3rd party inks killed my head ?

There are 2 grades of heads if I remember correctly. One is substantially cheaper than the other, but it's shot count is lower. Do you know what head you replaced last?

 

3rd party inks generally destroy heads so you aren't saving money.

 

You run this risk with third party inks. It’s almost impossible to “prove” it’s the inks. That or it’s a very long drawn out process.

that being said, if you’re running enough ink through it, there’s generally a good chance you’ll save money in the long run. If you’re not using much ink, probably best sticking with OEM.

Our third party inks must’ve saved us 10k/year and a head costs (in the uk) about 1700 so it’s well worth the money going third party (for us). Even if we were going through a head a year.

 

We had heads go bad after 2 years and always use Roland Inks.

 

It sounds like you may have had some bad experiences, but I think you are incorrect to group all third-party inks together in your statement. Surely you have not tested all third-party inks, and at least with UV ink I know of some OEM inks that impart a high risk of destroying heads.

 

Honestly, having an OEM head last 5 years is possible but most manufacturers will say average life is about 2-3 years. So I wouldn't necessarily jump the gun and say the ink was the culprit there. The new head dying within such a short time is very strange. A bad head could be the result from many variables...ink "could" be one of them, but there are others to consider.

As a user of JetBest inks for over 7 years on our Mutohs I have a hard time believing it would be the ink, so here are some other things to check...

1. What are the condition of the head cables. Over time, they get coated with a mist of ink, which can eventually eat through the insulation and cause shorts. The same thing can happen when you change a head, and not knowingly kink or crack a cable and with a little time it cracks enough to develop a short which will cause misting and overspray as you are describing.

2. Where did you get your head from? You realize they make a water base and a solvent base DX5 head? Many folks have been ripped off by buying a water based head off ebay or some other vendor which will last a while and then basically fall apart from the solvent eating through the head.

Just some other things to think about...

 

Everywhere I have worked that used 3rd party inks had issues with heads going bad. Here, we only use OEM inks (now OEM/MCS inks) and have never had any head issues.
We print a LOT of vinyl, so you'd think we'd go through heads.... only ever replaced them due to employee negligence/head strikes.

 

Unfortunately, the only way to be sure is to buy a set of OEM ink carts and wait and see. OEM and Jetbest are compatible, so no worries about flushing, etc. If the problem goes away you'll have your answer, if it persists, it's something else...

 

My Roland didn't care for third party inks either. Also wasn't running it hours everyday 5 or 6 days a week which I think is key with third party.

The ink I used clogged the drain lines from the cap top. It also made them brittle. Since it couldn't drain properly it eventually backed ink up into the heads.
Long story short it was a grand scale mess that cost a lot of money to fix.

OP may want to check the drain lines for arterialsclerosis.

 

People generally go on Amazon and getting crap that destroys their prints.

 

My cables are perfect as well as my test print. If your head was bad it would be impossible to get a good test print. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit nor can a good tree produce bad fruit. $0.02

 

Test prints are printed with the biggest dot possible, which is the easiest for the printer to do. Real prints on the other hands are made with variable sized dots which may be ugly - especially at gradients.