JFX200-2513 clear ink issues

[TulsaScuba]

I was wondering how many people are using clear ink in their JFX200. We have had repeated issues keeping nozzles in our clear head. The best we have done is 90 days before we drop more nozzles than can be mapped. We have had over 6 heads replaced in our machine and it is only 2 years old. I have even had a technician from Japan visit to address the issue and after his visit is when the clear head worked for almost 90 days. We have also had firmware written specifically for our machine. I am more curious as to how much work per day successful users are producing. I was on a conference call yesterday with a service manager and he stated work production of get this- 600 SF per day to keep the nozzles from failing. Yes, 600SF per day in just clear. This seeming like an astronomically high production requirement, I would like to see what you guys are doing to keep the clear head in working condition. Real world user input would be greatly appreciated. I love what we can do using clear, so I am at a point of pure frustration right now. Thanks in advance for any insights you can share.

 

[artbot]

not familiar with the structure of the jfx. that said, a tech once mentioned (i had a CET with both white and clear and had the worst issues with clear) that the clear ink cures much easier than the pigmented inks. this means that light bounce back, stray light, etc can slightly kick over the latent ink on the jets that does not happen on the other channel's jets.

 

[Signs Express]

We've had our JFX200 since December of 2014. We did have some trouble initially, including one head replacement under warranty. Since then, we've been good. We're missing one single clear nozzle... CMYKW are all there and good. We have certainly had a few issues along the way with clogged nozzles, but thankfully after lots of persistant cleaning... sometimes over a period of weeks, were able to recover all but that one. I will say we don't average anywhere close to 600 square feet every day... that's a big expectation for someone buying their "entry level" machine.

Our dealer, PDS has been great about assistance and advice along the way. We've had to replace a centeral IO board that controlled cooling system for the LED lamps and had a couple ink lines rupture in the pump housing (super fun clean up!).

 

[TulsaScuba]

I know the joy of ruptured line clean up! We purchased ours in Nov. 2014 and have had to replace the color head once and like I said clear has been replaced 6+ times. As for cleanings to recover nozzles, cleaning heads is very much within my daily maintenance routine. On occasion I have recovered a nozzle or two on the clear, but when I have 15 nozzles drop out overnight, recovery just does not occur. We really like what we can do with clear when it's working which makes this so frustrating. Our dealer, Reece Supply, has been great trying to help us, as our sales rep knows our history. It was kind of funny to see him almost lose his lunch like we did when we were told we needed to be doing 600SF a day from the Mimaki service manager. I am still trying to wrap my head around that number and the fact that he stuck to it without having any information to back it up other than ink sales.
My latest failure happened like this- perfect test draw on color, white, and clear when I started the machine on a Monday morning. Ran a few jobs on Monday, did not have any jobs for it on Tuesday as we were busy with another project and I did not even test it. On Wednesday, 18 clear nozzles were gone with color and white being still perfect (less he one black nozzle which has a deflection I was aware of). Cleaned it multiple times and did not recover any. I continue to do my morning test draws and clean the clear/white head to no avail. The one question we have is the possibility of an issue by using LUS-150 for color/white and LH-100 clear. We also have a UJF-3042HG which uses only LH-100 inks and it has given us no issues. It has been offline for a week or more at a time and when we test draw it, we see more issues with our white than clear, but after a couple of cleaning cycles, everything comes back just fine. This tells me the problem is with my JFX and not an ink issue.

 

[Signs Express]

The "by the book" method might recommend doing a nozzle wash... have you tried that? It only does it for 60 seconds, but might be worth a shot (fill up capping stations with cleaning fluid and head just sits there)

The "not by the book" method we had done was soaking a lint free cloth in cleaning liquid and lightly pressing it up against the print head for an extended period. I've done it for a coupe hours before. I draped that UV light curtain over it when I did it and turned the lights off in the room.

 

[TulsaScuba]

I have done extended nozzle wash (power machine off and let it set for up to a couple of hours). To push the "not by the book" methods further, I was even instructed by a tech who was on site with me and at the suggestion of Japan, to physically wipe the print head with a moistened lint free cloth. I want to say, we all should know physically wiping down the heads can lead to serious failures if not done correctly and I had the tech sitting on the floor with me to teach me how to do it. Even following this cleaning method, which I was told to do daily, I would have random multiple nozzle loss. When the tech from Japan was in my shop, he said to stop this daily routine. The funny thing is, when I was following this routine, none of my other heads had issues or were negativitely effected by this type cleaning. Only clear would drop out. Also, my drop outs had a "pattern" which would typically be mostly on the left side of the test draw.