Mimaki JV3 160SP Printhead problem

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If you had to guess what do you think the problem is? Long story on what happened but this is what were dealing with.
Clogged Head?
Head Strike?

 

[MikePro]

soak your heads. Perform a Nozzle Wash, and power down your machine (green button AND then switch in back of printer) to let it sit overnight.

post a new pic in the morning to show the results.

 

[artbot]

the long story will help the diagnosis. unless it's too horrible to repeat. mikepro is right, a good soak is the way to start healing the head. looks like a head strike scanning to the right. or the head slammed into the cap wrong and the cap came loose. (missing middle portions can also be caused by clogged head manifolds.) i'm pretty sure it will clean up but it may take several days.

 

[Freese]

Looks like it could be a scratch or damage right down the middle of that head.

But the best way is to give that head a nice nozzle bath for 99mins 2-3 times.

If there is some recovery, keep doing it. If not, looks like its time for a new head.

 

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Thanks Guys Ill give those options a try......Basically I was out of town and a job was trying to be printed and the wiper jammed. Not knowing how to fix it the machine was left. I get back and printheads and capping station is dry as a bone and print heads were not firing except the cyan exactly how it is in the picture. After some cleans the other 3 came back but the cyan has not changed. I pulled the panel on the end of the printer and looked at the printhead from the bottom and did not see any significate damage but there is a little dimple in the cyan printhead.

 

[housemusikid]

Looks like it could be a scratch or damage right down the middle of that head.

But the best way is to give that head a nice nozzle bath for 99mins 2-3 times.

If there is some recovery, keep doing it. If not, looks like its time for a new head.

+1

It looks like there is a scratch on your yellow right next to the test draw that is out. Hopefully not, though.

 

[Gabriel]

Head strike for sure! If is to take a guess of what happened, I'm looking at those lines(nozzles), and those are curved to the left. That means that the print-head had a strike and suffered really bad damages on it's middle. I don't think head soak will solve the problem, but you can try. Good point drs6222.
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This is interesting...

 

[chrisphilipps]

You definitely have a damaged head. The print head hit something and no soaking is going to bring it back. Unfortunately you will have to replace the print head, I have seen this 5 or 6 times before on the JV3. It is hard to see with the print head in the printer but once it is taken out you will see scratch marks on the nozzle plate, similar to the ones in the picture that I have attached.

 

[Robert M]

That head

if you can't recover that head, I have them in stock
www.solventinkjet.com

 

[MikePro]

i'm always rootin' for the head to be salvageable! Soak it and post pix of the improvement... or lack thereof.

 

[WrapperX]

I'm looking at that test print pic and if you look closely you can see all kinds of satalites and the way the lines of the test plot are curved - I'll bet $1000 the head is damaged beyond repair. Now this is not to say that you won't get some of those nozzles back and that might give you false hope but you'll see that your print quality will be greatly diminished.
A way to get a look at the head is if you move the entire carriage to the far left of the machine. there should be an area on the left that has a panel that is either not there or can be removed. I had it removed permanently so that I could get under the carriage to clean the heads. Anyways, if you move the carriage over there and get a good bright flashlight you can shine it up under the heads and you can take a look at what they look like. If it's really bad - you'll probably be able to see a variation in the surface of the head. Maybe what looks like a shadow or a dent or even scratches. Although, you may see nothing this doesn't mean that you are ok. This is just a way to get a quick look at the bottom of the heads.
I'm still betting its a busted head.