Magenta Tubes Look Purple Or Brown

[New to Printing]

Hello,

I have had a 1204 for a little bit now and I've been learning as I go... I finally got all my temperatures set and my prints to look real nice. UNTIL today. I started printing today and all my colors are off. I checked to make sure the drivers and profiles are the same and they were. I now looked at the printer and it appears the Magenta tubes are purple or almost brown looking. Any ideas???

 

[Solventinkjet]

It's called cross contamination. Usually the cause is the cap top is not draining fast enough and leaves ink in the cap top. This ink then wicks up into the head. It also usually means that the dampers are failing/too weak to hold the correct pressure. I would take the dampers off, take the magenta ink cartridge out and pull all of the ink out with a syringe through the ink line. Then reinstall new dampers on to the magenta channel with new o-rings as well. Then test your maintenance station by pushing cleaning solution through the waste tubes. You will have to take the cap top off to do this. You can usually unclog waste tubes by pushing solution though and rolling the tube between your fingers but sometimes they are just too hardened in which case you could try to unclog them manually with some sort of toll but usually it means you need a new maintenance station anyway.

Once you have the magenta lines empty, new dampers installed and the maintenance station is in good order, you can refill the line and test it out. it should be good to go. If the problem doesn't go away, unfortunately it usually means the head membrane is broken and there is no way to fix that other than installing a new head.

 

[New to Printing]

It's called cross contamination. Usually the cause is the cap top is not draining fast enough and leaves ink in the cap top. This ink then wicks up into the head. It also usually means that the dampers are failing/too weak to hold the correct pressure. I would take the dampers off, take the magenta ink cartridge out and pull all of the ink out with a syringe through the ink line. Then reinstall new dampers on to the magenta channel with new o-rings as well. Then test your maintenance station by pushing cleaning solution through the waste tubes. You will have to take the cap top off to do this. You can usually unclog waste tubes by pushing solution though and rolling the tube between your fingers but sometimes they are just too hardened in which case you could try to unclog them manually with some sort of toll but usually it means you need a new maintenance station anyway.

Once you have the magenta lines empty, new dampers installed and the maintenance station is in good order, you can refill the line and test it out. it should be good to go. If the problem doesn't go away, unfortunately it usually means the head membrane is broken and there is no way to fix that other than installing a new head.

Thank you. SW just called back and said I should run (3) straight long cleanings.. "short fill" I believe is what he called it... see if that helps? Should I skip that?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Thank you. SW just called back and said I should run (3) straight long cleanings.. "short fill" I believe is what he called it... see if that helps? Should I skip that?

Although it is possible that what SW suggested might fix the problem temporarily (which I doubt), it is just a band aid and doesn't fix the reason it failed in the first place. You will end up right back at this point after some time. How old is the machine? New, used?

 

[New to Printing]

Although it is possible that what SW suggested might fix the problem temporarily (which I doubt), it is just a band aid and doesn't fix the reason it failed in the first place. You will end up right back at this point after some time. How old is the machine? New, used?

This is my first printer it's less than a year old. it was purchased new from SW.

I used cutters before this purchase and have been teaching myself as I go.

As you may see from the picture I started taking the unit apart and I'm stuck.. not sure how to get to the dampers from here.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Seeing that it is so new, everything I mentioned above still applies but none of those items should have failed so early. You should have a 1 year warranty. I would have them come out and fix it. I have never seen such bad contamination on a printer that was less than a year old. Either something failed prematurely or you may even have a bad magenta ink cartridge.

 

[New to Printing]

Seeing that it is so new, everything I mentioned above still applies but none of those items should have failed so early. You should have a 1 year warranty. I would have them come out and fix it. I have never seen such bad contamination on a printer that was less than a year old. Either something failed prematurely or you may even have a bad magenta ink cartridge.

Thank you again! I'll keep you posted. I appreciate the help!