I think the factor you are missing is jetability. I have had a ton of printers over the years wear out for various reasons. Ranging from head strikes, clogs that were later cleared, ALOT of use, or even just running thick ink through it. As well as poor maintenance, improperly handling and a bad environment can cause the same to occur.
Nevertheless, The printers would work fine with OEM inks, or cleaner. The moment I loaded DTF ink in there, Clogs. They didn't always show up in nozzle checks either. It was only noticed when the printhead was unable to make the suction needed to have the ink flow properly, meaning a large solid print would show the issue.
What you should do is do a nozzle check with the white only. Make a solid white box, maybe 6" X 6" and print that. Do a nozzle check directly before and after. If it shows any missing nozzles, or if you see any banding, likely your head is bad. We of course would continue testing to verify before doing that. If not, proceed to do the same but print 2-3 of the 6" X 6" white boxes in a row, followed by a nozzle check.
This will show if the printer is capable of having a free flow of ink, while properly jetting. If the CMYK layer is fine then it is likely not the paper feed encoder ( if equipped).
The overall reason for something like this literally boils down if the ink has a sealed and free flowing path going to the printhead, the ink is shaken and good( not expired or too thick), and if the printhead is capable of jetting it still.
What printer are you using, why did you change the dampers, and what kind of cleaning fluid did you use? You can absolutely damage the head with cleaner. If it's too strong it will eat the non-stick surface away from the printhead causing ink to stick as it jets among other things.
Have you also made sure there is nothing on the bottom of your printhead and you have your ink channels set up properly? Nozzle checks go a long way with finding issues.
What “wet cap” and “concentrate” solution(s) are you using?
Solid color and white with stripes - yet another topic
in General Direct to Film Discussion
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What “wet cap” and “concentrate” solution(s) are you using?