Strange shadow effect

[midnightmadman]

Hi guys. I’m getting a weird shadow effect when I print. If you look at the image these two gray bars should be just two gray bars. Everything I print has been coming out this way. It is double printing for some reason offset by about 1/2” to the left

 

[midnightmadman]

Thanks. I did not that I know of. That’s kind of what I thought it was. It was printing 100% perfect and I unplugged the printer for a week in case we had severe storms . When I got back that’s how it was printing

 

[Solventinkjet]

Looks like it could be an electrical or static issue. Does it print like that on everything like nozzle checks?

 

[midnightmadman]

Looks like it could be an electrical or static issue. Does it print like that on everything like nozzle checks?

Nozzle check is perfect

 

[midnightmadman]

I might try doing a test print from the machine. If that’s good it means it’s somehow in the rip or electric issue from the data ?

 

[Solventinkjet]

If it were me I would turn the printer off, unplug it, hit the power button, wait 15 minutes, disconnect the head and trailing cables, air dust the terminals, and then re-install the cables. If that doesn't do the trick, it's probably a bad head or board.

 

[midnightmadman]

Thanks. Even if I get a good test print?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Thanks. Even if I get a good test print?

Test prints use the largest dots which are the easiest to fire for the head. When you print a file it uses multiple sizes of dot which is where you will start to see problems if there are any. Hopefully it's just a damaged or dirty cable!

 

[midnightmadman]

Ok I’ll start troubleshooting and post any updates. Any chance of a bad Ethernet cable ?

 

[midnightmadman]

Ok it’s doing it when I do a text print too

 

[midnightmadman]

It looks like something is way out of alignment

 

[midnightmadman]

Unplugged. Held power. Changed Ethernet cord. Greased rails that are pretty dry
Went to power on about 5 min later snd got the dreaded no power up !

 

[Umca]

Double printing maybe because of dirty encoder ruler.

 

[midnightmadman]

I did clean the strip. That was the first thing I did.

 

[StephenOrange]

To me this looks like a board or other electrical hardware issue. Encoders, both readers and lines, could do this - but not to this degree. What machine is this?

 

[midnightmadman]

Valuejet 1204

 

[midnightmadman]

I’m hoping this isn’t the end. I left it unplugged overnight as I have in the past hoping it powers back up this morning. It has not.

 

[John McKinney]

Looks like it could be an electrical or static issue. Does it print like that on everything like nozzle checks?

I had the same issue. Took months to figure it out. The printhead was too high.

 

[midnightmadman]

So here is something interesting
We had some friends over the weekend before I noticed the issue. The one boy has autism and gets into all kinds of stuff like you wouldn’t believe.
hecwas down here by himself where the printer is. I looked at the head this morning and it looks VERY high. For some reason. I don’t know if somehow he was pulling on it or maybe he didn’t at all. But it does not look like it’s at the correct height. I’m still waiting for the machine to power on. It’s in that state where it won’t come back on. This has happened before and it usually comes back on after a day or two.. fingers crossed.

 

[midnightmadman]

I just did another nozzle check and it is NOT good.
Colors are overlapping
Looks like cyan and black