Yellow starts dropping out after a foot of printing: VS-640

[IsItFasst]

I've had my SP-300V for many years and it has been great (for the most part). I decided to compliment it with a used VS-640. It came from a reputable dealer and all prints well at first. But then about 13 inches in the yellow starts to drop. I printed once, and didn't catch it at first but there was noticeable difference in yellow at the 13 inch mark and then about 3 inches latter the yellow was even lighter. So I stopped the print. Did a test print and confirmed the yellow was only firing at about 20%. Did a light cleaning and it started to come back. It was getting late so I left it for the day as I didn't want to start this long print at this point.

Today, I did a test print before I started and the yellow was printing fine. But when I tried printing the file again the drop our started in the in exact same spot as before. Except this time it looks like it had more drop out since the line was more significant than before. So I stopped it immediately. Did a test print and confirmed that once again only about 20% of the yellow was firing.

While I have had the machine a few weeks this is really the first large print I have tried with it so I would not have seen this before. Oddly I have never seen this with my 300 so I'm not sure what the cause is or how to fix it. Any input?

 

[rjssigns]

Check/Replace dampers. A fill test will tell you a lot. Probably wouldn't hurt to do cap tops and wipers as well. For a few bucks you've eliminated a lot of potential issues.

 

[lgroth]

Yup, sounds like dampers to me too... This happens with yellow on Roland's more than any other color, it might be a good idea to get a cleaning cartridge and flush the yellow lines just before you replace the dampers too.

 

[IsItFasst]

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking I need to buy those supplies for back up as I always have some on hand for my 300. But was at least hoping to get a few prints out of the machine before I needed to start replacing stuff. Hopefully this isn't a preview of how this machine will be.

 

[sfr table hockey]

If you want to test things to find out what the issue is before changing out parts an easy way is to just swap the damper on the yellow with the color beside it.

Once you swap dampers do a cleaning and then your test print and if the yellow head still drops out after a bit of printing with the other damper color in place, then the head itself may be the issue. If the yellow can print your test file and then still show nothing missing in the test print then it will be the damper.

I have had heads gradually drop out and only recharge with cleanings and then won't hold a charge and it ended up being the head.

 

[IsItFasst]

Replaced the yellow/cyan damper and now NOTHING is printing. I have done several cleanings and even manually pulled ink through the lines but I can't get one single drop of ink to test print now. This machine is driving me nuts!...I've spent over $1000 on just ink and supplies trying to get this thing to print and it still hasn't made me one cent.

 

[splizaat]

Geez...$1000 in materials an ink? That's like a month straight of printing for us. Why wouldn't you have just called a tech out at $100/hr to fix it and been done?

We had the same issue with a brand new roland with our black where it was going spotty after about 15" and the tech came right out and replaced the Black damper and voila, it printed great solid black forever after. I didn't watch him do it, but make sure there's no priming or something after changing them that needs to be performed.

Have you also checked to make sure your caps and capping station isn't plugged somehow? If they're plugged they won't be able to pull ink. Also, if there's a small air bubble in the yellow ink line (which is very possible) it will print for a bit after cleanings, then drop out. We had an issue like that with our sp300v and i beat my head forever trying to get the bubble out.

 

[player]

You may have cracked the manifold changing the dampers or blown a fuse.

 

[IsItFasst]

I have major trust issues with techs around here (even for my cars). Last time I had someone come out to work on my SP-300V their idea of diagnosing the problem was to just start replacing parts starting with the cheapest part and "hopefully that fixes it". After replacing the small board, ribbon cables a head and even the main board and they STILL couldn't figure out what the problem was. I ended up tracing it down to them having one of the cables plugged in backwards to the board. Costly mistake having them come out as it's a lot cheaper for me to just do it myself if that's how problems are fixed by a tech.

The excessive ink use was for several reasons but mainly it came from prepping. The choke valve for the ink wasn't staying closed when priming the lines and I didn't realize that it was turning just ever so slightly back open. So the machine kept pumping and pumping then telling me to close the valve even though I thought it was closed. So every time I stepped away from the valve to follow the instructions on the machine it was slightly opening telling me to close the valve. Finally figured this out after going through several drain bottle full of ink.

I figure the damper was the issue as that makes the most sense. So I ordered several to keep in stock but was sent the wrong ones. So I only have one new one now that I replaced the one. Waiting on more to come in. I also replaced the cap top.

But now I can't even pull ink manually through the lines using my syringe. I think I may have blown all the dampers on accident as I recall at one time when I was trying to line the syringe up with the line it wasn't quite all the way plunged in. So I may have blown air into the lines when pressing the syringe into the drain line. I can see air in the lines now and I can hear air when trying to manually pull ink. I plan on just replacing all the dampers and trying to start over once they come in. Though open to suggestions on anything else it could be. Not sure how to check for a cracked manifold.

 

[player]

Cracked manifold will put air in the lines, maybe some small amounts of ink around the manifold. Dampers won't hold ink.

 

[IsItFasst]

Cracked manifold will put air in the lines, maybe some small amounts of ink around the manifold. Dampers won't hold ink.

Well I'll just order one of those too to be on the safe side. There is some ink around the top of the manifold but I just assumed it came from dampers when I pulled them out.

 

[player]

Well I'll just order one of those too to be on the safe side. There is some ink around the top of the manifold but I just assumed it came from dampers when I pulled them out.

Any ink on the circuit board? It can cause it to fry.

Be sure the manifolds are correct. Someone recently bought some and the looked close but didn't fit. A dealer said they weren't available from Roland.

 

[IsItFasst]

So replaced all 4 dampers with no change in results. Tried manually pulling ink and it sounds like air is being sucked in through part of the pump (can hear gurgling in the pump area). All looks good though. Tried pulling ink from cap top lines with no luck (bypassing pump). But I can pull ink from the dampers. Still don't have my manifold in so can't test that yet. I'm so tired of messing with it decided to break down and just get a tech to come out. Only to my surprise I can't find one in my area after hours of searching online. I swear I had an easy time finding one before. This has been so time consuming, costly and frustrating it is starting to make me want to get out of the business.

 

[Ragnabrok]

crappy you don't have any techs around you there, i'd come but it's a bit outside my area .

Have you looked inside the bay where the yellow ink cartridge is? i've seem some bays melt from leaky ink cartridges, causing the needle to separate from the bay.
when you say no luck pulling from the cap top, are you plugging one of the drain lines, or using a Y shaped connector for the syringe? if not, all the vacuum will just pull from the other drain line, rather than the head.

Getting all the nozzles firing is hard, but once up they tend to stay firing.

 

[IsItFasst]

Yeah, it sucks but I am normally pretty good at keeping a machine maintained once it's going. Just this one has never printed at full capacity since I got it so I'm getting frustrated trying to get it started so it can make me some money instead of costing me money. I'll get it figured out (hopefully).

Everything where the ink cartridge plugs into the machine looks fine. But since I can't get ALL the colors to work now I don't see that being the issue.

I worked my way backwards when trying to pull ink. I originally was able to pull ink from the tube going into the drain bottle. Now that doesn't work so tried pulling through either of the lines off the pump with no luck. But as you said it is just pulling air from the other line. I thought maybe blocking off one line and trying to pull ink through the other would help but no go. I was able to pull each damper out and pull ink into them from the bottom of the damper directly. So it seams there is a leak between the bottom of the damper to the pump that is causing it to not pull ink.

I remember having a hard time getting my SP to pull ink a long time ago before I found out how to manually pull it with a syringe. Once I got it primed, it went back to printing as normal. I just can't even get this one to pull manually so that is what is driving me mad.

 

[player]

There is ink in the carts? (of course there is).

 

[Ragnabrok]

If your shop is fairly quiet you can listen for a pressure leak. Grab both drain lines from the cap, hook one up to the syringe, and pinch the rubber end of the other one shut. It takes a lot of pressure to seal it by pinching, so if you have something to jam in there to block it off that would be better.

Pull from the syringe, there should be a strong vacuum you can feel. If you pull reasonably hard, and hear a hiss, try and echo-locate where that hiss is coming from. My guess would be the cap where the rubber meets the head.

On another VS i had an issue where the cap assembly (the metal bracket it mounts to) had moved towards the rear of the printer enough that the cap wasn't touching the head surface all the way round. It's slot mounted to the chassis, so you can loosen and move the cap assembly around if needed to square it back up to the head.

 

[IsItFasst]

Cartridges are full for the most part. Some are close to being empty but I can still pull ink through the lines so they aren't completely drained yet.

The problem is I am getting NO pressure when pulling from the lines so this is not a slow leak. I can hear it leaking somewhere in the head/damper area but can't figure out where. What I don't understand is how you are supposed to replace the dampers without getting ink everywhere. As soon as I pull the lines off the ink just starts running all over the place.

 

[Ragnabrok]

close the valve on the back of the printer before changing the dampers. might want to clip some vice grips or something to the allen key, since it likes to spring back up on its own.

 

[bilge]

str table hockey already gave you the answer.

you need to replace printhead. but before you replace the printhead you should have cleaning cartridges and dummy cartridges.

in service menu - sub menu - pump up.
this the way, you can remove all air bubbles without using a syringe and all other mess ups.

if you using an original ink, you're right you'd better think about other business.