Print Head Repair

[Dan Milligan]

I have a printhead that is only 3 months old, it was new out of the box. The company that makes my printer (who I have had nothing but problems with since the day I bought this machine new) tell me that it's a "consumable" and if I want another one I need to pay for it, in full. Yup. 3 months old, less than 6 hours of print time on it and they are telling me to take pay up or take a hike. I don't have another $1000 to spend and even if I did I would not give it to someone that sold me something they will not cover after only 3 months. I am desperate to find a fix. The magenta and one of the white channels are having issues. After flushing all of the channels with monomer flush the white channel seems to be back online (cautiously optimistic as that white channel has come back and left several times so not sure if it's completely fixed). I am hoping there is someone on here that can fix this head or can tell me where to buy one for a lot less money. The only identifying number on the head is IA0770. Thank you.

 

[papabud]

i would be concerned why its failing after such a short time.
is it the printhead, or is there a problem with the capping station causing your issues

 

[Dan Milligan]

I replaced the printhead, capping station, cartridges, and carriage at the end of July. The manufacturer asked me to replace the capping station again which I did and that did not help. This morning I pulled all of the cartridges and did a monomer flush, then an a couple of "initial charges" to flush the monomer flush out, then a few "head cleans" and the white channel seems to be OK. (Now, as I said before I did get the white channel to work but it would work for awhile (ie show up on nozzle checks) and then it would disappear.) I then did 8 nozzle checks in a row and the white channel is still there. The yellow, cyan, black, both clears, and both white print perfectly. The magenta that was completely gone now prints a few nozzles but not a lot, however the nozzles that do print are consistent, meaning the same pattern of nozzles that print print each time I do the nozzle check, so not sure if that is a good sign or not? I just find it amazing that with the little printing I do this thing goes bad in 3 months time. ANY thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Solventinkjet]

The industry standard on print heads is not to warranty them if an end user installs them. Too many factors to go wrong. As stated above, I would be more concerned with why the head failed so soon. Bad ink? Bad maintenance parts? Head strikes? As someone who sells print heads, it is extremely rare to see a head fail within the first year without there being some sort of external factor.

Unfortunately other than flushing the head there is no real way to repair heads. Either you can flush the clog or there is physical damage to the nozzles. The nozzle plate is made using a very specific manufacturing process that requires specialized equipment etc. Also, it sounds like you are running a Chinese DX5 based UV printer. I have never seen a UV printer work well with Epson heads. Mimaki tried for years and never really got there which is why they switched to Ricoh and their new UV machines are much better.

 

[Dan Milligan]

The industry standard on print heads is not to warranty them if an end user installs them. Too many factors to go wrong. As stated above, I would be more concerned with why the head failed so soon. Bad ink? Bad maintenance parts? Head strikes? As someone who sells print heads, it is extremely rare to see a head fail within the first year without there being some sort of external factor.

Unfortunately other than flushing the head there is no real way to repair heads. Either you can flush the clog or there is physical damage to the nozzles. The nozzle plate is made using a very specific manufacturing process that requires specialized equipment etc.

 

[MikePro]

+1 those heads don't simply fail, right out of the box.

...might be something as simple as flushing too aggressively, or mishandling/cracking a manifold during replacement, or dripping ink into a sensitive area.
ink line and data swapping are known ways to diagnose what is actually happening here, but without much information of what/how you did your printhead replacement, then there's not much else to be done. you won't find cheap printheads, sorry to say. they're expensive because they're intended to last a long time.

noted: I replace my HP 26500 printheads every couple of months, for ~$100 a piece. THAT's consumable. I'm certain that whomever you were dealing with, sees this every day, and cannot be any more helpful without physically replacing it for you, or recommending a tech. to do so. They are there to process orders and answer questions.