New to me JV3 160SP

[heyskull]

I am on with purchasing a JV3 160SP.
It has been left unused for 3 months and the owner reckons only the CMY is printing the black is empty and the lc and lm are not working.
This was used in a company running banners through for a national fitness chain.
The guy who was supposedly operating this has left the business and he took the contract with him. So this is up for sale and I have acquired for not a lot of money.

My question is "Where do I start getting this machine functioning as their doesn't seem too much up with it?
I have been told these are very reliable and can run for many years.
What should I clean, take apart or replace?

I am currently running a Mutoh Valuejet and have a vast knowledge running and maintaining this machine.

I have used a friends JV3 and JV33 to do some of my prints before so I have a basic knowledge on this machine but no knowledge of maintenance.
I have managed to download the user and maintenance manuals for this machine so this should help

Sean

 

[MikePro]

here's a collection of JV3 documents that you may find useful:
Mimaki Jv3 document collection thread[/QUOTE]

edited: oops, re-reading your post, I notice you've most likely got all these already

1. I'd start by replacing anything inexpensive, like the dampers/ribboncables/wiperblade
2. purchase a set of cleaning cartridges and a full set of ink.
3. assuming you know how to clean with solution/swabs, remove any built-up ink from the critical parts of the machine. (noting that, the ONLY time I'll ever touch the bottom of the printhead... is with a foam swab full of solution, wiping ONCE in the direction that the wiper blade would. Any scrubbing or cloth-based swabs could permanently clog the nozzles. The sides of the printhead, capping station, wiper blade, etc... are fair game. Scrub away at those with whatever u got)
4. set an overnight NozzleWash. (set nozzle wash, and power-down the machine, unplug from wall)
5. in the a.m. run a HeadWash (you'll need cleaning cartridges for this)
6. assuming there's nothing wrong with the printer, at this point, you should be ready to rock! if not, at least you've got all the easy stuff out of the way and diagnosing expensive fixes are much easier to determine from here-on.

 

[heyskull]

Thanks for the advice Mike but purchasing a set of cleaning cartridges is not cheap and would cost me over a thousand dollars in the UK.
I agree replacing the cheap parts such as dampers/ribboncables/wiperblade and even cap tops is the way to go.
But their must be a way of pulling cleaning fluid through the head without the expense of cleaning cartridges and sealing them off overnight to help clean the printheads?
I was also thinking about removing the heads completely and leaving in an ultrasonic cleaner overnight. Has anyone done this with any success?

This machine will be used a second machine printing low resolution banners etc. so doesn't have to print perfectly as banners are low resolution and the high quality items will be printed still on the Valuejet.
My reasoning for this is that the valuejet went offline last month (5 year old printhead and cabling!) and left us dead in the water with no machine and I decided then it was total madness to only have one machine.

SC

 

[particleman]

Take off the back access panel and you can pull ink or solution gently down through the capping station by hooking into the pump lines.

If the machine sat unplugged odds are you have some bad heads which could easily cost more to replace than what you paid for the machine itself.

 

[tjsigns]

Well heres my 2 cents worth. I purchased one of these printers 2 weeks ago from another sign company who told me it hadnt been getting used as they had bought a new epson. I went and had a look at the printer and it was running but test pattern was down. I bought it expecting to need to put 3 heads on.
When i got it home i performed more head test patterns then proceeded to clean and go through all the cleaning functions on the machine. When i done a disway wash i found that the capping station was blocked on red and black.. I removed this and cleaned the lot. After cleaning this i put the heads in a nozzle wash over night and as MikePro said above, make sure you unplug the machine so it dosnt dump the fluid. In the morning i found that after a strong clean my red and black came back good. The yellow and blue however had a fair bit still missing. After some further investigaing i found that the heads had scratches on them. I manged to buy another jv3 for spares which had no ink coming through any of the heads. This also had blocked capping station. After a clean and soak over night i got three of the heads back 100%. Ive installed the heads onto my first machine with new larger dampers and after a week of setting up and alignment ive managed to get the printer running like a sowing machine. My main problem after i got it aligned was colour profiles. I ended up binning the downloaded profiles and made my own. I did flush the heads through with a clean syringe and cleaning fluid but this can damge the heads. I took a risk and managed to bring mine back. MikePro advice is good. go through all the cleaning functions of the machine first and after all that if you are still having problems with test pattern then start looking at dampers cables etc.

Hope this helps.

George

 

[MikePro]

MikePro advice is good.

All thanks to signs101!
I thank these forums for kick-starting my knowledge of this printer and Artbot for inspiring a lil bit of mad-scientistry to make it that much more interesting.

read the manuals, read old diagnosing threads, and you'll quickly learn the ins-outs of this printer

 

[signcrafters london]

There are tons of good threads here about cleaning lines and heads by pulling cleaning solution from the bottom of the system with a syringe. Do a search for MikePro and artbot, among others, and you will have all kinds of invaluable reading material.

 

[heyskull]

OMG I got it wrong!!!!
The machine is a JV3 160S not a JV3 160SP
I understand this has only 3 printheads!
Can this still run just CMYK rather than CMYKlclm?

Does anyone have information and manuals on this one?!!!

Sorry for the mess up, good job this was very cheap.

SC