Magenta Overspray ? Mimaki JV150-160

[Murray]

Mimaki JV150-160 Printer running ES3 Ink. Recently I have been experiencing Magenta overspray on my prints. Have performed numerous head cleanings, performed numerous Disway wash, Nozzle washes and so on. Print test look perfect. I have attached an example of what I've been getting.

Many Thanks

Murray

 

[balstestrat]

How's your Caps and Wiper? Ever replaced those?
Is the bottom of carriage cleaned? Around the heads as well.

 

[Murray]

Thanks for your reply Balstestrat!
Our cap and wiper appear to be pristine. The printer is only 16 months old (warranty is expired at 12 months). There is just over 7000 feet printed since we installed it in Sept. 2019

 

[balstestrat]

You have it a lot or just sometimes?
Could be static electricity.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I'd make sure your print room is within the environmental specs. This time of year humidity tends to drop and can cause similar issues.

 

[Murray]

How's your Caps and Wiper? Ever replaced those?
Is the bottom of carriage cleaned? Around the heads as well.

Capping Station is clean and in good shape same as wiper blade, and Head is clean as a whistle.
Only happens with Magenta no other colours

 

[bil]

Hello;

First Try to change your print profile on this media, and check if you have the same problem with other medias.

 

[chris z]

check your pinch roller and clean it. i had similar marks and it was the pinch roller.

 

[Jim Hancock]

What you are seeing is either static induced or the magenta channel starting to fail. What is your head height? Put it in the lowest position and see if it goes away or gets better. As was asked above, does it happen on more than one media? Does it get better if you slow down the head speed?

 

[Haw]

Mimaki JV150-160 Printer running ES3 Ink. Recently I have been experiencing Magenta overspray on my prints. Have performed numerous head cleanings, performed numerous Disway wash, Nozzle washes and so on. Print test look perfect. I have attached an example of what I've been getting.

Many Thanks

Murray

I had a very similar issue just this week from my China dx5 printer. Everything was fine until a week ago. All tests are ok except that I have an overspray of cyan. I had the technician come over and after checking everything, he cleaned the ink line (drain the ink from the ink line, flush it with cleaning solution, and let cyan flow back again). Everything was ok after that. You can try that too as it is a bit easy to do.

 

[PJ758]

Have a cjv150-130 recently showing signs of overspray printer is 1yr and half old.... haven't changed dampers ...recently changed capping station and pump... need some help

 

[Neil]

Have a cjv150-130 recently showing signs of overspray printer is 1yr and half old.... haven't changed dampers ...recently changed capping station and pump... need some help

Did you get a solution? What happened?

I have a CJV30 and I'm getting the exact same overspray pattern as shown in Murray's fist pic. On the capping station side of the Y axis, mostly along the right hand edge of the vinyl. Also some mini overspray like a halo all around the other 3 sides of printed color. It's the Cyan for me.

Actually, looking at it again now, it's mostly visible where the pinch rollers are, as someone mentioned above.
I think that, because it's a fine mist overspray, it probably just gets attracted to the roller tracks more easily.

It started happening a couple of weeks ago, and got worse. Only when I print blue.
The test print is fine, no problems and no different to normal.
I have a spare DX5 printhead so I put that in. Got 100% nozzle check, lined everything up.
Then as I was creating a new profile doing some test printing I notice it's happening with this new head too!
Although, not as bad, yet.

So, the good news is it's not the head. The bad news is I don't know what it is. Yet.

I'll swap the Cyan dampers next. Then I can swap the 2 ribbon cables to the head.
Then after that I can get the test points checked to see if it's something electrical.

Will keep you posted if I find anything.
In the meantime, any answers or suggestions would be helpful.

 

[Neil]

Well it's not the dampers.
Swapped out the 2 Cyan ones and still get exactly the same misting/halo blue overspray around anything with cyan in it.

Well actually, not everything. Here's where it gets weird.

I can print a swatch 100% cyan and if I turn off the input profile in the rip, it prints without any overspray.
Anything with the input profiles on (any blend of CMYK blue color) it will overspray cyan.
Even RGB blue color swatches - if I turn off the RGB input profile it prints fine, turn it on and it mists cyan around the edges.

I tried this with 2 rips, both the same result.

 

[Neil]

Did a damper/channel swap. Swapped the cyan channels for the black.
(Plugged the cyan dampers into the black nipples on the head, and vice versa)

Confirmed the problem is with the cyan ink, not the head or electrical.

Printed swatches of 100% cyan (with input profiles on, to enable the misting) which printed with the black ink through the cyan channels in the head.
No overspray.

Printed swatches of 100% black (with input profiles on, to enable the misting) which printed with the cyan ink through the black channels in the head.
Got cyan ink overspray.

So, it's probably a bad batch of cyan ink. I've never had trouble with this ink in the 10 years or so I've been using it.
I just started on a new batch. It's Jetbest comes in 500ml plastic bottles. These are dated December 2020, so nearly a year old, but that's never been an issue before.
I'll try contacting the supplier and see if they have had similar issues, and see what they say...

 

[Neil]

Update: I spoke with the tech from the company I buy the ink from (Jetbest, here in Australia).
I have some newer ink here, so he suggested I open the cart valve and syringe some new ink into the cyan damper/lines, then print with that. I did that and sure enough the overspray went away.
That proves it was the ink all along. I printed some more things with a lot of blue today and the overspray has now returned because it's back to using the old ink.
They have collected the remaining ink bottle from the same batch for "testing".

 

[zapacituk]

Update: I spoke with the tech from the company I buy the ink from (Jetbest, here in Australia).
I have some newer ink here, so he suggested I open the cart valve and syringe some new ink into the cyan damper/lines, then print with that. I did that and sure enough the overspray went away.
That proves it was the ink all along. I printed some more things with a lot of blue today and the overspray has now returned because it's back to using the old ink.
They have collected the remaining ink bottle from the same batch for "testing".

hi Neil, did you changed the ink ?, this is happening to me, new dampers, good condition cap, all good, i did suspected the ink, but wasn't sure.

 

[Neil]

hi Neil, did you changed the ink ?, this is happening to me, new dampers, good condition cap, all good, i did suspected the ink, but wasn't sure.

Yes, I emptied the remaining ink from the cart and put a new (more recent dated) 500ml bottle on.
The overspraying stopped once the new ink came through.

Still yet to hear any confirmation from the Jetbest dealer.
I would hope they would let me know if they heard of this happening elsewhere with certain batches.

 

[zapacituk]

Yes, I emptied the remaining ink from the cart and put a new (more recent dated) 500ml bottle on.
The overspraying stopped once the new ink came through.

Still yet to hear any confirmation from the Jetbest dealer.
I would hope they would let me know if they heard of this happening elsewhere with certain batches.

thank you so much for fast reply, the overspray started close to when i've changed to a new bag of ES3 ink of magenta, and it was busting my brains why, probably tha's why i have problems with the printhead, at left magenta some nozzles are acting funny, in the morning the nozzle test prints alright, and afternoon i'm missing half of channels, i let it soak for an hour, comes back, than bam again, cleaning some times does the work, but i saw only in soft one, if i try hard or ultra, goes worse.

Kind regards
Al

 

[Neil]

thank you so much for fast reply, the overspray started close to when i've changed to a new bag of ES3 ink of magenta, and it was busting my brains why, probably tha's why i have problems with the printhead, at left magenta some nozzles are acting funny, in the morning the nozzle test prints alright, and afternoon i'm missing half of channels, i let it soak for an hour, comes back, than bam again, cleaning some times does the work, but i saw only in soft one, if i try hard or ultra, goes worse.

Kind regards
Al

I've had that happen. Sometimes a whole channel drops out completely and wont come back with cleanings.
Last time I found that one of the tubes from the cap to the pump was blocked at the joint.
So, it still looked like it was doing a proper clean - with ink pooling in the cap and on the wiper - but obviously wasn't strong enough to bring back the missing channel.