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.

 

[bostjan]

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.

i got into the service menu after some tries i printed the fill pattern - no black at all (attached photo). i don't understand exactly what did you mean with

Observe the ink laydown as it prints and look at the edges afterwards to look for overspray.

but all other colors seem like not dried well/ still sticky after some 5mins

Big thanks for helping me and if you have any other ideas... appreciated

 

[Terry01]

Don't worry about the fill print being sticky. The heaters aren't turned on in service mode.

 

[Jim Hancock]

As damonCA21 suggested, now swap the black and cyan dampers on the print head, do a normal clean and run the fill test again. The normal color laydown for this test is "KCMY". If the problem is a supply issue, meaning a bad/clogged damper, which I understand is new, then your printed pattern will be "C MY", the space representing the second channel. If the printed pattern is " KMY", with the blank space representing the first channel, then it's likely the K channel head is clogged or bad. FYI, in Service Mode, the heaters are disabled, so the ink will not dry very fast at all. Do this test and post your results.

Just because you can hear ink sloshing in the cartridge doesn't mean the ink is still ok. These systems are based on the ink having a certain viscosity. If the ink is too thick, even though it flows through the lines and into the damper doesn't mean

 

[bostjan]

after i printed fills i opened the panel cover again and discovered black line/tube is empty for the last 10-15cm. changed black cartridge and after 2 normal cleans seems black color in line is not advancing.. how do you think i should i proceed? try printing black from service mode again or remove damper and try to pull color thru with syringe? or powerful cleaning?
BTW black line was not empty when i replaced damper so that must have happened recently.
THX again.

 

[Jim Hancock]

Pull ink through the damper with a syringe. If you can't pull ink or get a lot of resistance, then remove the cartridge and try to pull again. If you are still getting resistance, remove the damper and connect the syringe to the ink line directly and see what happens. This is just in case the new damper has gotten clogged. If you are still getting resistance, then the needle that goes into the cartridge may be clogged.