Aligning the Captop and Head Position – Printer Cleaning Issues Part 6 ARTJET 2026

• When ink enters the Damper from the main ink bottle via the ink tube, it passes through the print head, flows to the captop, moves through the motor pump, and finally drains into the waste ink bottle.
• This article covers the Aligning the Captop and Head Position section of the full ink supply problem series.
• This follows Part 1 Captop Lower Tube, Part 2 How to Replace the Captop, Part 3 Damper, Part 4 Pump Motor and Yellow Tube, and Part 5 Captop and Head Position.

• Following Part 5 which explained the concept of captop and head position, this part covers the hands-on process of manually aligning the position.
• If pumping still fails after checking everything else, this method can resolve the issue.

Air leaks from the damper above the captop can be identified immediately with a syringe. The lower side involves multiple factors and requires cross-checking.

The color head Y-fitting was swapped onto the white pump tube, and the white Y-fitting was connected to the color side to see if the problem followed.

• Color Y-fitting → white pump tube → color ink pumps normally → white pump motor is functioning correctly
• Captop lower side normal + captop upper side (damper) normal
• → The only remaining cause is head-to-captop position misalignment (incomplete seal)

“The position was fine before the head replacement, so I assumed it wouldn’t be the issue — but it was.” This was a case of the position shifting slightly after head replacement. Even when all other checks pass, position alignment must be verified separately.

X-Axis (Left/Right) Adjustment

• Can be set precisely via [Origin springback(mm)] in software (labeled in mm but actually in dot units)
• Adding or subtracting 3 moves the position approximately 1mm
• This value is already configured at delivery — it rarely needs to be changed

Y-Axis (Front/Back) Adjustment — The Key Step

Move the entire capping station to align the captop with the print head. Loosening the two bolts beneath the waste ink tank allows the capping station to be shifted by hand.

Step-by-step procedure:

• Trigger inkload (pumping) from the software to keep the pump motor running
• With ink not yet reaching the waste tank, slowly shift the capping station block forward and back by hand
• At a certain point, you will hear a tapping sound (“tok-tok-tok”), followed by ink beginning to flow
• Hold the block firmly at that position and tighten the two bolts without letting go

If pumping (inkload) still fails after checking everything else, this procedure can resolve the issue.