ROLAND SP300V CYMK Blank print after replacing printheads?

[Stephanie Cunningham]

I bought this Roland SP300V and I fired it up just to see if it would print anything, and after basic issues I got it to run a very fuzzy System report, so I Purchased 2 new printheads, ranked, and new dampers, caps, wipers, and pads, I replaced all the parts like I have done before on a VP540 I had owned, but the only color that printed was Cyan, and soon after that I didn't get anything to print, so I purchased all 4 Roland carts, 220 ml, I pulled the C/K printhead and pushed cleaner through the head with a glass syringe until I could see the fluid in streams put it back together and went through the manuals head replacement process, no change still blank, and now I'm out of ink again. I checked the 3 fuses on the main board and they all were good, I'm purchasing more ink and dampers now.

My past experience in Roland's VP-540i and before that SP-540, I've replaced with success, ribbon cables, multiple caps, the main board because of a network issue, a printhead that was scratched, the dampers. I have the manuals, but I'm Stumped, and tired of throwing money at this machine.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Were the fuses you tested about the size of a few grains of rice with a white center and silver or gold metal caps on each end? It's not the glass type fuses people are normally used to. When the heads don't fire it's either because there is no ink, the heads are fried, or the fuses are blown. It sounds like you got ink to the head so that can be ruled out. Heads rarely fry because the fuses protect them. So that really leaves the fuses as the issue.

 

[Jim Hancock]

Make sure the fuses you checked are those in the attached pic (look for the red outline in the pic), as these are the fuses that supply voltage to the printheads and there are only 2. If these are good, have you tried to gently pull ink through each cap individually? Depending upon that test, you might have a cap/printhead alignment issue, which is usually solved by "Initializing the limit". Let us know what you find so we can further assist you.

 

[netsol]

solvent inkjet has those tapered syringes that really make it easy to pull ink through, although when i get impatient i prefer a hand vacuum pump/break bleeder you can buy on amazon or from harbor freight or an auto parts store.

as opposed to checking continuity, i prefer to look for the 41 volts (at least in most of the models i have worked on) on both sides of the fuses

you sound experienced so i assume there is no spilled in on your ribbon cables and you were careful plugging cables in and didn't lift a trace on the cables (i have done it, more than once)

 

[Stephanie Cunningham]

Were the fuses you tested about the size of a few grains of rice with a white center and silver or gold metal caps on each end? It's not the glass type fuses people are normally used to. When the heads don't fire it's either because there is no ink, the heads are fried, or the fuses are blown. It sounds like you got ink to the head so that can be ruled out. Heads rarely fry because the fuses protect them. So that really leaves the fuses as the issue.

Those were the fuses I checked, but maybe I should also check for voltage on both sides, someone just suggested, I hope it is just the ink that was in the lines clogging the dampers up, because I can pull ink through the caps, but maybe it's to thick for the machine to pull it? I still haven't purchased more ink, I was looking at a bulk ink system, and even a new Roland, I got the quote yesterday for $15,500 for a SG2-540.

 

[Solventinkjet]

as opposed to checking continuity, i prefer to look for the 41 volts (at least in most of the models i have worked on) on both sides of the fuses

I usually just check for continuity but there have definitely been times where it tested good but was still bad. This is a good suggestion!