Banner Jet Walk-Thru + UV Ink Conversion!

[Biker Scout]

Here's How I Spend My Friday Nights!

Another long week in the office, but I got some time with my UV Printer Conversion Project. Finished up some key components and hit a milestone along the way.

I ended up getting a different shaped heat sink. Allows for more clearance underneath, so I don't risk shorting out any of my leads going to the thin tabs on the side of the LED. Fan blows away from printhead. Don't know if that's good or bad yet, time will tell.


Wired leads up through my bracket contraption and reed switch. Then after 2 hours of painfully threading the two wires inside some really long and almost too small a heat shrink tube... (was like pushing wet noodles up hill) I almost called it quits.


Here's the UV LED Light Bar wired up with a switch. Again, this is just a secondary light. I don't think it's got enough oomph behind it to cure the ink all by themselves. Maybe someday, when I'm feeling frisky I'll get a 24v power supply and see what happens. If I blow it out, it's really easy to swap out. I used some quick connectors through out my wiring for "just in case" moments like that.
[video=youtube_share;RxkOo2Umdbk]http://youtu.be/RxkOo2Umdbk[/video]

But here's the part I was waiting to get to the whole time... the automatic off/on function of the UV LED when the head is parked and machine is idle. Now this might seem like something simple and easy to those who are already electrically minded. I am not one of those. I know just enough to get myself in trouble, and even that rocker switch above was enough to have me scratching my head on how to do it. Even despite my electrical inabilities, and knowing that I'd probably mess something up, I decided to do this project anyway AND without any help. (I sure could have used it though) But once I get some crazy idea in my head, I'm just gonna do it and figure it out along the way. Wanting a UV Printer but being $135k shy has a way of motivating someone to figure it out. Besides, what I already knew about printers and UV ink, this seemed like something I could tackle. Plus I wanted to show people that certain Chinese printers aren't all crap. (But let's save that thought for when ink is actually coming out and onto the vinyl) :Big Laugh
[video=youtube_share;4z3WR0aV5_8]http://youtu.be/4z3WR0aV5_8[/video]

So, that's it for tonight... I've just got to secure down some of my wiring on the inside, button everything back up, change the wall socket to match the twist plug and I should be ready to install the print head, and prime the ink!

 

[artbot]

right now, roland is flying over their special ops' ninja squad to bash your printer to pieces.

 

[Biker Scout]

Just so happens the printer is at secret location in an unmarked warehouse separate from my office. We refer to is as MouseWorks. Been thinking of getting a multi layered biometric authentication entry point set-up. But it occurred me that the extra stuff attached to the outside door would stand out and draw attention, so I'll just keep the retina scanner and leave it at that.

 

[phototec]

T-Jet UV

right now, roland is flying over their special ops' ninja squad to bash your printer to pieces.

Just so happens the printer is at secret location in an unmarked warehouse separate from my office. We refer to is as MouseWorks. Been thinking of getting a multi layered biometric authentication entry point set-up. But it occurred me that the extra stuff attached to the outside door would stand out and draw attention, so I'll just keep the retina scanner and leave it at that.

Nope, NOT Roland you should worry about, It's the Chinese printer manufacturer who is taking notes and soon going to implement all your trade secrets and come out with their own low-cost UV printer.

Please keep posting the details and photos, I'm sure they appreciate you doing the research and design for them.....:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

 

[artbot]

there are zillions of uv led chinese printers

(here's a few)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpWErVwsInk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGS-OOd6ZkE

or maybe a nice Ntek (which i don't have the room for right now)
http://lyshuangying.en.alibaba.com/...v_flatbed_printer_digital_inkjet_printer.html

love to ditch my h700 for this uv led epson belt feed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMJRlYE04I

 

[Biker Scout]

Yeah, there are already quite a few manufacturers heading into the direction of LED UV printing. It's going to be replacing Eco-Solvent and Latex inks in about 5 years. It's so versatile, inexpensive with the added benefit of not having to heat up the substrate.

However, right now... even the Chinese manufacturers all see this as a rising trend and therefore have added the additional cost of R&D into their printers. WHen I know it's really only about adding a light to the side of the print head. So buying one pre-made was about the same as just buying a Mutoh or Roland regular printer. But when we start to get anywhere near $20k, I'd rather get myself a Summa DX5 to compliment what I've already got. So, the UV Conversion experiment is more or less trying to develop a proof of concept, so that I may be able to be in a position to create these as after-market add-ons for print shops who already have a regular eco-solvent printer and understand the benefits of using UV cure inks.

 

[artbot]

that's a great idea. the work that it takes to get all this figured out is immense. there will be plenty of takers for such a kit.

 

[phototec]

that's a great idea. the work that it takes to get all this figured out is immense. there will be plenty of takers for such a kit.

I agree, it would be a good idea to offer a conversion kit for all the popular eco-sol printers.

Just think, you purchase the kit and follow the video instructions, everything is included, all the parts are pre-machined to fit your printer, you could even include the first batch of inks to get started printing right away!

Would you need a new (different) type of print head for the UV inks?

 

[Biker Scout]

No, the ink I had made is specifically designed to flow with Epson DX5 and DX7 print heads. There's a specific flush solution that you'd have to run, and your ink tanks would have to be opaque. But it could really be a straight forward install.

The trick, like you said would be the universal ability to mount to most of the popular Eco-Solvent printer's head carriages. That will take quite a bit of funding to get the LED head integrated with the fan and power supply. But I love the UV LED I found, it's as wide as the DX series print head nozzle paths. But it's shape does not lend itself very well to being mounted in a slender housing, and the amount of heat it gives off, might need an even larger cooling surface. That may have to be re-engineered and completely custom. But I'll know more after I put some mileage on some vinyl.

 

[player]

When will you be printing?

 

[Biker Scout]

I'll be printing this week. Just found out over the weekend that I got the wrong sized wall socket. So, minor set-back. That, and I don't have an adequate computer to set-up as a RIP station. Only have Mac and Win8 stuff right now, and the RIP that came with the printer needs something slightly older, yet with still a decent amount of RAM and processor speed. At some point I'll be trying out Shiraz RIP, but where the printer is sitting, in the secret MouseWorks lab, there's no internet connection. They told me that I'd have to download their demo, then allow them to log on with Team Viewer so they could set-it up and verify that their RIP can in fact run my import printer. So, that's another chapter I'll have to figure out. Perhaps I'll tether my phone to be a WiFi hotspot, but even then, the "Lab" is almost a dark zone for cell signal.

OK, last minor update: From here on out it will be about inks, print heads, print speed and overall print performance and resolution!

Just tidy up the wires and got all the power supplies at one end for convenience and one power plug to the wall on the 110v side. The other side of the printer has the 220v plug.

 

[player]

Ya! Looking forward to your success.

 

[John Thomson]

Interesting stuff.


You do not have any drivers to allow printing direct to the Tjet unless you use Maintop Rip..... the epson printer control software that runs the Tjet is win xp only ( or Win 7 ultimate in XP compatability mode)..............

I decided to run mine from a laptop that is used only to drive the Tjet so it is Win XP, the Epson control software, Photoprint Rip ( Flexisign) and anti virus......nothing else,this caused me a problem as I had to install XP on a Win 8 laptop......Microsoft do not make that easy!.

As I said I use Flexisign and now that I have a good set of profiles it prints extremely well...........6 pass on the Tjet is sharper than 16 pass printing on my Mimaki JV3.....and so much faster as well

Any Rip that you decide to use will have to output as a .prn or .prt file which is then imported into the Epson software and you print from there (unless you use the supplied Maintop which outputs directly to it)........nothing in the documentation explained this so it took a little working out.

The control software allows you to calibrate the printer, change voltages for the head and cleaning pump, set media size, margins, whether you want single direction/bi directional printing, colour bar settings etc which means the printer does not have a fancy lcd control pad as everything is done through the PC........ but there is no instructions supplied to tell you what some settings are so that caused me some headaches and a few emails to China which were answered quickly.

hope this helps.

john

 

[Jack Knight1979]

I can't wait to see this running. Awesome work!

 

[Biker Scout]

Progress hampered by needing to use a 32 bit USB driver. The only computer I have available to me at this point is a Win8 Laptop. I know nothing about these things. I am going to have to find a computer with XP or maybe Win7? Uggh... Everything is in place, software installed... just one stupid driver for the computer to even recognize it's there.

 

[graphicwarning]

Progress hampered by needing to use a 32 bit USB driver. The only computer I have available to me at this point is a Win8 Laptop. I know nothing about these things. I am going to have to find a computer with XP or maybe Win7? Uggh... Everything is in place, software installed... just one stupid driver for the computer to even recognize it's there.

Would it be possible to just install a 32bit version of win XP or 7 in a virtual machine on your existing laptop, so you don't do anything to your existing OS, and the virtual machine will map out the USB ports using the 32 bit driver in your guest OS?

 

[Biker Scout]

Here's what I just read: "Hoiafjkl, jndklls snqwoihfnf mna, a lksjd lkjapasvm. Lshdfl uqwyfihu lsdjk, jwrjcn sljal fnlehrwpob, oiuoib f.sn.slasf heujhd!!!"

No clue what any of that means. But sounds like having to buy something else, including a windoze cd. An older version probably not too easy to find anymore either.

 

[graphicwarning]

haha point taken!

Well you can use Virtual Box for free, and someone should be able to find you an old XP OS disk for nearly nothing or free even, though it's officially dead.

Loosely translated "hshaf;knafb.lkahgl aeg ;oaehgnknag aseg;on;na. albrfjare" :Big Laugh

 

[Biker Scout]

Exactly... I've got this guy I can call. He speaks binary, and probably Klingon. But he ain't cheap either. Probably because of his expensive cosplay outings. :ROFLMAO:

 

[artbot]

in my experience, if you go to a local computer repair store, they will have a few cherry dells sitting around for $75 and will put xp, or win98, or whatever (as long as it's old) on it for free. i recently did a win7 to win98 downgrade on a pc. works great, except for the graphics are crap, but i only need it for sending the file, which i assume that's all yours will be doing as well.