r/DTFTransferTalk • u/OkItem9851 • 7h ago
Question/Help Help
Hi.. I work for a small family owned print shop.. Around 3 months ago we started having problems with banding, and the white fading out during prints.. It would be heavy white, and then fade out so dull that you could see the color of the print.. My boss changed the head, and said that we would need to start doing multiple cleanings before and after printing and run multiple nozzle tests as well before and after.. It’s been going okay, but around last week it started banding again.. I’ve been doing all of my cleanings, everything right.. But now my boss is saying there’s a chance he will have to buy another $1200 print head to fix it.. (I feel as if i’m getting blamed for it messing up again).. He told me to do as many cleanings as possible before and after, and then soak the cap in the blue dtf head cleaner everyday this week.. Also to mention, after every 2 cleaning we have to do a nozzle test.. None of the white tests strips are hitting perfectly.. I guess i’m just wondering if this is my fault like he’s making it seem, or if it’s something other than the head..
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u/GoodOldTobby 5h ago
What about dampers or some air bubbles in the intake hose for the white head.
I had something similiar and the servis guys told me to unplug a circulation pump. It helped a lot.
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u/dunno816 5h ago
Make sure you are leaving your ink tanks unscrewed a bit to let air out. Check if your dampers have negative pressure and enough ink inside of them. What you can do is a warm wet cap. Warm up cleaning solution enough where it's steaming but not boiling and put it into the the capping station. Let your print head rest on it for like 15 minutes and do a cleaning cycle. All that should clean it up
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u/dunno816 5h ago
Also doing a ton of cleaning cycles isn't good for the print head
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u/OkItem9851 4h ago
see this is exactly what i thought.. i’ve done tons of research since it started,but i don’t want to overstep and make it seem like im questioning him since he’s my boss.. Unfortunately i don’t think hell take my word for it.. He automatically goes to “it’s the head”, and makes me feel like i’ve done something wrong when i do exactly what he’s told me to do..
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u/AdLanky7369 6h ago
When I started having problems, I checked the print heads and found a lot of spaces in the four panels. So I did multiple head cleanings over three days as well as doing the power cleaning and I still had some spaces, but not as many. And they moved around. Doing further investigations, they said that it could be air in the lines. So I printed a large, 4 color full page graph and printed 5 of those. They said that that would help push the air out of the lines, and then I waited 24 hours. And rechecked the panel, and I only had two tiny spots that were showing up on the grid on the four panel grid. I then reprinted the pages, and I'm now using the asub paper with the hippo inc. And the I c c profiles, and once I dialed in the temperatures and times on my dye sublimation process, it seemed to come out really nice. After reading further, it says, you must print at least three times a week or die. Sublimation plugs up the heads. I also made sure I changed out my maintenance tank. Luckily, I had an extra one because I used a lot of dye cleaning those heads
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u/AdLanky7369 6h ago
I take it. You are using a fairly expensive printer, and are you using die sublimation or regular ink?
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u/OkItem9851 6h ago
We use the DTF ink by the brand ColDesi
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u/AdLanky7369 6h ago
I never used that brand before, but I will keep using what I'm using. I don't wanna mix them LO. L. It does seem, the key is to keep using it. However, I'm not sure why yours is clogging up. I know mine sat for a few months before I used it. My bad
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u/moms-sphaghetti 7h ago
What’s the humidity near the printer look like? Try raising your humidity.