Losing Printheads left and right.

[MMPLarge Format]

I have an HP Latex 360 and have recently been having printheads consistently fail on me. It's never the same consistent print head though. Sometimes its Magenta/Yellow, sometimes if LC/LM, and sometimes its Black/Cyan. I haven't detected any kind of pattern other than it always shows itself through banding in the print. This is the fifth printhead I've lost in the past three months and they were all under warranty. Any thoughts as to what could be causing this? I've cleaned my encoder strip more times than I care to mention.

 

[netsol]

With all the OTHER print head technologies I AM FAMILIAR WITH, it is always worth considering power supply issues. I am not referring with line voltage coming into the machine, (HP has an absolute fetish about that, there should be a medication we could give them) i am referring to poor regulation or filtering on regulated secondary power supply voltages. This sort of problem often causes the heads to operate OUTSIDE of optimal temperature range, shortening their life.

This is particularly troublesome with gerber edge thermal printheads (and zebra heads) but this type of problem beats the hell out of epson, roland and many other brands. If it were up to me (of course it isn't) more techs would carry an oscilloscope and do more than a DVM check on service calls.

If you have access to a different machine, of the same series, it might be interesting to use a non contact thermometer to compare surface temperature of your printhead, while printing, to another unit.

Just my 2 cents

 

[Grafix]

We were having this issue with the L700 ad it wasn't the print head at all. We got in out tech-spert and he advised us to do a manual calibration and suddenly awesome prints! Spent $1500 on replacing printheads that I probably didn't need to

 

[balstestrat]

How much do you print? If you had many of them under warranty for months, it sounds like you don't print too much.
Last time you replaced the ink cartridges?

Other than that I can only suspect the carriage PCA or trailing cable to give them some sort of faulty signal and break them.

Don't clean that encoder strip too much. You will just end up scratching it more than cleaning it.
It really only needs cleaning... almost never. Maybe once a year is good.

 

[MMPLarge Format]

balstestrat I use the printer every day and am printing for a good majority of the day. Those printheads that were still under warranty are printheads that replaced previously bad printheads.
Grafix I will give the manual calibration a try and see if that changes anything.
netsol Unfortunately I do not have access to another printer. The 360 is our only digital large format printer (we also have a Xante X-33 direct to substrate UV printer). I am also not sure how i would be able to check the temperature of the printheads as its printing as I do not have any access to or visibility of the printheads while it is printing.

Thank you guys for the input!

 

[rjssigns]

With all the OTHER print head technologies I AM FAMILIAR WITH, it is always worth considering power supply issues. I am not referring with line voltage coming into the machine, (HP has an absolute fetish about that, there should be a medication we could give them) i am referring to poor regulation or filtering on regulated secondary power supply voltages. This sort of problem often causes the heads to operate OUTSIDE of optimal temperature range, shortening their life.

This is particularly troublesome with gerber edge thermal printheads (and zebra heads) but this type of problem beats the hell out of epson, roland and many other brands. If it were up to me (of course it isn't) more techs would carry an oscilloscope and do more than a DVM check on service calls.

If you have access to a different machine, of the same series, it might be interesting to use a non contact thermometer to compare surface temperature of your printhead, while printing, to another unit.

Just my 2 cents

My Roland was plugged into a line voltage conditioner. My new Mutoh has a similar unit that also protects from spikes and lightning. Even the ether cable runs through it to completely isolate the printer.

 

[netsol]

rjssigns
i really love the line conditioners that ricoh used to require with their copier installs.
i tried to use a HUGE battery backup but the sine wave distorts under load & you can hear the UPS squeal
i can show you a video of what my scope shows when that happens so, unless you want to spend $3-$4K for a battery backup they are less than worthless
you are right on the money as far as saving your device.
a REALLY OVERSIZED battery backup or a REALLY GOOD EXPENSIVE GENERATOR will protect your equipment & in theory save the job that is printing.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Did you possibly check the maintenance kit? does it need to be replaced? I started having print head problems and it turned out the maintenance kit was full and was making the print heads dirty.

 

[Grafix]

balstestrat I use the printer every day and am printing for a good majority of the day. Those printheads that were still under warranty are printheads that replaced previously bad printheads.
Grafix I will give the manual calibration a try and see if that changes anything.
netsol Unfortunately I do not have access to another printer. The 360 is our only digital large format printer (we also have a Xante X-33 direct to substrate UV printer). I am also not sure how i would be able to check the temperature of the printheads as its printing as I do not have any access to or visibility of the printheads while it is printing.

Thank you guys for the input!

We loaded our most commonly used media. Under 'Image Quality" menu down the bottom is an option 'Manual PrintHead Alignment' It prints a plot and you can do the alignment via the scale shown.

 

[Meticulous Prints]

I have an HP Latex 360 and have recently been having printheads consistently fail on me. It's never the same consistent print head though. Sometimes its Magenta/Yellow, sometimes if LC/LM, and sometimes its Black/Cyan. I haven't detected any kind of pattern other than it always shows itself through banding in the print. This is the fifth printhead I've lost in the past three months and they were all under warranty. Any thoughts as to what could be causing this? I've cleaned my encoder strip more times than I care to mention.

Well I think that's why HP makes the only a couple hundred dollars compared to a $2,500 print head. I love the quality of latex but sure has alot of issues.