can anyone help with some cadet advice please?

[Terry Gall]

Hi Phil,

This might sound silly, but have you checked there is ink in the cyan cartridge?

Just a thought

Cheers

Terry

[Robert Lambie]

it may not have dried phill, it could be a bit of air in the tube?

[Phill Fenton]

I am still on the original set of cartidges so your suggestion may not be daft at all Terry 😕 . The level indictors were showing about a quarter full – less on the Magenta which is printing fine. How do I know If the cartridge is empty apart from removing it (I didn’t want to do this as it would re-set the level indicator) – I had thought the machine would detect itself when the cartridge was empty – can someone confirm it this is or is not the case? The yellow was also not printing but this was resolved after a few cleans.

Rob – How do I tell if air is in the system – and if there is – how do I get rid of it?

Thanks for the suggestions guys – I’ll let you know how I get on 😀

[Robert Lambie]

no way you have went thru your ink yet phill… if you have, im moving up nearer you :lol1:
not sure on the cadet but the grenadier bleeps and shows which cart is empty/low you just pull it out pop in new one and continue.

phill, lift the blue cover off, look at the little plastic tubes above the head. you may see some little “or big” bubbles/spaces in ink in the tube. bit like a bead in a spirit level. its an easy thing to do once having done it once, just takes a minute. best thing ide suggest is looking and seeing if you have air in the pipes. if so call b&p and ask for tech support, they will basically talk you through it. like i said, once you do it once its a doodle.

[Robert Berwick]

Another thing that can happen is the waste tubes can become blocked and therefore the pump can’t create a vacuum to pull the ink through. Although this doesn’t sound like your problem because it would affect 2 colours. It is handy to know though.

Another thing that has happened to me on my cadet a couple of times is the pipes have split within the pump again meaning that the ink can’t be pulled trhough. This also allows air back up into the feed tubes I think.

The thing with these printers is that when they work they work well. When they don’t they are a pain in the a**e.

[Gordon Forbes]

A small tip for you Phill.
See the bloo cover on the right hand side facing the machine.
Switch the machine off take the cover off and at the top of where the cover came off you will see an aluminium bit with a rectangular hole in it.
Thats the swithch for sensing the cover is off. Fold a peice of paper so that it fits snug and stays there on its own.
Start the machine and it will start and let you see what is happening at the pump when head cleaning etc etc. (don’t leave it off all the time though.

What I have started doing if the machine is to be left even for a couple of days is this.
Set the cover as above. reach in and clamp the lines to stop drainage but make sure the machine isn’t going to do a head clean on its own first (best time is just after it’s done one on it’s own) Get an old peice of vinyl load it and scoot the head over to the middle and set this as the base point.

Tell it to do a head check and it scoots off doing that and when it does take your syringe with the bottle of solvent that you got and fill where the heads park. You have time to do this (if your quick) the head comes back the sponges go up and then switch it off. A much quicker way to park the heads in solvent I reckon.

Goop.

Hope this eases your mind about leaving the machine alone for a few days.

Helps your prints as well so it seems anyway. I do a small print just to clean any solvent out before I do any printing and its quicker than going thru the whole cleaning rigmarole if its not due a maintnance clean at that time.

If you have got air then Why is the question I would be askin.

[Phill Fenton]

I think you may be right there. My initial problem was two colours (Cyan and yellow) but I’m not sure if they run down the same waste tube or not. (The yellow cured itself with a few cleans – the Cyan remains the problem).

When I do my end of week manual cleaning I drop some cleaning fluid onto the pots where the heads are parked. One of the pots (the left hand one) wasn’t draining away easily whereas the right hand one drained away easily by gravity alone. I was having to squeeeze the left hand tube a few times before the cleaning fluid would run into the pipes and drain away – Leading me to suspect that this drain tube ( the left hand one) was partially blocked. It’s now completely clear – but when I left this evening the Cyan still wasn’t printing.

[Robert Berwick]

Goop – you can achieve what you describe by manually lowering the capping station. You do this by using the “metal tube with a swaged end” tool that comes with the cadet. Under the machine next to the waste ink bottle is a little hole that gives you access to the winding mechanism for the capping station. You wind it down and then the heads can be pushed aside for acces to the pads that the heads park on.

A word of warning though, you must make sure you reset the capping station back up afterwards otherwise your heads will dry up as they aren’t in contact with the pads.

Robert

[Phill Fenton]

Thanks for the tip Gordon 😀

[Gordon Forbes]

Reading above Phill are you sure the two white clamps are fully released just another thing to check.

Funnily enough I did not recieve any “PARTS KIT” for my machine and despite aking for them am still waiting 6 odd months later.

[Rod Gray]

I had a similiar problem Phill and it turned out to be this

It`s a valve that sits on top of the print head. As it`s made of nylon, its rather fragile and i suspect mine was fitted with a heavy hand and developed a small crack at the clip that fixes it onto the print head. This made it draw air which resulted in the same sounding problem as you are having.

I was sent a new one over night and was talked through fitting it, which was pretty simple.

Rod

[David Rowland]

ah the damper! Same one/Same design