[Misc] ipf760 plotter - white banding on plots

[Elmojo]

SOLUTION: It just needed a printhead cleaning. All is well, now.

My client's ipf760 plotter is printing great, except for these defined white lines, regularly spaced across the print.
The lines are ~0.52" apart, and the lines themselves are ~0.033".
That doesn't really look like a misaligned printhead to me. Anyone seen this before?
743953510_20240729_094516.jpg

[blackcat4866]

I'd be interested in seeing the printhead alignment pattern. I think that you've got some clogged orifices, which you should see clearly on that pattern. =^..^=

[Elmojo]

Ok, I can do that, thanks!
EDIT: Nozzle check shows gaps, leading to printhead cleaning as next step, according to Canon. Machine is throwing a hardware error while attempting to run the printhead cleaning. Something may be amiss... I'll try again tomorrow and report back.

[Elmojo]

blackcat4866 You were spot-on, as usual! After some struggles getting it to run a successful printhead cleaning (hardware errors?), nozzle checks are now clean, and prints look good.
That was actually my first thought also, but I had never seen those wide white lines before. It turns out there were several adjacent clogged nozzles that happened to be joining up to look like solid white bars. Weird.
Anyway, thanks for your help, and quick response.

[blackcat4866]

It's quite common for these devices to be underused. If the plotter sits unused for a month the head can become unrecoverable. I recommend to my users to print at least (1) Arch D full color original every week to keep the printhead functioning. Sometimes I hear from those users: "... but that wastes so much ink!" What about all those printhead cleanings, and premature printhead replacements? Don't you thing that uses even more ink? =^..^=

[Elmojo]

I recommended exactly the same. I asked the office manager to put an item in her weekly calendar to send a plot to the machine, to prevent it from going crusty.