filled-status after a while. Anything else doesn’t make sense in a logical way.

And the same problem happened in two separate channels? There are two pumps, two recirculation valves, two reservoirs and two ink level sensors. If both channels are empty (according to the firmware), I would say that reading is wrong, otherwise, two separate parts would have to be broken simultaneously.

 

[mbartels]

Just in case anyone else has this issue— The two new white ink bags did the trick.

The ink was not expired & was not empty, however the machine said empty. Maybe it has something to do with pump cycles/requests idk—