I have an L1800 Procolored DTF machine that I managed to cripple by making a series of bad decisions on limited sleep and panic, now I am Numb and dead inside lol. The quick story is that I had difficulty trying to print white ink and in the process over 2 days managed to get myself in a situation where I don't know if I shorted a cable, a printhead and/or a mainboard. The printer “appears” to be working but absolutely no ink is moving at this time.
If you’re interested, below is my hellacious past few days of haphazardly troubleshooting myself in the foot. I'm certain all of this could have been prevented with better daily maintenance, more patience, more sleep and less urgency but this is the situation I'm in lol , thanks for your time.
I had intermittent problems printing white ink. I tried doing a printhead wipe while it was still mounted to carrier but must have pushed residue into nozzles because color also suffered after that. Head cleaning didn't fix so I left nozzles soaking overnight after flushing with cleaner and water with decent cascade flow in and out. Next morning the colors were weak and white was a no show. So I removed the manifold to blast those hidden filters. Done several flushes and was able to finally print all colors including white. Unfortunately, that started to diminish until white was non-existent again. I done several head cleanings to no avail. White would not print but colors were perfect. I wouldn't know this till later but I hadn't put the three screws back in to lock the printhead to the carrier, and that was potentially why white wasn’t getting primed during head cleanings because the capping station was not met by pressure from printhead??? I don't know if that would have helped the white at that point What do you guys think? How much suction does the capping station put on the printhead during cleanings and power flushes if any? Nonetheless I really shid the bed next when I tried to flush white ports while head was over capping station. Next print, nothing came out and some nozzles, that flowed flawlessly before like Cyan, suddenly seemed to be electronically closed? when trying to Cascade or retro pull fluid. Now I'm thinking that I may have got liquid on the ribbon cable connection to the printhead and shorted something. I don't see any physically burned, components but I haven't looked at the main board deeper inside and not able to see the entirety of the ribbon cable either. I have not checked for continuity of the circuitry because I do not know how and printhead/main board circuitry schematics seem limited at best for the L1800. I have another printhead that I got off Amazon cheaply that doesn’t work currently , but I've only tried it after the OEM head stopped working. I know some vendors notoriously ship these broken and scam but the manifold would have fixed my flow because the white channels were moderately restrictive compared to other 4.
Looking for opinions for what you all think the most likely culprit could be. I know I’m and idiot, hopefully somebody will learn something new from my experience 😆 cheers