# how perfect does your nozzle check need to be?



## jki540 (May 29, 2007)

Hi everyone...Here's the deal. I have a DTG printer. Before I run my first printjob, I run a 'nozzle check' to see how clean my printheads are. If the nozzle heads look good, it's a green light to start printing. If a nozzle head looks bad, i need to start troubleshooting.

How good are your nozzle checks before you start printing? Do you wait for them to be PERFECT? Or will you run a job even if they're slightly degraded.

I have attached three photos of nozzle checks I've run at 3 different times. One is perfect. One is medium. And one is kind of sketchy. If you were me, would you keep cleaning your printhead (and wasting precious ink) until you reached 'perfect', or would you press your luck and print with a less-than-perfect nozzle check. The "perfect" one is the one with the nice checkerboard pattern and solid color lines. sorry...my digital camera blows.

BAD









DECENT:









PERFECT:








i'm curious if people with far more experience than me can shed some light on how important the perfect nozzle check truly is.

btw...i have an anajet. 90% of the time, i love it.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

you want your nozzle check dead on...if you want correct color. Or so it would seem to me. I am not familiar with the anajet but with the Epson line if you do cleaning more than twice in a short period..you are just making it worse...I would check with anajet tech support...you should not have to do constant cleaning...btw...do you print something everyday?


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## jayball (Nov 14, 2006)

I would up the resolution for a few prints to compensate for the nozzles, this more often than not gets the ink flowing. 

Printing usually clears everything up better than a head clean does.


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## DAGuide (Oct 2, 2006)

I think it depends on what channel you are talking about. You need a much better nozzle check on the CMYK channels compared to a White channel since there is only one C,M,Y & K channels. Since there is 3 other channels to compensate for 1 white channel, it is not as important. Is it always better to have ever nozzle firing 100% - absolutely! However, I have seen people print sellable graphics in a different applications (i.e. dtg, sublimation, solvent printing,...) without having all their nozzles firing. The graphic / design will also make a difference in the final output as well. Ultimately, there is no simple answer to your question. Just get the best nozzle check you can and see if the print is good enough. Otherwise, run cleaning solution through the head and then put the dtg ink back into it.


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## tomtv (Feb 6, 2007)

we have had zero problems with printing even with a few of the steps or ticks as we call them. Art does add some variables but for the most part there will be steps that will be clogged and then unclogged all within a print being done. chances are you will never know til you find print evidence on a shirt or test page.

tom


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## YoDan (May 4, 2007)

I always make sure "ALL" the nozzles are fireing as I do not want the concrete (White Ink) to set and than never be able to open that nozzle(s) again!
*"YODan"*


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## zoom_monster (Sep 20, 2006)

I will have this happen from time to time, But if it's between 5-10% I very rarely can tell on the print, and just let the printing take care of it. If this is the magenta you we talking about in the other forum, and it keeps doing this after you've done your head maintenance, and after letting it sit idol.... or if you still notice after doing your print run, you may be sucking air somewhere or have a starvation issue.


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## Bella Black (Oct 6, 2007)

I have a Kornit and I can't get a perfect nozzle check. Its been like this for months. I would say it fits into that 5-10% and on most prints it does not matter, but on some it really shows like one color prints. We've tried everything the manual, our tech and we can think of. Any suggestions on how to clear the one stubborn streak in your nozzle test?


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