Help! Mixed inks on SP540V

[N Johnston]

Hi there, I'm new to the signmaking world, graphic designer turned to signmaking. Just to start off with I thought I'd get an older Roland eco solvent to learn on for a time before buying new, so I got an SP540V 4 colour printer at a decent price. I'm completely new to these printers. After watching and reading online about these to teach myself, all is oing well so far with it after about 6 weeks in. The guy I bought it from was using Max2 bulk system 3rd party inks. And it needed new ink as it was low on 2 of the 4 colours when I got it home. So I went to order Max2 compatible bulk inks and after chatting to an ink supplier he told me that the SP540V is supposed to run on Max not Max2 and that my Yellow sounded like it was Max going by its colour. So now I'm thinking the guy who sold me it was mixing Max and Max2 inks!! I realise you aren't supposed to do that. Soo...my questions to you are, although its printing really well at the moment, I really want to clean this baby up and put all Max bulk system 3rd party inks in it and do away with the Max 2 inks that he had in it.

Q1. I have alot of ink in the bulk system currently, mix of Max and Max2 (probably more Max2). So do I throw all the money down the drain and get rid of the old ink OR do you think I'd be safe enough using it up until its all gone considering its been printing really well currently?

Q2. What would be the process for changing over to all Max inks, what do I need to physically do with the printer so the old ink is cleaned out of the bulk ink system and I put the new Max inks in?

Q3. The Magenta was leaking slightly into the Yellow each day (I do a test print each day before printing anything to check things, and there was 2 lines of Magenta, no Yellow). So after doing a medium clean it would rectify itself and be fine to print normally. I noticed that there is a little bit of Magenta inside the Yellow bulk ink cartridge that must be running straight through the lines. Whats the best way to clean this out of the printer?

If you can be specific as I am new to the jargan I'd appreciate it!

Thanks a million in advance, really appreciate any help here for a newbie who is very enthusiastic, technically minded and not scared to work on the printer as its quite old so not much chance of getting an engineer anyway!! lol.

 

[balstestrat]

If he had 3rd party ink you can't call that Max or Max2 ink..... It's something else.

 

[Joe House]

If he had 3rd party ink you can't call that Max or Max2 ink..... It's something else.

- Agreed, but it's likely the ink vendor's way to designate their products to match with the OEM.

Mixing the inks can cause problems - at least with the Roland inks. When Max inks first came out we had some customers mix them and ended up having to replace some heads. Then firmware got update to prevent that from happening.

At this point, if you suspect mixed ink in your bulk system, I would get rid of all of it and flush the lines with cleaning fluid. And then to be sure, replace dampers and captops at least. Refill with known inks.

As for Magenta getting into yellow, this could simply be as simple as static electricity pulling the drops over when firing the test pattern. Ink migration can also happen when you have old cap tops and the ink siphons from one channel to the other. If the ink levels are drastically different in the two colors, it happens to a greater extent.

Good Luck

 

[N Johnston]

Hi Guys, thanks for your replies. I see what you're saying about them being compatibles, however they should I'm sure have similar properties in them to the OEM inks, its only the brand thats different. They are marked as Max and Max2 compatibles on the bottles.

Joe - Can I ask do you have a video or instruction link to show how to flush the lines with cleaning fluid, I got fluid with the printer so just need to know how to do it. And am in process of ordering new captops and dampers. And I have already just received all the new inks that are all the same Max compatibles. Yes the Yellow ink was very low nearly right to the bottom of the bulk ink system cartridge whereas the Magenta had about 1/3 ink in it. Maybe thats the issue. If all is cleaned out with fluid and those parts replaced then hopefully that will sort it.

Thank you for your advice Joe and Balstestrat.

 

[N Johnston]

Also, do I need to replace the actual bulk ink system cartridges do you think?? Or will I be ok to use the existing ones if I clean the lines with fluid? Thanks!

 

[hybriddesign]

Hi, the ink system on that printer are pretty basic so it's an easy one to flush out if you need to.

There's a pretty good chance that if the inks are already mixed and it's been working fine you could just leave it alone and add the correct new ink as you use up the old ink. Sometimes you might have adhesion issues, color shifts, etc but I would think that if you're not seeing the ink congealing or anything in the bulk tank where the two types are mixed you're probably okay.

If you do need to flush it out and it's just one color you're going to want to pull the ink out through the damper. Carefully pull the damper up off of the print head nipple (pull ONLY straight up or you can crack the manifold (black plastic nipple) that the damper sits on) and then insert a syringe with a narrow tip (usually it's a curved tip) into the bottom of the damper and proceed to gently draw out all of the ink. After the ink is all gone you could definitely then run some cleaner through the head and lines as well. Finally put new ink into the system and pull that through the line until it's in the damper. If you're going to replace the damper with a new one this is when you'd do it. You might now need to pull ink from the capping station to pull the new ink into the head or just by running a few cleanings.

It's up to you on refilling the bulk ink systems. You can probably just wash them out and you'll be fine. If this was a brand new printer then you'd probably want to replace them but for something used it's not worth the cost. You could wash it out with isopropyl alcohol and then when you're satisfied do a final wash with regular solvent cleaning solution (buy a cheap liter of it from solventinkjet or somewhere). Make sure that the tanks are nice and dry before refilling again with ink.

I wouldn't worry too much about the yellow/magenta bleed unless it happens when you are actually printing. It's probably just cross contamination from the cap top.

 

[N Johnston]

Hi Hybriddesign, I really appreciate your reply, its been very helpful! Many thanks!

 

[N Johnston]

Also, please see attached pic of my sponge, I'm assuming this needs replaced? What is this part called? I only just seen this when cleaning. Why would this have a hole like this? Many thanks!