intermittent line in edge print.

[CrAkD]

Hey Guys,

I got my gerber edge used about a month ago. printed test prints flawlessly and was printing flawless up until recently. yesterday I noticed a small vertical line in the bottom portion of a print but not all the way through the print. it seems to be getting longer vertically. more so at the beginning of a print. if I print 50 decals the first 10 will have a long line almost all the way though each one but not quite and as it gos the line gets smaller. towards the last few its very small at the bottom of each decal. this is a guess but seems like a line in the print head is getting stuck when its cold but starts to come on the warmer the head gets.....Any suggestions of settings or such on how to fix this? I have cleaned the head with an alcohol wipe a few times hasnt helped much.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Make a box measuring 11.75" tall x 3" wide, fill it with a spot color and save it. Open the job in GSPPlot and print it once as the first thing you do after powering up your Edge. Do this every time you first power up. It serves to get your printhead pins all moving and the entire printhead evenly heated up.

 

[CrAkD]

I guess I can take intermittent out of the subject I just printed 2 of the boxes you suggested single line through both of them same spot.....ugh.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Well the good news is that what you are describing is not likely to be a bad printhead. Blown pixels result in horizontal flaws. Something is the signal to fire from reaching certain printhead pixels intermittently. The most likely cause is a dirty or failing connection. I have not experienced this but I seem to recall the part most often associated with this is the ribbon cable. Before I would order that part and replace it, however, I would first check the grounding strap between the lid and the body of the Edge. Older versions had the common problem of breaking, strand by strand from flexing when the lid is opened and closed. If that is OK, the next thing I would do is to remove the side covers and remake every electrical connection you can see. INSURE THAT YOU UNPLUG THE EDGE BEFORE YOU DO THIS. If the problem persists, then I would order and replace the ribbon cable or call a Gerber distributor for help.

Please let us know if any of these suggestions work for you.

 

[CrAkD]

I went to bed discouraged. today I feel a little better I just fired the edge back up and printed some test prints and its going in and out again. I had a pretty big job to do today so instead of moving the image out of the way i kept it on the that pixel to try and force it to keep printing rather then just let it die. I think the lines are horizontal and i was just thinking vertical cause thats how my images were coming out. you can see the box you suggested i print last night with the pixel dead completely and then the test pattern i just printed and as it went along the pixel came back i just printed 100 decals and towards the end of them the line is only 1/10th of the way through.....