finaly changed the capping station today

[gabagoo]

My jv3 130 spII is almost 4 years old and today I finally had a tech in to change the capping station.
He came and took a look and said my printer looks very well maintained.
I explained to him that I paid for it and I was sure as hell gonna take care of it although I felt I left the capping station a little to long.
He said it really did not require changing yet, but I said to do it as I did not want to have any problems if it failed.

Ok so he changed it and I left him alone to do his work.

When he got it back up running the black head test print was awful and he figured it needed a good nozzle wash (it was working fine before he came but I figured it had something to do with the changeover. It seemd to have worked

Now when it prints the head makes a clicking sound when the carriage returns to the capping station and he said it was ok as it was the carriage gently tapping the stem that moves the capping station up to meet the heads.

My question is......was he just saying that or is it OK to click each time it returns home. I watched as it came back and you can see it gently hitting that stem at the far right side of the station, and indeed the heads move into the caps for a split second. I have never looked before so I have no idea

What you think?

 

[iSign]

so you say he's "a tech" and he worked on your Mimaki.. but that doesn't tell us for sure if he is a Mimaki employee, doing warranty work... or a sign supply house "tech"... or some freelance printer repair tech..

Generally, I would have thought if I had an authorized Mimaki technician, I'd feel more confident, but in my experience, I've had 4 technicians here counting the one who set up my new printer 5 years ago.. 3 were Advantage Sign Supply techs, and one was a Mimaki employee doing a warranty fix... the Mimaki guy was the worst by a long shot & the second guy I had in was because that tech tried to leave when he said he was done, (after getting his free trip to Hawaii) without showing me any tests.. I said wait... run some prints... I've waited for this work to improve problems.. you ain't done until you show me that things have improved.. those tests were horrendus & he stayed another 6 hours farting around, putting in new heads.. finally fixed what he broke, left, & Advantage had to send another guy on their dime, to fix the crap the clueless Mimaki tech did to my printer!

 

[gabagoo]

This guy seemed to know his stuff and works for a smaller Mimaki dealer. He was honest enough about the capping station and from what I could tell, knew his stuff.
Time will tell I suppose. This dealer wants my ink, vinyl and banner biz so I would think they will make an effort to keep me happy if there is a problem

 

[MikePro]

what made you want to change the capping station? mimaki here's been running for 5 years and no problems xept a couple of instances where the plastic seal-caps have pop'd out of place. Nothing a thorough cleaning hasn't fixed for me.

Just curious mainly, since i've recently opened the can o' worms recently by replacing 2 heads ... aaand then having to pull out and service a 3rd head when i dripped ink on it in the process of the former. Bout to take a page from Artbot's book and order a box of enough misc. replacement parts to service this mimaki for another 3years, but was hoping that since i keep a pretty clean printer that I shouldn't have to worry about things like the capping station... but definately going to get my hands on a pump, cables, dampers, inklines, o-rings, etc.

 

[gabagoo]

what made you want to change the capping station? mimaki here's been running for 5 years and no problems xept a couple of instances where the plastic seal-caps have pop'd out of place. Nothing a thorough cleaning hasn't fixed for me.

Just curious mainly, since i've recently opened the can o' worms recently by replacing 2 heads ... aaand then having to pull out and service a 3rd head when i dripped ink on it in the process of the former. Bout to take a page from Artbot's book and order a box of enough misc. replacement parts to service this mimaki for another 3years, but was hoping that since i keep a pretty clean printer that I shouldn't have to worry about things like the capping station... but definately going to get my hands on a pump, cables, dampers, inklines, o-rings, etc.

I had asked on here a while back about it and when I mentioned it had never been changed I got all sorts of warnings that if the heads did not seal properly I would be looking at replacing the heads at enormous cost.
The rubber seals could go anytime with no warning until it was to late.
I figured the preventitive maintenance was worth it.

 

[Chiproller]

I have had a Mimaki JV33-160 for two years now (it was a demo at the dealer's office originally for probably a year or so before I bought it) and I just recently manually replaced the capping station. As far as I could tell nothing was wrong with it, the rubber seal looked fine on it.

The problem I had was that during the test draw the black ink columns started slowly disappearing leading me to do all kinds of things like replace the pump and changing out the dampers and nothing seemed to work. Then I noticed that when I was doing nozzle washes that the discharge tubes under the station weren't pumping any ink into the discharge tank so I surmised that it must not be getting a good seal.

After replacing the station myself it prints great again. Thank God, because I was worried about having to replace the $2500 heads. However, I haven't noticed any clicking noise after replacing it when the head moves into the capping station. The pump makes all kinds of clicking noises of course underneath it, but nothing unusual.

 

[Dice]

Just replaced the capping station on our JV33 after 2 years. 1 edge of the station seemed to have expanded a bit creating space, not getting a good seal around the head.

Same issue as chip roller, no ink was draining on an ink fill or cleans. I had to reach around under and press the capping station up into the head to get it to pump ink.

 

[gabagoo]

so today I printed something and I was on the phone and I gazed across the room and I see this blob on the print. %$#$!!! was my first reaction and then when I was off the phone I went over to look at it and it looked like a big blob of black ink, so naturally I touched it and it popped off the vinyl onto the floor.

Not ink but my screen from the black capping station.

Now I know this is not right for the head to go back so aggressively and push the capping station into place.

The guy is coming tomorrow to adjust it. I am not sure why he didnt do it when I asked him about it. I guess he just wanted to leave.

oh the horror

 

[PGilleland]

I am wanting to replace my capping station. How do you connect the tubes from the capping station to the lines that run into the waste container?

 

[Big House Signs]

When I was having all of the above problems...capping station, heads, pump, damper , I used Grafxnetwork. These guys were great. Glenn, Bob, Trent...all really nice guys. Offices out of GA and VA. Number is 888-335-5914

Paula