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How to align the eZinkjet V1

Issue

I have to install an eZinkjet on a line and align it. How do I do that ?

Coarse alignment

Make that the inkjet mount is 90 degrees to the movement of the belt. To see that more or less, put a white paper (letter format for example), align one side to side of the belt, run it to the inkjet mount and inkjet, the other side should parallel the mount and the inkjet head. The screws is just for fine adjustment, try the mount first !

Put 4 plastic cards on corner of the head and lower it with the set screw, make sure it is level on both sides and that it has no inclination or angle.
Use the lonely screw to set the angle, use the upper screw to incline the head square to the belt.

Understanding the Ricoh head

The head has 4 lines of 320 jets. Note that line A has jet 1, line C jet 2, line B jet 3, and line D jet 4.

Paper movement

Stair Alignment

In the layout, add the 1280.bmp in original size: 16 jets in a stair down. 2 long jets out, 1 short jet in

Simple, you have to move the lonely screw until the inkjet prints above.

   

But as you know, we have 4 Ricoh lines, they need to be perfect. But do this after angling it perfect.

A perfect vertical line made out of dots looks like image A below

What is that ?

So, you have to define a layout with say 4 vertical lines. If one looks like image A and the next like image B, you have a problem with your transport or shaft encoder, not with the inkjet, fix that first. This is very important to realize, the transport has to be repeatable.

If all 4 lines look image B, you just have to set the distance between the lines right. Below you can set the number of strokes (offset) between the 4 Ricoh lines. 5 more is about 1 drop movement.

A good trick is to align the 4 lines two by two. Just take 1 as the reference and dial the other lines one by one. For example below, offsets 1 and 2 should align, 3 and 4 on another line

eZ-Inkjet: