Mutoh Valuejet 1624

Have you been shown how to perform cleaning / maintenance by releasing the head carriage and sliding it to the left and then swabbing the heads with cleaning solution? Since your ink is already gummed, it might take an hour or so to swab it all away.

 

Just a quick note: Swabbing the nozzle area can cause permanent damage to the nozzles and is not recommended by Mutoh.

If you go to Mutoh's website you can download the user's manual for that machine and there is an entire section on how to maintain the machine. If you follow those instructions you can't go wrong. However, most people usually skimp on the maintenance because they think it's excessive. See below for a simple routine that I tell my customers to do:

Every Monday and Friday, clean the cap top and wiper with a swab and cleaning solution. The goal is to remove and prevent ink build up on these items.

Once per month, move the head over to the left side of the machine and clean the area where the cap top meets the surface of the head while avoiding the nozzle area. Again the goal is to remove and prevent ink build up which prevents the cap top from sealing with the head. At this point you also want to clean any ink that is building up on the chrome piece around the head as well. That chrome should be shinny when you are done.

Change the wiper if it looks deformed or bloated which could be anywhere from 6 months to a year. The goal is to make sure the wiper is flat on the top so when it wipes it gets all of the ink off and doesn't miss certain areas.

Change the cap top if you can't get ink to flow during cleaning cycles and/or once per year. If you wait until it fails it will fail at the worst possible time I guarantee it.

Change the dampers once per year. This one almost no one ever follows but it's one of the cheapest simple things you can do to extend the life of your print head. Dampers have two functions, they keep ink flowing to the head while printing and they are also filters. Over time the filter clogs and the elasticity of the damper weakens which causes all kinds of ink flow issues. Changing them once per year guarantees you proper function.

Overall keep the environment around the printer as dust free as possible.

 

This really is a good printer. We have had very little issues with it in the last 4 years since we purchased ours. We've had to change the Maintenance Station just this year for the first time.

 

You may notice black goo has probably formed around the heads and probably not on the nozzles themselves. You could use some sort of LED flashlight or such and the mirror tray to help the difficulty to see because the black goo is on black plastic. It could take quite a while to get clean. Of course, don't grind away at nozzles.

 

When using Mutoh UMS-inkts in bags, you need to clean daily with a swab (2 minutes work).