When to replace the damper – Printer Cleaning Issues Part 20 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 When to Replace the Damper in 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, Part 5 Captop and Head Position, Part 6 Aligning the Captop and Head Position, Part 7 When the Capping Station Level Is Not Correct, Part 8 Captop Surface Drying, Part 9 Degraded Ink Inside the Captop, Part 10 Time for Ink to Fill the Damper, Part 11 Ink Tube Burst, Part 12 How to Replace a Motor Pump Tube, Part 13 Why White Cleaning Doesn’t Work Well, Part 14 Why It’s Important to Replace the Yellow Tube and Captop, Part 15 Head Protection Plate Crumpled, Part 16 Head Protection Plate Cracked, Part 17 When a Specific Color Drops Out During Printing, Part 18 The Color Has Faded, and Part 19 White Flies Around the Image.

This is a 10-month-old demo unit.

• Color and Varnish barely need cleaning at all — their nozzle condition stays nearly perfect without it.
• But White nozzle condition started taking longer to recover about 3–4 months after installation,
• and for the past two months, the pumping and cleaning we run before starting the printer has been using a lot of ink and taking quite a while to get White nozzle condition where it needs to be.

Once it kicks in, it’s fine…

• The odd thing was: once we set conditions once in the morning, the nozzle condition recovered easily with cleaning from then on.
• But the next morning, we’d have to go through a lengthy pumping-and-cleaning routine all over again to restore nozzle condition.
• Since it’s a demo unit, we didn’t use it often, and each time we did, we replaced parts or addressed anything we suspected.
• Things improved a little each time, but it never got back to how it was right after installation.

Both pumping and cleaning ran fine, yet

• on a nozzle test, White channels 5 and 6 recovered immediately, while channels 1, 2, 3, and 4 took longer to come back.
• Channels 1 and 2 — especially channel 1 — took the longest to recover.
• We fine-tuned the head and Captop position until both cleaning and pumping ran well, but cleaning the next day showed no improvement.
• Since positioning involves a lot of repeated cleaning tests, it seems that heavy cleaning just made it look like positioning was the fix.
• This isn’t to say aligning the print head and Captop doesn’t help White nozzle recovery.

If pumping still doesn’t work after checking everything above, use the link below to adjust the print head and Captop position.

How to Align the Print Head and Captop by Moving the Capping Station

Pumping and cleaning both ran great, so why was it so hard to restore channels 1–2–3–4, especially the very last channel, #1?

• “Could it be that when the Captop seals against the print head underside, it tilts slightly to one side, weakening ink suction on the far channel?”
• We bought a small level, adjusted it, and White nozzle recovery time dropped significantly.
• Still, it needed several cleanings and wasn’t perfect.
• See below for how to level the capping station.
• How to Level the Capping Station

White channels 5 and 6 always came out well, while channels 1, 2, 3, 4 — especially 1 and 2, particularly channel 1 — were consistently hard to recover.

• “Could it be that during pumping, ink only comes out of the dampers that already flow well, and not from the dampers on channels 1 and 2?”
• The pump tube only hummed on the first cleaning pass without turning, then started turning on the second pass — so at first we simply adjusted the cleaning time.
• Why White Cleaning Doesn’t Work Well
• To rule out variables, we replaced not just the pump tube but the Captop as well.
• After replacing them, cleaning ran better, which was a real improvement.
• Still, it wasn’t quite as good as right after the initial installation.

Channels 5 and 6 were clean, 4 recovered easily, and 1, 2, 3 took longer —

• even after several rounds of cleaning and printing test images, the nozzles on channels 1, 2, 3 still weren’t improving.
• Looking at the nozzle test patterns for channels 1, 2, 3, they somehow felt thicker and rougher compared to 4, 5, 6.
• “Since the Damper is also a filter, could the mesh that traps ink residue and bubbles have simply reached the end of its life?”
• “Varnish and Color pigment is small enough that it doesn’t matter much, but White’s larger pigment might wear out that mesh faster…”
• There are two White main bottles: White bottle 1 supplies channels 1, 2, 3, 4, and White bottle 2 supplies channels 5, 6.

We decided to replace Dampers 1, 2, 3, and 4 — everything connected to White main bottle 1 — all at once.

• After the swap, nozzle condition improved immediately after just one or two cleanings.
• Since every previous fix had seemed to help at the time, we thought “could this be temporary too?” and tested again the next day.
• The next day, one or two cleanings fully restored the nozzles again.
• “Still, we’ll only really know after the weekend.”
• A few days after the weekend, one or two cleanings quickly fixed the previously troublesome channels 1, 2, 3, 4 — including channel 1.

We had a vague sense of this, but a quick search confirmed the Damper serves two functions.

• It uses natural pressure to keep ink at the right level so the print head can jet ink properly,
• and second, it filters out ink residue or tiny air bubbles.
• In other words, the reason White channels 1, 2, 3, 4 were so hard to restore all along
• was that the Damper’s filter function had worn out, leaving White ink residue behind and making nozzle recovery difficult.

If pumping and cleaning technically run, but don’t work smoothly and nozzle recovery is still difficult,

• first, replace the Captop and pump tube,
• and if nozzle recovery is still difficult after that, it’s worth replacing the Damper and re-checking the problem.

We mentioned the Damper has two functions.

• It uses natural pressure to keep ink at the right level so the print head can jet ink properly,
• and second, it filters out ink residue and fine air bubbles.

If the Damper can’t properly maintain the ink level the head needs for jetting, here’s what you’ll typically see:

• A specific color prints fine, then suddenly drops out mid-print.
• Cleaning and checking the nozzle pattern again shows everything is normal.
• Printing again, it’s fine at first, but partway through, that ink starts dropping out again.
• Cleaning and checking the nozzle pattern again shows everything is normal.
• Suspecting it was head lifespan, replacing the head brings it back to normal operation (this can vary depending on head condition).
• But given enough time, that same color starts dropping out again.

Head-related issues can also cause this, but since this article is about ink supply, we’ll stick to the ink side here. If a specific color is oddly missing several nozzles, or missing in a scattered pattern during printing, check the following:

• Raise the head, move it to the center of the platen, and visually inspect the underside.
• If ink is pooling on a specific channel on the head’s surface, that channel can’t jet ink properly.
• Alternatively, leave the head in that position for 30 minutes and check whether ink beads up on the head’s surface.
• If you see ink pooled on a specific channel while raising the head mid-print, or beading up after sitting for 30 minutes, that channel’s Damper needs to be replaced — no exceptions.

• If the nozzle pattern looks fine after cleaning, but a specific color still drops out during printing,
• replacing the Damper is the cheapest and simplest fix, so replace it first,
• then check whether the symptom persists — if it does,
• checking other variables one at a time is the fastest path to a solution.