Strange lines appearing in middle of prints! Xc-540

[stevetekk]

Hi again all,
I have a strange one for you. XC-540. After a good run of say 20m, i started noticing strange lines appearing in the middle of the prints. It is not to the left or the right, just in the middle.

I adjusted the head height to low and they dissapear. When I put the head height to high, they appear. Its almost printing them before the actual print.

I do a nozzle check and everything is fine (heads are not the best shape however there is no dragging or anything). I cleaned the physical heads anyway and done the usual, but its very odd to say the least.

Anyone seen this before??

As I say it goes away when I set head height to low. But on high it starts to appear, but just in the middle :S

EDIT: You can see in the second image when i hit stop printing that the weird lines are actually before the print itself.
EDIT2: Not seeing the wood for the trees, is it just me or is group A seriously out of line. Perhaps the heads have moved? Would this maybe explain it. Surely that doesnt explain why there are lines where they shouldnt be. Hmm

 

[ProPDF]

First hang some static sheets on the back of the printer. Just tape them to the rear cover. Could be a static charged roll.

Also:
Clean encoder strip with alcohol and lint free swabs.
Clean heads again and wipers.
Check the wiper mechanism where the wiper goes back into the printer.
Something could be hanging off a head.

Drop the heads if you can.
Over spray is normal if height is too high from media.
Heads look ok.
nozzle check is good.
Not sure where you see alignment issue.

You may have a head going bad also, there are several ways to check.
One way: Go into service mode. Do a horizontal bar test print. Each head will fire and you can check if one has over spray.

 

[Ragnabrok]

those lines are propagating into the print, it doesn't look like static, more like signal noise. still go ahead and try to reduce static, since it needs to go anyway. There were firmware updates long ago to address some of these noise issues, so update if you haven't already.

Signal noise is usually a cable thing, boards tend to either work or not. Though the print carriage board can cause this issue, but only on the VS series from what i've seen.

 

[signage]

clean your encoder strip!