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mutoh 1204 no black ink

My 1204 is pushing 9 years old now. Today the black stopped completely. I rebuilt my machine (maintenance station - print head) approx. 3 years ago and it has been working flawlessly until today. When I do a nozzle check the M-C-Y are all present and flawless but the is NOTHING in the black test print area.

I can print black - it just doesn't turn out a true black.

I'd like to also note I printed black yesterday with no issue.

Any advise where to start diagnose this issue?

I'm going to send some solid black thru to prints and see if I can get something to free up.
 
I wanna bump this thread to see if I can get any insite. I'm gonna change the black dampers and see where that gets me. Any further insite would be appreciated.
 

GTSTech_1

New Member
Damper could solve, especially if you can do a cleaning cycle and the black shows when doing a nozzle check then fades away. You mentioned it's been 3 years since a new maint. station was installed, that's a little longer than normal life expectancy on a maint, station. Mutoh recommneds a new one yearly (a bit of over kill), but with 3 years may be time for a new one. Lastly confirm your printhead is level to the platen, if it's not level to platen, then that is the source of air....aka not sealing.

Just my .02
 

RG

New Member
GTSTech_1 gave good advice. If you install new dampers, be sure to use new o-rings. If you can see any air bubbles in the black ink line, that tells you that something is not sealing right. And, don't overlook the obvious: is there plenty of ink in the black ink cartridge?
 
I'm having a problem priming the new dampers. It seems maybe there is no flow coming thru the black lines. I didn't use new orings though. My thought is the maintenance station is bad, thats why I lost the ink flow to black? am I correct to assume this?
 
I greatly appreciate the good advise!! The black cartridge was low. I put the new one in.

I somewhat primed the damper my self with some waste ink and put back in place. The printer ran thru what was in the damper but never continued to fill back up.
 
Here's a pic of the new maintenance station installed as I'm printing. It looks like the cap is only showing CYM, No Black is present on the cap?
 

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AMGearhart

New Member
I'm afraid I don't really know what this issue is either. I too, use a 1204 and they're great work horses when it comes to printing.
 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
Here's a pic of the new maintenance station installed as I'm printing. It looks like the cap is only showing CYM, No Black is present on the cap?

You shouldn't be able to see any white in the cap top if the station is working properly. The lines you see are from the head firing into the cap which means those nozzles are firing but the station isn't pulling the ink through like it should which would make sense why the black isn't firing because the station isn't pulling any ink down. I have seen that type of wiper before, which isn't OEM, and it came with a batch of bad maintenance stations we had to send back to the manufacturer. I'm guessing that is the case here or something else is out of wack.
 

flyplainsdrifta

New Member
You shouldn't be able to see any white in the cap top if the station is working properly. The lines you see are from the head firing into the cap which means those nozzles are firing but the station isn't pulling the ink through like it should which would make sense why the black isn't firing because the station isn't pulling any ink down. I have seen that type of wiper before, which isn't OEM, and it came with a batch of bad maintenance stations we had to send back to the manufacturer. I'm guessing that is the case here or something else is out of wack.


when did you hop back in the s101 game?? thought you guys were off the site??
 
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