Dseignjet 5500 flooding print with lt cyan

[D Hook]

Looks like you've successfully removed the carriage.  If so, can you also get a pic of the front and bottom?  Just to see if there's any leaking ink.  But you'd probably know by now because when the elbow breaks and ink gets pumped into the tray, it has a tendency to pour out of there when you tilt the carriage around.

[D Hook]

You say you first noticed this when doing an image quality print.  Did you notice any problems when doing a normal print or a test page?

Also, any repairs made lately on the printer?

[tsurfing]

Hi D.Hook,

There is no ink in the bottom of the tray. It is completely dry. no ink leaks I can see. 

Here are more test prints. The lt Magenta printhead is failing now as you can see. I thought I had swapped out the light magenta but had not done that yet. The lt cyan seems to be perfect after it floods the print initially. This is really puzzling...

[D Hook]

Doesn't look like a tube problem to me.  

Can you tell which cyan is doing the flooding for sure?   Yes, looks like lt. magenta is on it's way out as well.

It looks to be a printhead problem but I'm no tech.  I can only relay my experiences with my own 5000 and 5500 printers.  I guess at this point I'd be looking to replace the printheads.

Maybe David Zuts or one of the repair techs will come along and chime in.  He's got a wealth of experience with this model.  I'd be very curious to know myself.

No other repairs recently done?

Can you try printing a demo print from the menu and see what happens?

[tsurfing]

Hi D. Hook,

I replaced the power supply board and reseated the trailing cable when it came loose during the PSB replacement.

No errors on boot up.

I will print out a demo print to see what happens. Why would 2 printheads fail the exact same way? i'm really hesitant to buy another light cyan printhead. I replaced the cyan also just a few days ago. 

Appreciate the help on this one...

[D Hook]

I wonder if the trailing cable got damaged when reseating.  That might be causing the problem.  I know those can be a real SOB to get seated back in and not peel the edges off.  I've trimmed one to reseat and had good luck doing it.  But it was easy to see where the contacts had gotten peeled back and trimming it was a last-ditch-before-I-spend-the-money-on-new type of repair.

I guess that would be the next thing I'd suspect.  I'm with you, not crazy about spending money on another printhead that may or may not fix the issue.  I don't know what all can go wrong with a mis-seated trailing cable though.

I might have one for a 60" that's brand new.  I'll have to check.  Which end did you reseat?  You might want to pull that end back out and see if it's damaged.  If not, reseating might help.  Maybe clean the contacts in the carriage where the printheads make contact.  Just warm water and a coffee filter will work.

[tsurfing]

D. Hook,

I have an email in to LPS with a link to this thread to get their thoughts. 

Hopefully they will respond with a suggestion. The trailing cable on ebay is a timely deal so if they suspect that I will try to buy ASAP. It seems there should of been a diagnostic error if signals were getting botched through the cable. 

More to come...

Thanks agian for your time

[tsurfing]

It took a log time to get it seated correctly. Many attempts and a boot error would show up. Finally worked after a last ditch attempt. There was a little damage on the end but it booted up.  Would it even boot if it would cause this printhead error?Would hate to have to go through this again. I had to reseat the end in the back of the machine into the main board area. I am going to switch out the printheads again. Is it possible I could have the same fail on two different heads? One brand new? The wierd thing is the fade out of the issue after a few passes (except for the end where there is a line).

Bob at LPS says I have air in the line on the Lt Magenta. He has reviewd this thread, but has not responded after I confirmed there was no leak in the fittings in the carraige.

Thanks agin D.Hook you are the best!

[D Hook]

Bob sells a great tool for getting the air out of the lines on his website.  Used it several times.

Getting a bad new printhead is not unheard of.  I've never had it happen (knock on wood) but it really sucks when it does.  You'll want to be sure all the air is out of the lines before putting in another or else it will ruin the new one also.

When you open the back cover behind the ink tanks, do you see air in the lines?  Also, you can check up by the carriage where the ink lines come into the carriage and see if you see any spaces or air pockets.  When you use the tool from Bob, you'll see them disappear as you pull ink through.

The cyan flooding is still quite a mystery to me though.

[tsurfing]

I will check out the puge tool from LPS...

The cyan seems to fill up the printhead and blow out the excess during the set up time. The printhead is getting pressure that its not holding and allows the ink to drip out and flood the area its printing. then it seems to (kind of) straighten out and print. Wouldnt a bad printhead just continoully dump ink if the seals were bad?

Maybe its getting a bad signal from the computer.

I will try a demo print tonight.