Need Help old ROLAND SP-300V problem

[bostjan]

Hi All,
My old and reliable Roland has developed issues with black color. On the test print black is almost not visible, but if i print rectangle 100%K printer somehow manages to print decent good black. Please see attached photos. Other relevant facts:
my print volume is very low but i print something small al least every 4-5 days
black+cyan printhead was replaced by serviceman 2 years ago
after i discovered the problem few days ago i replaced captop and damper, checked all the pipes/lines manually cleaned everything, vipers too, 1 medium and 1 powerful cleaning cycle - no change
my black cartridge is very old from year 2019
Al in lines seems to be ok, no cross contamination.

Any ideas or advices on what to check further? Is it possible head/nozzles is/are bad after just 2 years of very light use?

Thanks and good prints everyone
Bostjan

 

[damonCA21]

A head can fail at any time, so it could be that. Easy test is to swap the blue supply onto the black side of the head and the black supply to the blue side and see if the fault now occurs on the blue

 

[Jim Hancock]

What damonCA21 said... Also, as your black cartridge is going on 6 years old, you may want to verify it has ink in it. Pull it out of the printer with the printer turned off so you don't reset the ink counter display. What can happen is the physical tab on the cartridge can occasionally get stuck and not trip the ink out microswitch, fooling you into thinking the cartridge still has ink in it. The 100% K you are printing is likely the other 3 colors printing, as the software profile is applied to the black rectangle. Unless you set Versaworks to print that rectangle as 100%K only, the profile will use the other colors to make black.

 

[buggyjr12]

If the black ink cartridge is six years old you can bet that the pigment has coagulated. It's gel.

Throw it out and try a new one. Do a head soak, too.

 

[bostjan]

What damonCA21 said... Also, as your black cartridge is going on 6 years old, you may want to verify it has ink in it. Pull it out of the printer with the printer turned off so you don't reset the ink counter display. What can happen is the physical tab on the cartridge can occasionally get stuck and not trip the ink out microswitch, fooling you into thinking the cartridge still has ink in it. The 100% K you are printing is likely the other 3 colors printing, as the software profile is applied to the black rectangle. Unless you set Versaworks to print that rectangle as 100%K only, the profile will use the other colors to make black.

thanks, there is black ink in the cartridge i checked that first. Also black ink line/tube and damper are looking normal. I suspected black was made out of other colors but here i tried to explicitly print black only, test rectangle made in flexi sign and by print setting "color managed by printer". Is there any direct way to print just black in Versaworks, to somehow avoid this "mixed" black? also makes me think if the software was cheating and made black in that way for a longer time then black nozzles were not working much and that would explain too why my black cartridge lasted so long..so basicaly software and settings issue - maybe that is how i made my black nozzles stuck -they simply were not working much except by cleaning cycles? Any other idea maybe?

 

[bostjan]

If the black ink cartridge is six years old you can bet that the pigment has coagulated. It's gel.

Throw it out and try a new one. Do a head soak, too.

it is still liquid i made "shake test" if ink had coagulated in tube, there would be no flow to the new instaled damper probably? will replace cartridge anyway... to be sure..

 

[buggyjr12]

You can print black in VersaWorks by setting the color of your rectangle to BK21A (or is it BK22A?). One of them is 100% black and the other is mixed black. In VersaWorks, make sure that "Convert Spot Colors" is checked and make sure that it is still set to whichever BK2?A color is being used. That should print 100% black.

 

[Jim Hancock]

Go into service mode. In the service menu, go to Test Pattern, then to Fill Test. This prints each color channel independently at 720 - 8 pass - bidirectional - std speed. This completely eliminates the computer and software. Quickest and most reliable way to check the condition of each color channel. Observe the ink laydown as it prints and look at the edges afterwards to look for overspray.