How to keep Printheads Working

What printer is this? Is it new? I don't think anybody is selling a printer with refillable ink tanks now.

 

Looks like a mimaki with a third party ink system.

First off, there looks like ink contamination. Would definitely check that out.

Second, those tanks are very low. Basically, the normal ink system relies on the little foil bags to make a vacuum to push the ink out. This system (based on your limited photos) relies on gravity alone to push the ink. I.e the more ink you have in there, the more pressure it has to push the ink through. That’s probably a biggie here.

Thirdly, you cannot, and I can’t stress this enough, clean the machine too much. What you don’t do, is clean the actual printhead unless you have very good swabs, the right liquid, and are very careful. With that said, you should probably daily (if not weekly) clean around the print head, the capping station.. basically anywhere that can gather ink.

Depending on the actual ink used, cyan and magenta tend to be the most likely third party inks to have problems. Especially the cyan. (The magenta just seems to have pressure issues from my experience).

What you need to do, is a couple hard cleanings, a full up ink, then potentially do an overnight head soak (nozzle wash, turn the machine off after it’s started).

Hope that helps..

 

Not familiar with your machine (because I’m not sure which one it is) but there should be a “nozzle wash” in the maintenance menu somewhere, it moves the head off the capping station, you fill the capping station with cleaning liquid, then hit enter. Once the machine is seated back on the capping station, just turn it off. Then back on in the morning.

There could be a bunch of other factors, not sure how old the machine is, but we get a tech to service our mimaki once a year no matter what state it’s in (even if it’s running fine). I.e get all the consumables switched out. We usually get a new cap top, dampers if needed, pump if necessary etc. Might be worth doing so if you’re not sure when all the consumable parts were last changed.

 

You don’t need to take the cap top out. Just leave it where it is and pour some fluid into it. The nozzle wash should be there somewhere, definitely in the maintenance menu somewhere.

If you’ve done the cap top etc yourself, have you made sure it’s seated properly? It needs to create a vacuum with the head or you’ll get problems.

I still think the ink levels might be an issue, is that a third party system? Try filling the inks and seeing if that helps any? Fill up your ink, then do a fill up ink in the menu. And try a nozzle test.