OKI Seiko ColorPainter W-64s Issue Help...

[FutureSigns]

Hi All,

My W-64s suddenly developed an issue. Cleaned the machine in the morning. Printed 100 red decals then went to print a set of mags and the gray looked strange. Printed a nozzle check and my cyan was almost gone! I changed the ink even though it was not empty but it did not resolve after several cleanings. I then purged and charged. After that my nozzle check was perfect. Started to print the mags again and it fell right out again...

Any ideas? My first thought is I need a new print head but never had an issue with the cyan at all....

 

[tbullo]

Had similar thing happen to our magenta. It was the capping station causing it to lose siphon. Follow the lines and it will be clear if that is the cause. Open the cover and look at the lines. Should be full of ink.

 

[FutureSigns]

Thank you!! I see there isn't ink in the cyan line. How did you fix it??

 

[Rodan68]

Happened to my magenta line once. There was an air leak. Mine was solved by just tightening the lines going into the head.
If you move the carriage to the left of the machine like you were changing the print head height, you can get access to the print head pretty easily. The shield should pull down and you'll see the lines entering the heads. Tighten those up or maybe replace the o-rings.
Otherwise there might be a leak somewhere else.

 

[tbullo]

Well for us, we called our dealer and they over night shipped the cap station. But first they had us pull the ink through the line at the print head. Once ink was flowing connect line and clean. Came back next day and line was empty showing loss of siphon. Cap station came in and they gave us a few instructions and it fixed it. I would for sure pull some ink through and keep head wet with the ink. I ended up using a brake line bleeder to pull the ink through the line as the syringe method took forever and will wear you out. Our printer was right at 3 years old when this happened this past april.

 

[FutureSigns]

So all the lines should look full? Both cyan and light cyan look funny but my light cyan nozzle check prints fine...

 

[tbullo]

Yes, they should be totally full. They both have issues. Call your dealer, they should be able to get you parts out fast. In the meantime check all fittings and pull some ink through and do not run any cleaning cycles as this will burn the head out if the ink is siphoning out. We get our Seiko parts from Martin supply out of MD.

 

[FutureSigns]

Oh boy!! OK. Thank you!!! I get my inks from Tubelite but I am not sure they can get parts....

 

[ikarasu]

Are you sure? We have a Seiko h274s and the ink lines have never been full. Theres tons of air gaps which we thought were weird... but our service tech said thats how they are. we even had a Seiko engineer fly out from Japan to look at our machine, he checked everything over and never mentioned the ink lines being empty at all.

 

[ikarasu]

Also... in the one picture where your cyans are all there, they look like theyre deflecting. That's generally caused by a bad head, I don't think ink starvation would do that.

did you have a head strike / media jam recently?

 

[FutureSigns]

I wish it did... At least that would explain something.... I just washed the heads and now all my lines are full. Light cyan looks fine again but the cyan looks the same. So I guess a new head may be the answer? I just don't understand why the dampers are inside these heads... smh.

 

[FutureSigns]

So I figured... What the hell... Let me try another cleaning and see if the lines stay full. Nope.. Cyan isn't full again. So what's everyone think... Head or Cap?

 

[tbullo]

I by no means am a service tech, just telling you what happened in our case that looks like yours. I will upload a pic of my lines in a few.

 

[tbullo]

Here are pics of ours. Hasn't been run today since the weekend.When we had our problem our tech said ink should aways be in there, maybe a little clear right at cap station.

 

[FutureSigns]

Hmmm.. Interesting. They were full and now the cyan line has air in it again. I'm wondering if the leak is by the ink pouch because that is where I see it start out. Thank you for sharing!!

 

[tbullo]

One more pic if it helps.

 

[FutureSigns]

Thanks for sharing! And replacing the capping station resolved it? I have a service tech stopping in today to look at it. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[tbullo]

Yes, been running 100% since. In our case we called the tech and did what test he asked for before sending the cap station. I don't remember it costing a ton. More cleaning after removal of the old seems to be what I remember.

 

[FutureSigns]

SOLVED!! Turns out it was the tube attached directly to the top of the printhead. There are O Rings that get congealed with ink. Removed it and used cleaning solution on it. Works perfect now!! Thanks for all the helpful advice. I probably would have ordered that prinhead.. $$$

 

[tbullo]

Glad it's up and running.