General Maintenance Question

[MDKAOD]

Hey everyone, coming from a primarily roll to roll solvent printer and a hybrid flatbed owner of two years, it's time to upgrade. I'm in the market for a true flatbed printer and I haven't been able to find a basic piece of info regarding maintenance. It seems to me that there are a general set of maintenance guidelines that nobody seems to talk about so I'm curious if it's just common knowledge or that maintenance procedures vary that much from machine to machine.

Every vendor I've talked to, CET, Oce, Vutek, Flora, etc. all seem to have very manual maintenance procedures i.e. power up in the morning, purge heads, wipe, and periodic purging throughout the day. This seems to be consistent from the cheap machines to the midlevel machines. Is this pretty much SOP across the board? Can anyone clue me in to why that may be?

Bonus secondary question, I've seen on the CET that dialing in voltages and such is a thing, is that common with Oce, SwissQ, and other brands as well? I have a junk SID Signs printer and manually adjusting voltages just feels so archaic and is frustrating, and I'd like to avoid it if possible.

Thanks guys

 

[chrisphilipps]

We sell and service the Flora line of printers so the information in this post is about my experience with them. I don't have any experience with any of the other models you listed.

Daily maintenance would consist of purging the print heads and wiping them. If you are printing all day long you only normally have to do this in the morning. If you are printing and then wait an hour or two between jobs then you might have to purge it again. Purging the printer only takes about 3 to 5 minutes and isn't really that big of an issue. The reason for this is because UV printers don't typically have head caps that keep the nozzles wet since UV ink will not dry out by being exposed to air. The Flora units will mist periodically to get fresh ink into the nozzles when it is sitting ideal and this helps to reduce the amount of purging that you have to do.

As for the voltage settings this is typically setup when a new print head is installed and once done doesn't really need to be changed at all. The company installing the printer should be responsible for doing this for you.

 

[Gino]

Welcome from up the road a-piece.........................................

 

[MDKAOD]

We sell and service the Flora line of printers

Yeah, I spoke with several of your guys at NBM on Saturday. Thanks for the response.

Welcome from up the road a-piece.........................................

Thanks I've been around here for a while, just never had anything to post before. The biggest issue I'm running into with this purchase is everyone is trying to sell me a machine. I don't want "yes men" and sales pitches, I want my questions answered. Especially in this market as it's so finger pointy and accusatory haha.

 

[Gino]

There's been quite a few threads about this very question if you haven't read up on them, yet.

Lotsa stuff to churn around in your head. I don't know Chris all that well, but I do know his Dad and he is about the most honest and knowledgeable person in the business. Chris, from what I understand is just a younger version of his Dad. I don't know how Dave got such a good kid, it must've been on his Mother's side....... but you ought to go to their location [you're not far.... maybe 1-1/2 hour trip]and talk to Dave and Chris directly one-on-one.

 

[MDKAOD]

There's been quite a few threads about this very question if you haven't read up on them, yet.

Perhaps your Google-fu is stronger than mine, I haven't been able to find user experiences all in one place, so it's been tough trying to piece together the info. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Nameci]

Basing on my experience;
1. You dial in your head voltages during the install and the printer would keep it that way until the next firmware or software upgrade.
2. You change head voltages when you replace a head. The printhead must be tuned in to the characteristics of the ink. If the head voltage is miscalibrated after a head change, new color output might vary with color output prior to head change.
3. Head voltages are also calibrated after an ink chemistry change. (Change of ink set, or third party inks)
4. UV inks doesn't dry (lol), but the head surface should always be kept wet to have reliable ink jetting. There is a minimum RH (humidity) for the ink to bee wet on the printhead nozzle surface, anything lower would cause the ink to be sticky or block the first ejection of the ink from the nozzle (so much for the UV ink not drying). Ink misting on the heads comes into play. Check your printer if it has a function to set the interval and duration of the ink/head misting.
5. The usual lubrication of moving parts. I prefer a thin application of oil on the slider than grease. Grease is a good collector of dust and they harden.
6. Ink Filters. Should follow manufacturers recommendation. If filters are clogged, your ink pumps work harder than it should.
7. Clean the undersides of the carriage. Excess inks sticking under it combines with lints would ruin your much prized prints.
8. Get your printhead nozzle condition everyday by printing a printhead prime bar. Changes on the ink chemistry and head condition can be easily seen on the registrations.
9. For printers that have bulk ink system, shake the bottle at last once every three days to agitate the ink.
9. Lastly, always keep the printer clean and if possible make a thorough cleaning once a week, you will know your printer better and you will be able to see the problem/issue before it goes out of hand.

My 0.02...

 

[MDKAOD]

Basing on my experience;

My 0.02...

This is a lot of great info. What make/model are you running that you've had this experience with?

 

[Nameci]

This is a lot of great info. What make/model are you running that you've had this experience with?

Three of the four you mentioned and others, and going back to head voltages, nowadays, you don't adjust head voltages "manually" thru a trimmer. Most of the time, they can be adjusted using the software driver.