Horrible nozzle test after Choke Clean

I have a VS-640 running CMYKx2. Everything was printing fine yesterday until I noticed all of a sudden my colors looked very dull. I did a nozzle test and one of the black cartridges only had 1 nozzle firing. I then did a manual cleaning and got about 60% of the nozzles to fire. Then I did a normal cleaning and ended up with more drop out with back down to about 40% firing. I did some research and arrived at the conclusion that there must be air in the line (the cartridge that wasn't firing had just started giving a low ink warning in Versaworks). My research told me that a Choke Cleaning would purge the system of any air. I ran the choke clean and opened and closed the valves as instructed by the printer and the end result was the horrible nozzle test. I'm assuming something in the Choke Cleaning must have caused the issue but I'm not sure. I've since replaced the ink cartridge, changed all consumables (wiper, felt, cap top) with the same end result test print. Any suggestions on my next step? Consumables were replaced after the Choke Cleaning so could it be possible that one of them may have caused a back Choke Cleaning? I don't have any experience with changing dampers and I don't have any replacements here but would that be something that would cause this? Thanks for any help you can give.

 

3rd party private label “Roland” ink carts from my dealer. Nothing was done but printing (and machine did a cleaning) before we noticed black dropped out. After choke clean is when everything went out. Inks flowing through the head because we replaced the cap top and we can see perfect color lines in the sponge and we also did ink renewal which filled the drain bottle with ink. I’m at least assuming that the ink renewal runs ink through the head. Dampers have never been replaced on the machine. Tech looked at it 2 years ago and said they looked fine. (Printer was 5 years old at the time.)

 

I changed cap top, wipers, felt and ran another choke clean yesterday and the results got worse. Even less nozzles are firing. When we originally purchased the machine, we had a Magenta Roland Cartridge that leaked half the ink out into the inside of the machine. (Still within warranty) The foam inside that end of the machine and the plastic dish soaked most of it up and our dealer at the time told us that the ink spillage should not affect anything and that's what the foam is there for. Unfortunately, I should have pushed to have it cleaned and all components in that end replaced. Is it possible that the ink that leaked in there damaged the choke mechanism and is causing air to enter the system instead of exit the system when we do the choke clean?

My concern is that after the first choke clean, the problem went from one cartridge not firing to all of them having an issue.

I'm going to try the syringe to pull the ink through the cap but I want to run out and get a brake bleeder first since I heard they give you the best seal for pulling the ink.

I have talked to my supplier's tech and they are coming out with a new print head as they say that's the problem. Unfortunately it sounds like they won't be able to get here until the week of 2/24. I also don't understand why the print head would be the issue. It makes sense to me that it's air.

 

No problem. Thanks for your help. I hope they're OEM because I assumed that's what my dealer would use and sell me. Their site doesn't say for sure if it's OEM or not and I don't see the name "Roland" on any of the packaging. I paid about $30 less than what you have your's listed for. When I had the cap top replaced by the tech I bought 2 extras so that I could replace them myself. Ink's the only thing we've ever decided to not use OEM and that even took some persuading for us to switch. When it comes to parts for the printer I would not want to buy anything that wasn't OEM.

 

Looks the same to me. Thank Goodness. I was assuming they wouldn't sell me generic but they aren't the actual dealer I bought my printer from since he retired and they bought him out. So I haven't purchased much other than ink and parts from them.