Streaks after Cleaning Joto

Good morning all!

Love my Joto, finding a use for it to annoy my girlfriend almost daily so it’s paying for itself!

One issue, despite upping the cleaning cycle to 3, the cleaning bar leaves streaks down the board. I then have to wipe it down with some tissue etc for a fresh board. Any ideas on how to rectify?

Thanks,

Tony

Hi Tony - Generally the main reasons the whiteboard won’t clean are:

  • The ink hasn’t had enough time to dry before erasing between Jots.

  • The whiteboard surface has been cleaned with cleaning fluid. We recommend a dry microfibre cloth only to polish the surface.

  • The pen needs to be refilled, as dry pens tend to cause the ink to stick to the surface if there isn’t enough solvent left.

  • Temperature and humidity of the environment. You may find in colder environments that the solvent in the ink doesn’t evaporate well causing the ink to be more “sticky”.

  • The pen is pushing too hard against the surface. You can try going into the pen calibration settings, then tap on Advanced and decrease the Pen Down value by 5-10, then test a Jot, keep repeating these steps until the pen doesn’t touch for areas of the Jot. At this point increase the value by 5-10 so it can draw the whole Jot fine. That way you know the pen is set to the minimum pressure required to Jot fine.

  • The eraser foam on your Eraser bar is a bit thinner than it should be. You can compare the thickness to the spare foam strips that came with Joto. If it seems significantly thinner you could try replacing the foam.

Let me know how you get on.

I’m having trouble with the board not being cleaned between Jots. I have it on three wipes and still end up with some image left behind. This wasn’t so bad before playlists but a lot of my jots are doing automatically now. You can see an example here:

Just looking at your list above.

  • The ink hasn’t had enough time to dry before erasing between Jots.

The jot that was wiped (an Overflower) was from 17:00 and the wipes would have been at 6:00 when a Weather jot was done

  • The whiteboard surface has been cleaned with cleaning fluid. We recommend a dry microfibre cloth only to polish the surface.

I haven’t used any cleaning fluid. We had been using tissues in between when we were sending jots manually.

  • The pen needs to be refilled, as dry pens tend to cause the ink to stick to the surface if there isn’t enough solvent left.

The picture is the second jot from a refilled nib.

  • Temperature and humidity of the environment. You may find in colder environments that the solvent in the ink doesn’t evaporate well causing the ink to be more “sticky”.

This I can’t comment on. It’s in the lounge, so not too cold!

  • The pen is pushing too hard against the surface. You can try going into the pen calibration settings, then tap on Advanced and decrease the Pen Down value by 5-10, then test a Jot, keep repeating these steps until the pen doesn’t touch for areas of the Jot. At this point increase the value by 5-10 so it can draw the whole Jot fine. That way you know the pen is set to the minimum pressure required to Jot fine.

Tried to do this. I get to step 9 and can’t get past it. The pen just goes in and out of the dock rather then the surface position.

  • The eraser foam on your Eraser bar is a bit thinner than it should be. You can compare the thickness to the spare foam strips that came with Joto. If it seems significantly thinner you could try replacing the foam.

Doesn’t seem less thick, could it be worth changing any way?

Hi @ekim - I would say its a combination of…

  • Old Ink build up on the surface - just get a dry microfibre cloth and polish the surface, until it feels like there is no longer any residue on the board

  • Pen pressure - I’m just just fixing the bug you mentioned in our app now. But you only need to go into Pen Calibration settings then click advanced in the top right. Just reduce the pen down pressure by 5-10. The best setting is the least pressure that still allows the pen to draw consistently across the whole surface

  • Old Nib - Change the nib in the pen, you may find its flattened or softened and is putting down more ink, or dried out a bit which causes the ink to be a big more viscous.

  • Eraser - you probably don’t need to change it unless the foam is broken, but you can remove the eraser bar and then brush it with your hand or paper towel (do not use fabric as it will act like velcro and rip the sponge) over a sink until its got rid of all the flakey crud build up.

See how you get on with these tips - and if you’re still having problems then let me know

I tried with the pen pressure. When I went in to advanced it was at 70. I couldn’t make it go any lower, only up. I left it at 70 and now it doesn’t draw any lines at all!

Got a microfibre cloth arriving today to give it a clean.

Ok, so I tried increasing the pen down and got it back to drawing! 85 was the lowest I could set it and still get some lines.

I looked at the nib and to be fair it was pretty flat. Will see how I go with a new nib and the pen setting. Did a test drawing and the width of the lines is significantly less wide than previously.


Hi @ekim - yes that nib looks like it’s seen better days!

The composition of the ink pigment to alcohol solvent is actually pretty critical to erasing performance. The reason that whiteboards in offices around the country get so dirty is usually because people use semi dry and old whiteboard pens. The older the ink, the less the alcohol there is to evaporate, and that leaves the ink sticking to the surface.

Your new Jot is looking crisp :ok_hand:

Back to not getting a clean board again. This was yesterday morning.

Anything else I can try?

@ekim - does it seem like the erase foam needs replacing? Does it seem worn out?

If you wipe the board gently with a micro fibre cloth does the ink come off easily?

There’s nothing to complex going on with the eraser, it applies pressure and removes the ink, so either the eraser foam isn’t applying much pressure or the ink is sticking to the board for some reason.

The foam looks ok, but happy to replace it as a attempt to see if that will help. How do I change it?

Just applying the lightest of pressure to the board with a microfibre cloth and the ink comes off fine.

@ekim - have you got it on more than one erase cycle still?

If the foam feels very soft, and you’ve got the spare foam that was included in the box then it might be worth changing.

It’s not the easiest thing to do, but we recommend just marking on the bar where the two ends of the foam are with a pencil. Then remove the foam by rolling it off the bar from one end with your thumb. Try to avoid peeling or pulling the foam off because it will break up and leave the glue behind.

Then simply apply the new foam. Just be careful to get it aligned straight and flat to the bar.

I’m on three cycles.

How do I actually get to the bar to replace the foam?

@ekim - There’s a video here that explains the process of removing the wiper: