Agreed with stickercutter.
This is a failing head. They go every couple of years. Dropped nozzles and over spray are signs of weak firing. IE burned out head.
I have no dropped nozzles at all on any of my heads in this situation. Not that that means anything at the end of the day.
Although I don't think this is your issue, have you tried cleaning the encoder strip? It's probably not that, but it doesn't hurt to clean it. Also, have you tried slowing the head speed down to see if that makes any difference.
Sorry, I've had my xc540 for 3 years and I rarely have any problems with it (knock on wood) so my trouble shooting and maintenance experience on this machine is limited.
Did you know that you can buy a warranty at any time? I bought one last year after my factory warranty ran out. It's already paid for itself.
All Graphic Supplies should be able to set you up with the warranty and or a tech.
Good luck
Funny, you mention that, I've had quite a few issues over the years on our SP300 that were always encoder strip related so I clean it regularly to be safe. I didn't know that about the warranty though, good info, thanks!
seems like everything possible has been mentioned. but i'd go at completely turning off the printer (front button, back switch, unplug, tap front button four times). saw an sp300 a while back that had a built up charge in the machine causing it to print similarly.
data cable ribbon-wise. doesn't look quite like the artifact that is caused by loose data cable. but i'd rotate them just in case. and when doing so inspect the ends to make sure no ink build up, fraying, or burns are on the ends.
and does anyone know the configuration for a data swap on this machine? it could prove if the issue is located in the data (board/slider board) vs. head.
The machine has been off and unplugged a few times over the last month, haven't done the button tap 4 times though!
I have already checked the data cables and they were all fine.
This last thing is going to make me feel like an idiot if this is the answer. But while doing the test prints I realized the head height was set to High. After the tests I left it on Low and printed a few things and they came out beautifully! Could that be my problem that somehow the head got set to high without me knowing and it was simply too high for the media? Do most of you guys have yours on Low unless it's banner?
Edit: After looking at them closer I noticed there is still a very minimal bit of bluryness on the crop marks and a few other spots so it seems that has just drastically reduced the problem not fixed it??
