Have I damaged my print heads? SP300V

[PrintyJ]

Hi all, new to these forums and unfortunatly not a happy first thread.

I have a sp300v which is used for printing stickers. I always print first, laminate then cut. But this morning (without thinking about it :Sleeping I clicked print+cut and left the printer to get on with it. Unfortunately it is setup (blade pressure etc) to cut through vinyl and laminate, but today was cutting just the vinyl because i'd mistakenly clicked print+cut.

This meant that when cutting the vinyl it snagged and pulled the vinyl up into a ridge - which the print head then hit a couple of times. I managed to cancel the job quickly, but the print head must have touched the vinyl 3 or 4 times.

Now when doign a test print I am getting a few missing lines in black/magenta/yellow and almost no cyan at all ( lots of missing lines in the test print). If I try to print and image it is coming out full of lines, and missing any cyan/blue - all very pink and grey.

Ive run a quick headclean and that didnt help at all. Im hoping its nothing more serious, but sinking feeling is that the heads hitting the vinyl will have done some damage.

Im not an absolute newbie to these printers, but I'm far from a pro - what's my best course of action?

Thanks
J

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Head soak, manually clean. 3-4 times shouldn't be the end of the world. But I had never thought of this as another good reason to buy separate machines until now.

 

[InkjetAuction]

Not sure if I understand...

The cut carriage separates from the print carriage when cutting... just to avoid this kind of problem. The print carriage sits safely on the caps when the machine is cutting.

In any case, you describe the vinyl striking the bottom of the printheads. The very first thing that you should do is inspect the bottom of the printheads. Put the machine into Maintenance Cleaning mode and carefully inspect the bottoms of the heads. Use a flashlight and a mirror. Look for scratches and vinyl debris. Carefully remove any vinyl debris. Clean, clean, clean.

Consider taking photos (head bottoms) and nozzle tests. Report your findings.


~E

 

[PrintyJ]

Not sure if I understand...

The cut carriage separates from the print carriage when cutting... just to avoid this kind of problem. The print carriage sits safely on the caps when the machine is cutting.

In any case, you describe the vinyl striking the bottom of the printheads. The very first thing that you should do is inspect the bottom of the printheads. Put the machine into Maintenance Cleaning mode and carefully inspect the bottoms of the heads. Use a flashlight and a mirror. Look for scratches and vinyl debris. Carefully remove any vinyl debris. Clean, clean, clean.

Consider taking photos (head bottoms) and nozzle tests. Report your findings.


~E

Hi, I wasn't actually aware the carriages seperated between printing/cutting. I know the carriage hit the vinyl while cutting and now the printer is struggling to print cyan/all colours so I just assumed that was the cause of the problem. I will have a good look at the heads tomorrow and post some pics up.

 

[PrintyJ]

Right got some pictures,

Heres a test print directly after I noticed the problem yesterday:

I then did a head clean and manually cleaned the heads this morning with cleaning fluid/swab and did another test print = only change was the yellow test appears to be more orangey?

Heres a pic showing what the picture I was printing should look like (top/dark green) against how it now prints (bottom/yellow colour): BOTH COLOURS SHOULD BE THE SAME DARKER GREEN.

Heres a pic showing how a block of (what should be) dark blue is coming out - very faint/full of lines and white spaces:

I cleaned the heads then did the test print above, then brough the printheads back to the maintenance panel to take pics and they were dripping with ink again: (all these pics were taken AFTER I had cleaned the heads and then run a print check):

If whats been said above is correct then theres no way the printheads could have hit the vinyl while it was being cut - then is this problem just co-incedence, or ?????

Thanks for your help
J

 

[guillermo]

there is ink in the fee lines?
usually that is a problem when there is no more ink, or the feed lines sucked in air, you will need to remove the dampers from the print head and with a syringe pull the ink from each until you get the ink in the syringe, place the damper back in the print heads and do 2 medium cleans and you should be fine.
Another problem that causes this is when the print heads does not sit properly in the cap tops, they are a little off and when the pump is working all that is doing is sucking air, you need to do is look at the print heads when they go back to the cap top station and pay attention when the cap tops go up, they should line up with the print heads (centered) if they are not, more likely that is your problem, I had that problem before and you need reset the setting of the print heads with the cap tops, unfortunately I did not write down the sequence of the arrow keys to enter that mode, but maybe some one in here has it.

good luck, and let us know what was the problem and the solution.

 

[Motoskins829]

For future people looking at this posting...looking at the printheads in this photo they are very dirty...you should be doing a manual cleaning every few weeks where your cleaning the ink off of the edges of the printheads...if you keep your printer in tip top shape it will last much longer