Cheaper head?

[Hot Vinyl]

Hello again guys and gals

I have a mutoh 1204vj eco-solvent. The heads are so expensive and so I was wondering if anyoanyone has ever gotten a water-based head and changed out the manifold? I was told that should work. But I wanted to get everyone's experience on the subject. So if you have tried and been successful at using a cheaper route for the heads please chime in.

Thank you and God bless
Diane

I

 

[MikePro]

installing your own heads will always save you $$$.
replacing a manifold instead of the entire printhead, will also save you $$$

however, doing either without feeling comfortable with the process could potentially cost you double/triple what a service tech doing it for you will be. ...if not more, if you consider downtime. That being said, I saved about $20k in a decade by learning how to do it myself and reinforced a can-do-attitude about maintaining my own equipment and downtime reduced to a wait for overnight shipping rather than scheduling a tech visit.

 

[SightLine]

Just as Mike said. I have also used heads intended for water based printers and swapped the manifold without issue. In the early Mimaki JV33 days which use the same Epson DX5 head as your Mutoh there were a number of smaller Epson desktop printer models which used a DX5 head and you could get one of those desktop printers for a few hundred bucks (Epson sold them at a loss counting on future ink sales), rip the printhead out, swap your solvent manifold onto it and go. Back then you could find hundreds of brand new Epson desktop printers on eBay without a printhead for just a few bucks and I even remember seeing pictures of entire container loads of them in China when they caught on and started bulk buying the desktop printers just to rip the heads out and resell the heads to the wide format markets. That is around the time that Epson also got fed up with all of their desktop printers being bought up cheap only to to get the valuable printhead and started encrypting (locking) the heads - they would still work but a bit of software code inside the head checked for Epson printer firmware and if it did not detect it then it would leave a half inch gap every 20 inches or so of printing (those measurements are not exact as I'm going from memory).
Head encryption is also still an issue today and I believe they have multiple methods now as well. For a while the Chinese even made (and still might) circuit boards with extra flat head cables to put in between to get past the head encryption. As far as I'm aware only the heads with the green connectors will work now (green connector ones are the OEM heads for Mutoh, Mimaki, etc). Search for DX5 head encryption if you want to learn more.

 

[Udesignz1]

Hello again guys and gals

I have a mutoh 1204vj eco-solvent. The heads are so expensive and so I was wondering if anyoanyone has ever gotten a water-based head and changed out the manifold? I was told that should work. But I wanted to get everyone's experience on the subject. So if you have tried and been successful at using a cheaper route for the heads please chime in.

Thank you and God bless
Diane

I

Hey you try ordering one from China.. I have the same machine got it for 1800 usd

 

[leobbyby]

Hello again guys and gals

I have a mutoh 1204vj eco-solvent. The heads are so expensive and so I was wondering if anyoanyone has ever gotten a water-based head and changed out the manifold? I was told that should work. But I wanted to get everyone's experience on the subject. So if you have tried and been successful at using a cheaper route for the heads please chime in.

Thank you and God bless
Diane

I

Mutoh dx5 head only less than 1200USD. Brand new . If want to save more , can consider used head , will cost even only 600UsD.

 

[Udesignz1]

Mutoh dx5 head only less than 1200USD. Brand new . If want to save more , can consider used head , will cost even only 600UsD.

Which supplier u buy from?

 

[leobbyby]

you can contact WhatsApp +86 13020211103.