Head "Starving" of Ink - SP-540v

[John.]

Hey Guys,

I've got an intermittant problem where the ink head appears to 'starve' of ink and start printing nothing. It corrects if I run a head clean or pull ink through once the captops are in place.

Started on the black/cyan head originally, new head cables seemed to have fixed that. But now its moved to the yellow/magenta head - I've replaced those head cables (again) incase they were damaged.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what it could be? Magenta/Yellow head is 6 months old, Black/Cyan is just over a month old.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[rjssigns]

Could be an air leak. Run a fill test and report back.

BTW how does it feel when you pull ink through the cap tops? Lots of resistance? If not then either the cap top isn't sealing or you may have issues on the manifold side. A damper may not be seated correctly or you may have two o-rings on a damper. Not like no ones ever done that.

 

[John.]

... Not like no ones ever done that.

haha, its the only way to learn. I bet you went through 100 other possibilities before you noticed two o-rings .

Dampers are new, captops are seating correctly as it has the same resistance as always when I use a syringe. I replaced the M/Y Head Cables and the problem seems to have been solved now. If it comes back again I think it could be the transistors on the main board - However I'd not expect that to be intermittant as it would either be open or shorting, but intermittant faults with transistoris have happened before.

 

[rjssigns]

haha, its the only way to learn. I bet you went through 100 other possibilities before you noticed two o-rings .

Dampers are new, captops are seating correctly as it has the same resistance as always when I use a syringe. I replaced the M/Y Head Cables and the problem seems to have been solved now. If it comes back again I think it could be the transistors on the main board - However I'd not expect that to be intermittant as it would either be open or shorting, but intermittant faults with transistoris have happened before.

Glad to hear its working again. I learned a lot with my Roland and sometimes I went through a lot of head scratching. Best thing I learned is to go after the easy stuff first.