Missing Nozzles, Dripping Ink

[Signchief]

A couple of weeks ago my VJ 1604 started missing nozzles and when starting a print it would be really saturated for the first inch or so and then the print seemed to get a faded look, I did a couple of head soaks and cleaned the maintenance station and started printing at 1440x720 and it seemed to be okay, then I started getting ink dropping in small pools at the edge of the prints. Now I'm missing almost all of my nozzles on all but one channel and had cross contamination in the Y dampers C in one and M in the other and one K channel is showing C on the nozzle check, I replaced all the dampers and cleared any bubbles and it's only gotten worse. Any suggestions on how to check for a leak in the sub tanks or cart system or any other ideas on what the issue could be would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FatCat]

Missing nozzles almost always indicate a problem with the cap or maintenance station. Be sure that your drain lines are clear and that you are getting a good seal around the head and cap top. When you run a cleaning, do you see ink flowing through both of the clear drain lines? The cross-contamination is also an indicator of a poor seal between the cap and head. If your maintenance station and cap top are in good shape, they will pull enough ink through the head to keep it primed and clear of cross-contamination. If not, it will yield problems like you are stating.

Lastly, when you say bubbles, are you seeing bubbles throughout your ink lines as a common issue all the time? If so, you definitely have an air leak somewhere, which might not show by actually leaking ink, but check all fitting connections at the dampers as well as the "Y" junctions above the dampers.

 

[Signchief]

Thanks Sean, I replaced the maintenance station four months ago and the lines are clear with good suction. I will admit that I bypassed the waste ink system and had the capping station drain lines emptying directly into a small bottle but last week I cleaned all the waste ink tubes and now it's set up correctly. Last weekend I removed the capping station and re-installed it thinking maybe it was not sitting properly, when I pull ink through the drain lines with a syringe I'm pulling ink and I see no signs of air coming through so I feel like the capping station is sealing properly. I noticed a small air bubble in the "Y" line just below the y connector when I replaced the dampers I had a heck of a time pulling the ink back through the line and went through about 100 ml of ink in the process of clearing a stubborn bubble(after I was done I got an error message "low subtank" I hit cancel and did a cleaning and it never came back) the next day there was another bubble in the same place on the Y line. I replaced all of the dampers and o-rings last weekend and the nozzle checks were even worse. Could an air leak in one line cause issues with all of the nozzles on the head? I wonder if the manifold is cracked somewhere I'm thinking about placing the one K damper that is printing on each nipple of the manifold to see if it will print. Have you ever done a waterfall cleaning where you push cleaning fluid through the print head?

 

[Signchief]

I went through to make sure there was no air in any of the ink lines and the C lines were full of air, last night I cleared all of the air out of all of the lines and this morning one of the Y dampers is full of C. I'm going to replace the manifold and hope that fixes the problem even though it's only a little over a year old.

 

[Signchief]

I replaced the manifold and it didn't fix the issue, what now?