Agfa Anapurna Non Firing Heads

[klmiller611]

Updated 11 am

Hi All:

I'm hoping some of the helpful folks here have a few suggestions of what to look for here.

We've had our Anapurna Mv since December 2008, and generally speaking has been a good machine. In the last few months, on occasion, I can be printing, stop to change the head height or clean heads and when I go to do a prime test, one head or the other will totally not fire on the test, repeat, same thing, clean, do a complete flush, nothing. What was then the procedure was a complete shut down, let it sit with no power on for 10-15 minutes, and that usually cleared the problem.

There is no consistency of how or when it occurs, but it usually clears up and I can proceed. Yesterday afternoon, naturally with something that needed to go out, both the black and yellow heads would not fire.

I can pump the ink through them as in cleaning, no problem. I spent an hour going back and forth with this, occasionally, one would fire, then the other would not, then it would switch positions. In other words, one might fire for one prime sample, then the other might a few cycles later, but the first one would stop. I tried the shut down and unplug two different times, to no avail. When I raise the head and did the jet test, where you can visually watch it fire the jets into the air, nothing was showing on either.

Thus far, I've not fired the printer up this morning, but getting ready to go out and do so now.

The lamps are brand new only two weeks old. I'm suspecting there is an electrical contact issue somewhere. The printer is on a dedicated circuit, unplugged when not in use, and always shut down on advent of an electrical storm. It has about 2100 hours of service over time, which I know for five years is not a lot.

As a follow up this morning, I just did a test prime, and most everything was firing perfectly with light cleaning. Of course, that got me to thinking about what could be the issue and it lead me to static, as I had printed some coro and attempted to print some styrene just before this. During the winter, static has been an issue in the past, but it was primarily with static pulling the cyan (mostly) ink vapor out of the air and onto the surface of the coro. Could there have been enough static charge to have entirely stopped the heads from firing?

When I went back to print, it was on a posterboard material, so static is not going to be an issue with that. But the sitting overnight would seem likely to have allowed a static charge to dissipate. Thoughts?

I welcome any suggestions

Best
Ken

 

[gregwallace]

I dont think there is any way static can keep a printhead from firing. Not without frying it at least. Does the software on this machine allow you to look at the printhead temps and voltages? If its not firing because of a connection issue I would think the temps and\or voltage readings would change in some way. When you do a cleaning cycle can you physically see ink coming out of the heads in question? Have you tried moving one of the heads to a properly working ink channel?

 

[Tim Kingston]

Is it possible you might have air in the systems / sub pumps, plugged filter, manifold etc. In other words an ink supply issue? No banding issues?

 

[klmiller611]

Ink System

Tim

Don't think it is air, normally, when you run a purge on the head, you momentarily push a button, and ink pushes through the jets. If it it normal, you see three drops or three streams along the head. That was exactly what I was seeing every time. If there is air in the line, it pushes to the head in the form or a bubble or bubbles, none of that was witnessed.

I am leaning toward some form of an electrical problem as well. Even when things are working well, if you look at the finished board at an angle in the light, it appears there is gloss banding, but not consistent, in other words, not spaced or appearing equally down the board.

The stuff I printed today was fine, no issues, but I was printing the low quality, high volume poster board.

With voltage readouts, that is part of the service menu, which you have to have the password to get into, the service tech never shared that. The only thing I can think to do would be readout directly from the head with a volt meter, which is going to be tough while it is printing.

Best
Ken

 

[2wheelz]

Inks?

How old are the inks in your system?
We just ran into a catastrophic issues with our Mv(heads plugging one after the other and over again) and were told to purge every drop of the ink from the system and flush with a pretty strong cleaning solution. As explained to us the ink starts to "link" in strands in the tanks etc. once it starts to age excessively spent weeks working on it then led to another issue.
At ~2000 hours you are running about 4-5 hours a week over 8 years which was similar to our volumes, some of our inks we never replenished ... might be something to look into... Don't know if you have been under service contract or not.
Another direction to look at...

 

[klmiller611]

Ink Age?

Thanks 2wheelz.

I'd be curious to know what they recommended for a pretty strong cleaning solution, is that different from the normal solution?

We have actually had the machine 5 years last December. So, we actually run about 7.5 hours a week on average. Still not a lot.

Ink usage will vary, of course, but for the most part, all colors are expended and replaced on about 5-6 months, not all at the same time, of course. The ink is ordered only when close to replacement time. Of course, now that AGFA is selling only through Pitman not our normal dealer, we have to order two bottles per color per time, which means that one bottle sits at least 4-5 months on the shelf.

We did not get a service contract, the boss did not really want to spend the money that first year, and, to be honest, I kept it running without a problem. This is the first issue that has appeared of any real concern.

It is still bizarre to me, as it can vary ink color, it does not have to be any specific color, but it only occurs when printing on coro or styrene and the humidity is low. I run a humidifier in the room now, and am looking at at a humidifier that is controlled by a humidistat.

When it did this a couple of days ago, late in the evening, it was already late in the day. I had been printing some of the heavy coro, and low and behold, one stopped up totally. Prime tested it, not a spec. Shut down, came back the next morning, and it was printing fine. Makes no sense to me.

Best
Ken

 

[klmiller611]

Follow Up

This is sort of a half way follow up on this, as it might help someone else along the way. Another thread I followed was on banding on the Anapurna. This has been an ongoing issue for the last month or so, and I believe I mentioned it here as well. What I was running into as well, was on something we do a lot of, and that is name signs, on a poster board stock, black only. The signs are what you see when you go to a trade show, with the name and booth number. The problem with those was the black seemed to vary from decent coverage to a really thin, like a 50 percent gray, it was all over the place, not repeatable in any consistent manner, even reprinting the same batch of signs could not duplicate it.

Gino had seen my post, and suggested that perhaps the lamp was not heating enough or cooling too much and not giving a correct cure. That gave me the idea that perhaps the exhaust fan in one or both of the lamp heads was failing or had failed. Sure enough, on the 2nd, the exhaust fan quit on the left hand unit.

I replaced it yesterday and amazingly enough, it is now printing correctly again on these, have not tried anything else, and still wondering about the non firing heads, but this seems to have solved one major problem. Hats off to Gino for a great suggestion.

Ken

 

[bycmtl]

anapurna m2 black and yellow doesn't fire

Hi Kimiller611,

Any update on this?

I just bought my M2 and my black and yellow doesn't fire suddenly

Thank in Advance

This is sort of a half way follow up on this, as it might help someone else along the way. Another thread I followed was on banding on the Anapurna. This has been an ongoing issue for the last month or so, and I believe I mentioned it here as well. What I was running into as well, was on something we do a lot of, and that is name signs, on a poster board stock, black only. The signs are what you see when you go to a trade show, with the name and booth number. The problem with those was the black seemed to vary from decent coverage to a really thin, like a 50 percent gray, it was all over the place, not repeatable in any consistent manner, even reprinting the same batch of signs could not duplicate it.

Gino had seen my post, and suggested that perhaps the lamp was not heating enough or cooling too much and not giving a correct cure. That gave me the idea that perhaps the exhaust fan in one or both of the lamp heads was failing or had failed. Sure enough, on the 2nd, the exhaust fan quit on the left hand unit.

I replaced it yesterday and amazingly enough, it is now printing correctly again on these, have not tried anything else, and still wondering about the non firing heads, but this seems to have solved one major problem. Hats off to Gino for a great suggestion.

Ken

 

[klmiller611]

Hi Kimiller611,

Any update on this?

I just bought my M2 and my black and yellow doesn't fire suddenly

Thank in Advance

I wish I had something new to report. This is still an occasional issue, and I still feel that it may be a very low grade static thing, only because of the material it is usually occurring with is a plastic, with static. Nothing seems to help, cleaning, cleaning, but let it sit, or shut it down for 10-15 minutes, and it clears. Everything tests fine, there is always an ink flow, the jet test seems fine, but it just simply does not print the test pattern. I realize that points to an electrical issue, but can find no evidence of such.

Generally speaking, if I run into this issue, I simply shut the printer down for 10-15 minutes, or if late in the day overnight. When I come back, it is fixed on its own.

Best
Ken