Stumped... Roland SP-540v with a weird print pattern... ideas?

[SolitaryT]

Not the best picture, I grant you, but I'm curious as to what would cause this weird pattern. All of the inks are equally bad. I suspect that the pump is starting to fail, but I'm not sure. What do you all make of this?

 

[rjssigns]

When did it start acting up? Did it sit for a few days? Need more info. We run a SP540V and have had our share of issues.

 

[SolitaryT]

Tuesday or Wednesday, the black ink ran out, and instead of stopping and beeping like usual, it just continued printing without black. So I replaced the black cartridge, ran a clean, then had to manually pull black ink through with the syringe. No biggie. It printed fine that day and the next, no biggie. Yesterday, the last job I was printing for the day, a banner, it started to just SATURATE the print. So I went through ran another clean, test printed, looked good, all that stuff. Then today, I had a job for a customer that they called and asked for before tomorrow. I set the job, another banner, to print on high speed, and it looked banded and really splotchy. I ran a test print and got this result. I ruled the pump out, I'm suspecting the dampers, and I'll replace those on Monday. I'm printing on regular speed instead of high-speed to compensate in the interim. Cleaning the data strip may have helped, too. (Biggest design flaw on these printers, by the way... lets put the data strip in a place where it can constantly and unnecessarily get all mucked up by over-spray, but don't get me started...)

 

[rjssigns]

If your dampers are either collapsed or bulged they're shot. When you pulled ink through the head was it easy or was there decent tension on the syringe? If it was easy your cap tops are either shot or not seating correctly. They may be off center. Take a look.

 

[SolitaryT]

When I pulled ink, it didn't feel easier or harder than usual.

 

[player]

It is hard to tell from the pic what the problem is...


When did you last change the caps?

 

[madsign25]

Try clean the wiper and cap then by syringe pull some ink from cap tube or drain tube then do test print if having same test print i think the pump no problem you can open cover press on the cover sensor while it cleaning and see it work or not , pump sound it usual or not .


There's no one nozzle work good on test print, problem in firing ink in all head mybe mainbaord not feeding enough volt for head mybe it must replaced, hard that all damper collapsed in same time .

 

[SolitaryT]

I'm planing on changing the caps as soon as we get new ones in. I'm going to replace the dampers tomorrow. Honestly, I don't know when the last time either of them were changed. Before my time, I think.

 

[player]

Sometimes new caps make all the difference...

 

[SolitaryT]

When I get in tomorrow, i'll try to take a better picture of the failed test print, as well as documenting my process for fixing it. Thanks so much for the tips, everyone!