alexcim
New Member
Hello All,
First time poster, long time reader. Looking forward to becoming an active member of the community.
I have owned a VJ-2638 now for about 8 months (received in Feb, inked up in April). I print paper and sublimate with it. It is inked up with Kiian Hi-Pro ink, and a Kiian bulk ink feeder. Everything after the bulk feeder is OEM Mutoh (ie - all the new gear that came with the printer). I only print one paper, which is a 100gsm 2.4m wide paper. Since April, I have run approx 6km of paper through it, so around 14,400sqm (155,000 sqft). I only print full length rolls, which were 100m (330ft) for the first 5km (16400 ft) and 75m (250ft) for the last 1km (3200ft).
Anyway, the summary of my experience is:
Some days, after a print has finished, I will do a Short clean and it will be fine right away - meaning that I'll be able to print right after that. Other days I'll need hours and hours and many many cleans to get it working. I mean like 10-20 cleans, a variety of different cleans (Short, Medium, Long) and a lot of time waiting between cleans for nozzles to clear up (I might start at 6am, and it's ready to print by 2pm). Other days, I'll have to resort to "Little Charges" to sort it, and that seems to always fix the issue.
I have attached a record of my experiences to date in the PDF. I have videos for each day showing what happens. It's very repetitive, so only a few videos in a row will show the issue well. Here is a video that highlights the typical experience: https://vimeo.com/753706616/79b0a3c61d
The machine is still under warranty, and I've had the company that I bought it from send out a tech multiple times, but of course always when he comes out it works perfectly fine because it's an intermittent issue. I've even had a tech from Mutoh Australia come out, and they both basically couldn't find any issue and effectively told me "Do a Little Charge as much as required" if that's what you need to do. They basically just blamed the third party ink that's not OEM Mutoh (which isn't even sold in Australia...) and that's that. They don't really seem to be too invested in sorting the issue, but it's really killing me in stopping me print some days.
Recently, my third party ink supplier became an official Mutoh dealer and I've ordered a second machine from them for redundancy, and the fact they can't blame the ink like the original supplier / Mutoh. Then I'll have two identical machines side by the side, with the same hardware and ink that I can compare and definitively say it's the ink or the machine.
In the last few days, I actually did a CR Maintenance straight after a clean and noticed that there are air bubbles in the Maintenance Station and noticed that there were air bubbles on the head too (Presumably, it picks up the air bubbles from the MS, then they work their way into the head) which slowly disappeared when I was watching them during the maintenance as they worked their way into the head. I'm not sure these are related at the moment, but will do CR Maintenance after cleans soon to work out if they are.
Had anyone had a similar issue and know a fix for it? It's painful not being able to print rolls when I'm busy (anywhere from 5-13 customer jobs on each roll) and I'm wasting A LOT of time clearing it up every day. I'm also worried about how many Little Charges that I'm doing.
Thanks in advance,
Alex
First time poster, long time reader. Looking forward to becoming an active member of the community.
I have owned a VJ-2638 now for about 8 months (received in Feb, inked up in April). I print paper and sublimate with it. It is inked up with Kiian Hi-Pro ink, and a Kiian bulk ink feeder. Everything after the bulk feeder is OEM Mutoh (ie - all the new gear that came with the printer). I only print one paper, which is a 100gsm 2.4m wide paper. Since April, I have run approx 6km of paper through it, so around 14,400sqm (155,000 sqft). I only print full length rolls, which were 100m (330ft) for the first 5km (16400 ft) and 75m (250ft) for the last 1km (3200ft).
Anyway, the summary of my experience is:
- When the machine print, it prints perfectly for full rolls
- I easily print full rolls after I get started
- I don't have issues leaving it unattended (how much trust I have in it) and often let prints finish overnight because they're such long rolls and it's relatively slow.
- I haven't had issues during prints, only during cleans
- Air gets sucked into the black and sometimes yellow channel
Some days, after a print has finished, I will do a Short clean and it will be fine right away - meaning that I'll be able to print right after that. Other days I'll need hours and hours and many many cleans to get it working. I mean like 10-20 cleans, a variety of different cleans (Short, Medium, Long) and a lot of time waiting between cleans for nozzles to clear up (I might start at 6am, and it's ready to print by 2pm). Other days, I'll have to resort to "Little Charges" to sort it, and that seems to always fix the issue.
I have attached a record of my experiences to date in the PDF. I have videos for each day showing what happens. It's very repetitive, so only a few videos in a row will show the issue well. Here is a video that highlights the typical experience: https://vimeo.com/753706616/79b0a3c61d
The machine is still under warranty, and I've had the company that I bought it from send out a tech multiple times, but of course always when he comes out it works perfectly fine because it's an intermittent issue. I've even had a tech from Mutoh Australia come out, and they both basically couldn't find any issue and effectively told me "Do a Little Charge as much as required" if that's what you need to do. They basically just blamed the third party ink that's not OEM Mutoh (which isn't even sold in Australia...) and that's that. They don't really seem to be too invested in sorting the issue, but it's really killing me in stopping me print some days.
Recently, my third party ink supplier became an official Mutoh dealer and I've ordered a second machine from them for redundancy, and the fact they can't blame the ink like the original supplier / Mutoh. Then I'll have two identical machines side by the side, with the same hardware and ink that I can compare and definitively say it's the ink or the machine.
In the last few days, I actually did a CR Maintenance straight after a clean and noticed that there are air bubbles in the Maintenance Station and noticed that there were air bubbles on the head too (Presumably, it picks up the air bubbles from the MS, then they work their way into the head) which slowly disappeared when I was watching them during the maintenance as they worked their way into the head. I'm not sure these are related at the moment, but will do CR Maintenance after cleans soon to work out if they are.
Had anyone had a similar issue and know a fix for it? It's painful not being able to print rolls when I'm busy (anywhere from 5-13 customer jobs on each roll) and I'm wasting A LOT of time clearing it up every day. I'm also worried about how many Little Charges that I'm doing.
Thanks in advance,
Alex