mimaki jv33 diffuser caps LEAKED.

[nashvillesigns]

Folks, (who have these printers), you must remove the head cover and LOOK to make sure they are not leaking. while those "white plastic things" above the head look good, THEY ARE NOT. On the sides of these things is some kind of "saran wrap" material. the ink will eat through all eight of them after TWO YEARS. My black cap leaked all over the place, the head, the deck, and the floor. OMG. it took four + hours to clean every last bit. there was so much ink everywhere, even the wiring harness melted somewhat. lesson learned? i learned a whole bunch of new swear words that i am pretty sure my customers might have heard.... In any case, those thing are 46 dollars each and they come from mimaki. getting them overnighted to new england. what a day.

 

[SightLine]

Those are the dampers and they are a consumable item. We replace ours about once a year or sooner if print quality starts to degrade. They have a fine screen filter in them which gets clogged over time. I dont think they are supposed to last 2 years to begin with. The ink should not eat through them regardless though. You are going to be very lucky if the printhead itself is not fried and possibly the head cable, slider board and even the main motherboard. If ink got all over the small circuit board on the printhead you can be looking at some big $$$ to repair/replace that mess.

 

[SAS]

How does one go about replacing the dampers?

 

[nashvillesigns]

looks like i am screwed. i got everything running again. All the heads even fired right. except, everything prints BLACK. run a test pattern, and all the colors show up. great. looks like the board is toast.

 

[nashvillesigns]

oopS! i spoke too soon, lots of cleaning. all systems good!!!

 

[nashvillesigns]

the dampers are actually pretty easy to replace. take off the cover, and you will see them. there are two thin metal cross bars that go across the top ( to hold them down) remove those, pinch the top clips(squeeze) and they come right out by pulling up. the cables are numbered, so that is the order from left to right (1-8) takes about twenty minutes.