Need Help Roland Versacamm VS 540 printing striped barcode black line

[fattypants]

Hello everyone, just wanted to say thanks beforehand. New member here, and recently purchased a used Roland Versacamm VS 540.

Luckily with the help of a local tech, we've been able to bring it back to life. Had been sitting around about a year. Print head in good shape. Initially had a busted cyan line that made a mess. Got that cleaned up, installed 3 new dampers. Currently had it running, looked good, and this morning it began printing black streak that looks like barcodes on the print. We've done nozzle checks, new dampers, multiple cleaning cycles, manual clean, head soak. I even cleaned the encoder sensor. TBH I don't know much, this is my first printer. I've reached out to 3 other friends in shops and they don't recognize the problem. Before next week rolls around and I have to reach out to techs I'm wondering if someone can spot the problem with the pictures attached and suggest something. I have to crank out work over the weekend. I've tried searching older posts, and can't find anything matching exactly. Much appreciated.

 

[Jim Hancock]

Reseat the head ribbon cables, at both the head side and the carriage board side. When doing so, closely examine the traces at the ends of the ribbons for any damage, replace if needed. If reseating the ribbons doesn't fix it, replace them. Please report your results so others may benefit...

 

[fattypants]

Thanks for the tip, I spent all day reseating and cleaning as many ribbons cables as I could. Unfortunately there is a ton of spilled ink on the mother-boards. The Ribbons look fine, but where they connect on the female ends has dried up ink in them.

The printing problem seems to have gotten worse. Now it's printing black streaks over the entire print. Frustrating. Is it worth it to go ahead and replace all the ribbon cables? Has anyone done this? How difficult or cost effective is it to do this? And is there a possibility the problem is something else?
Any other tips advice is greatly appreciated.

(I DID NOT include photos of the ribbon-bad ink spilled connectors)

Alex

 

[fattypants]