We took delivery of our HP FB550 two years ago. We do a test print every morning and several heads require multiple purges to get back to an acceptable level. This is happening more and more recently. I am wondering if this is related to the temperature in the room where the printer is. We keep the thermostat around 68 degrees during the day, but drop it to 63 or so at night. Could that be affecting the ink viscosity and making it too "thick" in the morning? If so, has anyone experimented with space heaters to warm just the area needed? Or, should we just keep the thermostat up and tolerate the extra cost? I'm not convinced temperature is the problem, but I would welcome any input.
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HP FB550 - Cold Weather problems? Solutions?
- Thread starter MarkH42
- Start date
Troy Lesher
Merchant Member
The temperature will be only cause some of this problem, Humidity ( actually lack thereof), Generally during the cold weather along with Static build up is an equal partner in your heads being dry and clogged, and needing so much attention if idle too long. keep your humidity at or above 50% that helps keep inks solvents from rapid evaporation and also keeps the dust down, and static has a harder time surviving in higher humidity's. I posted a Video here not long ago about The importance of the correct environment to get the most life and efficiency out of todays Piezzo Heads, regardless of manufacturer.
MelloImagingTechnologies
Many years in the Production Business
It probably won't be long before you can't get ink or parts for the HP 550
My customers with the Vanguard VR5 D flatbed don't even do a nozzle print in the morning and haven't done a purge in months.
They have an Auto Spray set up where it shoots a tiny mist and you can control how often it happens.
Needs to happen frequently if you're running white.
Several customers had printhead clogging problems with the HP inks clogging heads.
A few of them had great success with Nazdar inks in place of HP ink.
Bruce
My customers with the Vanguard VR5 D flatbed don't even do a nozzle print in the morning and haven't done a purge in months.
They have an Auto Spray set up where it shoots a tiny mist and you can control how often it happens.
Needs to happen frequently if you're running white.
Several customers had printhead clogging problems with the HP inks clogging heads.
A few of them had great success with Nazdar inks in place of HP ink.
Bruce
We have a couple of HP Latex roll printers and we love them. But in all honesty, the FB550 has been a disappointment - not HP's finest work and we were definitely were misled during the sales process. But after spending $90K and only having it for 24 months, we aren't in a position to replace it just yet. We may try the Nazdar inks as printhead clogging is the vast majority of our problems. If we can eliminate that problem, we'll be fine. How much is the Vanguard VR5 D?
UPDATE - We have fixed the printer and it had ZERO to do with temperature or humidity. It ended up being the "thermistor". With help from Eric, the HP tech, we drained the heads on the color we were struggling with (light magenta), then removed the cap of one of the thermistors. We examined a thin glass tube that apparently tells the machine how much ink is in the head. It had a gob of what the HP tech called "epoxy" on the tip. We removed that and it has been working great ever since. If you experience the same color dropping out periodically for no apparent reason, check this - very simple and only takes 20 minutes or so.