Question help with mutoh 1204

[Don Mills]

I'm having a problem with my printer first my black disappeared and talking to a service person they told me I needed a maintenance station so I bought one and installed it then all my ink went away so back to the tech people and they tell me must be a dirty print head/ etc so I took everything apart and made sure everything was super clean with no results so now back to tech people they say maybe my new maintenance station is no good so I took the slider out of the new one and put it in my old maintenance station as I was only 1 color short with my old one well still no results my lines are now empty with all the messing around I done several cleanings along with a little charge no results at this point I'm lost I have done everything I can think of and I'm out of ideas. obviously I'm sucking air somewhere but where? I have also installed new ink cartridges way back in this project. HELP

 

[thezigman]

there are 4 check valves located at the back of the machine. they activate when you remove an ink cartridge.
On my 1324 they stuck closed. preventing any ink from reaching the print head. the onsite tech had to call a tech hotline to find out about them...
the 4 valves are activated by a single solenoid, which could also be a failure point of all 4 colors are shut off

 

[RG]

I also have a 1204. I don't think a 1204 has the 4 check valves that thezigman talked about. First, did you unplug the printer, press on and off the power button a few times and wait 15 minutes before you installed the new maintenance station? You should always do that. Second, could you see ink being sucked through either maintenance station? If you are still using the waste ink tray, put a new, clean piece of paper town in it where the ink drains into it. If there is ink on it after a cleaning then the MS is sucking ink. ( A waste ink bottle is a much quicker and easier way to see this.) You could have blown a head fuse. Search this forum--there are pictures here of where the fuses are located. Test the fuse. Third, did you completely remove the print head? If so, when you put it back in, you might not have seated it properly. The print head has to be parallel to the platen. If it's not parallel to the platen, then it won't seat properly on the MS. Move the head away from the MS and measure the right and left side of the head to see if both sides are equal distance from the platen. Lastly, is there ample ink in each cartridge. You can't trust the ink total that your printer gives you. And sometimes the "empty" tab doesn't pop out of the ink cartridge. More than once I've completely lost a certain color. The printer would say that the missing color has 30% left in the cartridge and the tab wouldn't have popped out and I'd pull out the cartridge to find that it was bone dry.

 

[Don Mills]

there are 4 check valves located at the back of the machine. they activate when you remove an ink cartridge.
On my 1324 they stuck closed. preventing any ink from reaching the print head. the onsite tech had to call a tech hotline to find out about them...
the 4 valves are activated by a single solenoid, which could also be a failure point of all 4 colors are shut off

Thank you for your response and I will check into this. Don Mills

 

[Don Mills]

I also have a 1204. I don't think a 1204 has the 4 check valves that thezigman talked about. First, did you unplug the printer, press on and off the power button a few times and wait 15 minutes before you installed the new maintenance station? You should always do that. Second, could you see ink being sucked through either maintenance station? If you are still using the waste ink tray, put a new, clean piece of paper town in it where the ink drains into it. If there is ink on it after a cleaning then the MS is sucking ink. ( A waste ink bottle is a much quicker and easier way to see this.) You could have blown a head fuse. Search this forum--there are pictures here of where the fuses are located. Test the fuse. Third, did you completely remove the print head? If so, when you put it back in, you might not have seated it properly. The print head has to be parallel to the platen. If it's not parallel to the platen, then it won't seat properly on the MS. Move the head away from the MS and measure the right and left side of the head to see if both sides are equal distance from the platen. Lastly, is there ample ink in each cartridge. You can't trust the ink total that your printer gives you. And sometimes the "empty" tab doesn't pop out of the ink cartridge. More than once I've completely lost a certain color. The printer would say that the missing color has 30% left in the cartridge and the tab wouldn't have popped out and I'd pull out the cartridge to find that it was bone dry.

Thank You for your input there are some items I need to check out as far as Ink goes I installed brand new ones 5 days ago. Thank you Don Mills