Printing UV Curable White Ink

[grfx@condit]

We all seem to agree, printing with UV Curable White ink is a daunting task, especially when not constantly used. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a source for information or answers on this matter, so if anyone has a good link to find answers to to some of the questions I've listed or has answers, please share.

Currently we use a CET K2 Series with Kyocera heads using CMYK WW which is just shy of two years old. We have already managed to lose one white head and have been fighting with the second white head every day, just to keep it good enough to wing it with any prints we have to use white in.

Does anyone have recommendations to a user-friendly ink set including white?

I've heard that the pigments in white are large and clog inkjets easily because pigments aren't ground down fine enough. I have been introduced to an ink-set by NUtec that supposedly grinds their own pigments finer than most companies making ink. I will research this more and share what I find out here.

Do some printers or print heads print white better than others?

Does anyone recommend a print head cleaning machine for white print head maintenance?

And lastly, In the future we could use a skilled service tech for flatbed maintenance/service if anyone knows of one in or near the Colorado region.
If anyone has tips or tweaks that help them with white ink printing, let us know.

 

[VISCOM]

We all seem to agree, printing with UV Curable White ink is a daunting task, especially when not constantly used. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a source for information or answers on this matter, so if anyone has a good link to find answers to to some of the questions I've listed or has answers, please share.

Currently we use a CET K2 Series with Kyocera heads using CMYK WW which is just shy of two years old. We have already managed to lose one white head and have been fighting with the second white head every day, just to keep it good enough to wing it with any prints we have to use white in.

Does anyone have recommendations to a user-friendly ink set including white?

I've heard that the pigments in white are large and clog inkjets easily because pigments aren't ground down fine enough. I have been introduced to an ink-set by NUtec that supposedly grinds their own pigments finer than most companies making ink. I will research this more and share what I find out here.

Do some printers or print heads print white better than others?

Does anyone recommend a print head cleaning machine for white print head maintenance?

And lastly, In the future we could use a skilled service tech for flatbed maintenance/service if anyone knows of one in or near the Colorado region.
If anyone has tips or tweaks that help them with white ink printing, let us know.

 

[White Haus]

From what I've heard/seen it's just the nature of the beast. I also have trouble just accepting that and would also love to know if there's anything that can be done to revive them or make them last longer.

We religiously clean our unit every day and perform the weekly maintenance and follow Canon/Oce's maintenance instructions, but still seems to be an issue. We're slowly but surely getting blocked nozzles on our white head (Oce Arizona 318gl)

I guess it could be worse, after almost 4 years we only have a couple nozzles out, but with only one white head it does cause banding sometimes.

Good luck on your search, hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

I have white/varnish on my Fuji LED1600. The white is heavy and settles, but I just do a cleaning every day and run nozzle checks throughout the day and have never had an issue. Some nozzles always dropout after it sits for a while, but a simple cleaning has always brought them all back. I think it's worth it as the white is WAY better than the white on my Epson.

 

[BigfishDM]

We all seem to agree, printing with UV Curable White ink is a daunting task, especially when not constantly used. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a source for information or answers on this matter, so if anyone has a good link to find answers to to some of the questions I've listed or has answers, please share.

Currently we use a CET K2 Series with Kyocera heads using CMYK WW which is just shy of two years old. We have already managed to lose one white head and have been fighting with the second white head every day, just to keep it good enough to wing it with any prints we have to use white in.

Does anyone have recommendations to a user-friendly ink set including white?

I've heard that the pigments in white are large and clog inkjets easily because pigments aren't ground down fine enough. I have been introduced to an ink-set by NUtec that supposedly grinds their own pigments finer than most companies making ink. I will research this more and share what I find out here.

Do some printers or print heads print white better than others?

Does anyone recommend a print head cleaning machine for white print head maintenance?

And lastly, In the future we could use a skilled service tech for flatbed maintenance/service if anyone knows of one in or near the Colorado region.
If anyone has tips or tweaks that help them with white ink printing, let us know.

Check out the R Series from HP.

 

[StarSign]

When we put in our new Acuity a few years ago it was CMYK W and Varnish. Sometimes it took us an hour to get the white head firing right, it was a PITA. We then removed the varnish and added white, as soon as we did that, crazy as it sounds we usually only have to do one head cleaning before running the white and it prints great (I probably just jinxed myself)

 

[Superior_Adam]

We run EFI Pro 16H and the 24F usign the Ricoh Gen 5 heads and don't have issues with white. Simple purge every few days. I also print a 18" x 18" solid white box daily to make sure its getting used. Yes some will say its a waste of ink but I don't have clogged nozzles and don't have to fight with the machine to get the white printing right. I also once a month flush all the heads. Sometimes no matter what you do pigments settle even in some colors. Flushing them will clean everything out and keep the ink flowing good.

 

[ChrisN]

We have a CET Q5 CMYKWW w/ the original Ricoh Gen5 heads that is nearly 4 years old. The white nozzle test never prints as good as the color test, but in actual production it works fine. I print a 24x24 white block every day the printer is run as part of my startup procedure.

I run also all white prints at 2x white to get brighter whites, so that does cover up the times when nozzles drop out during printing. I usually have a few nozzle dropouts for maybe the first 8-10 sq. ft. of white printing; but just pausing the print, and then purging & cleaning the printhead soon cures that. After that, I usually get nearly flawless white prints.

Maybe with some tweaking I could get even better prints, but what I get has been working well for me.

We are switching to Nutec inks next week, and that comes with a full printer re-calibration (printhead voltages & temperatures, alignment, etc.). So I'm interested to see how the white ink performs for me after we switch.

 

[jay etheredge]

We all seem to agree, printing with UV Curable White ink is a daunting task, especially when not constantly used. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a source for information or answers on this matter, so if anyone has a good link to find answers to to some of the questions I've listed or has answers, please share.

Currently we use a CET K2 Series with Kyocera heads using CMYK WW which is just shy of two years old. We have already managed to lose one white head and have been fighting with the second white head every day, just to keep it good enough to wing it with any prints we have to use white in.

Does anyone have recommendations to a user-friendly ink set including white?

I've heard that the pigments in white are large and clog inkjets easily because pigments aren't ground down fine enough. I have been introduced to an ink-set by NUtec that supposedly grinds their own pigments finer than most companies making ink. I will research this more and share what I find out here.

Do some printers or print heads print white better than others?

Does anyone recommend a print head cleaning machine for white print head maintenance?

And lastly, In the future we could use a skilled service tech for flatbed maintenance/service if anyone knows of one in or near the Colorado region.
If anyone has tips or tweaks that help them with white ink printing, let us know.

I’ve been installing and repairing flora flatbeds for near 7 years. When I started our demo unit had horrible white heads.
We sold it and of course had to replace them and then we got a new demo printer.
I implemented a cleaning regiment where we flushed the white heads on Friday eve at end of day. Then Monday morning purged ink in and 2 years later the printheads printed white like new. This worked on Konica 512,1024, 1024i and Ricoh gen 5 printheads famously.
I trained every customer on install how to do this and those who don’t, and don’t print white often, always have issues.
I’ve worked on Cet printers in the past, actually have a yearly maintenance agreement with two cet customers but I have not worked on your specific model although I did advise a current printer dealer just one month after touching my first printer of any kind when they were far more experienced than I, so I’m pretty sure I could help you out. Most of Colorado is a short flight from Los Angeles.

 

[grfx@condit]

From what I've heard/seen it's just the nature of the beast. I also have trouble just accepting that and would also love to know if there's anything that can be done to revive them or make them last longer.

We religiously clean our unit every day and perform the weekly maintenance and follow Canon/Oce's maintenance instructions, but still seems to be an issue. We're slowly but surely getting blocked nozzles on our white head (Oce Arizona 318gl)

I guess it could be worse, after almost 4 years we only have a couple nozzles out, but with only one white head it does cause banding sometimes.

Good luck on your search, hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

Thanks for your feedback, sometimes just knowing we are all experiencing the same isues with different heads, helps us accept the everyday maintenance we are all going through. I hope you check back to see if this thread gains some info that you can use as well.

 

[AlsEU]

I've heard that the pigments in white are large and clog inkjets easily because pigments aren't ground down fine enough. I have been introduced to an ink-set by NUtec that supposedly grinds their own pigments finer than most companies making ink. I will research this more and share what I find out here.

Pigment size is one problem - depending on the ink system ink should be developed for specific heads (or nozzle size), but the white pigment is heavier than any other (it contains titanium). That's why white ink always likes to stratify and many printer developers add circulation system for the white ink. Without it when the ink is not in use, it may separate in tank/tube/head etc. into two layers (pigment and base) and this may be the source of many issues. At least one ink supplier (Fujifilm) grinds the pigment to the particles smaller than 1 micron (the colour doesn't matter). They call it Micro-V technology.

 

[grfx@condit]

We have a CET Q5 CMYKWW w/ the original Ricoh Gen5 heads that is nearly 4 years old. The white nozzle test never prints as good as the color test, but in actual production it works fine. I print a 24x24 white block every day the printer is run as part of my startup procedure.

I run also all white prints at 2x white to get brighter whites, so that does cover up the times when nozzles drop out during printing. I usually have a few nozzle dropouts for maybe the first 8-10 sq. ft. of white printing; but just pausing the print, and then purging & cleaning the printhead soon cures that. After that, I usually get nearly flawless white prints.

Maybe with some tweaking I could get even better prints, but what I get has been working well for me.

We are switching to Nutec inks next week, and that comes with a full printer re-calibration (print-head voltages & temperatures, alignment, etc.). So I'm interested to see how the white ink performs for me after we switch.

Hey Chris,
Thanks for the feedback, we seem to be experiencing the same with different heads, but doing the same work-through we are having similar results. It's just a lot of work, a constant struggle to keep the white going with pausing in the middle of prints etc. I would be interested to know, are you using the ink-set offered by CET for those heads? What is the ink series? We use the K2 inks and the white it a monster to deal with but I think necessary with the size of the heads it's being pushed through.
Also, please come back with some feedback on the changeover with the NUtec inks and how the tech did with rebuilding profiles for your specific needs. Let us know how you like the NUtec ink-set. any difference? The don't seem to be quit as vibrant but I like the overall look of the printed product.

 

[grfx@condit]

I’ve been installing and repairing flora flatbeds for near 7 years. When I started our demo unit had horrible white heads.
We sold it and of course had to replace them and then we got a new demo printer.
I implemented a cleaning regiment where we flushed the white heads on Friday eve at end of day. Then Monday morning purged ink in and 2 years later the printheads printed white like new. This worked on Konica 512,1024, 1024i and Ricoh gen 5 printheads famously.
I trained every customer on install how to do this and those who don’t, and don’t print white often, always have issues.
I’ve worked on Cet printers in the past, actually have a yearly maintenance agreement with two cet customers but I have not worked on your specific model although I did advise a current printer dealer just one month after touching my first printer of any kind when they were far more experienced than I, so I’m pretty sure I could help you out. Most of Colorado is a short flight from Los Angeles.

Thanks for this info,
Could you send me your contact info to pete@condit.com

 

[ChrisN]

Hey Chris,
Thanks for the feedback, we seem to be experiencing the same with different heads, but doing the same work-through we are having similar results. It's just a lot of work, a constant struggle to keep the white going with pausing in the middle of prints etc. I would be interested to know, are you using the ink-set offered by CET for those heads? What is the ink series? We use the K2 inks and the white it a monster to deal with but I think necessary with the size of the heads it's being pushed through.
Also, please come back with some feedback on the changeover with the NUtec inks and how the tech did with rebuilding profiles for your specific needs. Let us know how you like the NUtec ink-set. any difference? The don't seem to be quit as vibrant but I like the overall look of the printed product.

OK, here's my thoughts on Nutec ink after about 1.5 months of usage:

Pros:

• Better adhesion.
  • Sticks to coroplast much better. It's also supposed to stick to standard acrylic & ACM, but I haven't had a chance to test that yet.
• Much more forgiving over fingerprints, scuffs, etc. on the substrate.
  • No more fingerprints from handling, or streaks from cleaning.
• Cures right off the machine.
  • No more sticky light colors.
• White ink is less susceptible to dropout.
  • Just for fun, I printed 3x white underlay at 9 pass 100% speed without ink dropout issues, where before I could only get reliable printing at 18 pass 80% speed. Now of course the quality isn't nearly as good at 9 pass compared to 18 pass, but I wasn't having near the dropout issues as I was before.

Cons:

• Higher ink usage.
  • The RIP reports anywhere from 50% to 150% increase in ink usage depending on the job. I haven't gone through enough of ink to get a good feel on how much the increase actually is, but I'm going to guess it's nearly twice as much. Which brings me to:
• Higher cost.
  • Sure, the per-liter price is cheaper, but when the ink usage is higher, that kind of negates the point.
• Overall lower gamut
  • Reds and oranges really suffer. Before, I could get fairly close to Pantone Orange 021, but now it's not even close.
• White ink is not as opaque
  • Along with the rest of the inks, white ink is also not as opaque. I have to run 4x white for good coverage, where 2x white used to be the standard.
• White ink seems to be a bit more finicky to get printing nicely
  • While I don't have trouble with nozzle dropouts any more, I still ran into another issue with the white ink. I saw major deflection on parts of the head in my nozzle test. It didn't go away with cleaning, purging, etc. I didn't try purging with cleaning solution, but I am going to try that next time. What did cure it was printing. I printed a bunch of white ink, and initially there was a cloudy "halo" around the white areas. This was not an issue, since it was full-bleed white backing, and so would get cut off. Eventually, the cloudiness went away, and by the time the job was done, the white ink nozzle test was nearly perfect.

 

[Bly]

We have 2xW in our Arizona and it's just a little harder to keep running than the CMYK.
Of course you lose a bit from the cleanings but when you need to run a job with white it's so thick and opaque it's worth it.
We take the white bags out and shake them every day and also make sure 99% of white nozzles are cleared daily.

 

[AlsEU]

We take the white bags out and shake them every day and also make sure 99% of white nozzles are cleared daily.

Removing the white bags daily may cause the damage of the ink pouch ports, they are not intended to be used this way (even maintenance procedures were changed due to this). Move the ink in the pouch without removing it on a daily basis (this is what the procedure says), remove the pouch only when you replace it or the firmware ask you to do so.

 

[Bly]

Well our techs told us to do that.
Anyway we have a maintenance contract so who cares if it breaks the ports lol.

 

[Stefanie]

We run EFI Pro 16H and the 24F usign the Ricoh Gen 5 heads and don't have issues with white. Simple purge every few days. I also print a 18" x 18" solid white box daily to make sure its getting used. Yes some will say its a waste of ink but I don't have clogged nozzles and don't have to fight with the machine to get the white printing right. I also once a month flush all the heads. Sometimes no matter what you do pigments settle even in some colors. Flushing them will clean everything out and keep the ink flowing good.

HI so we have a 16H how do you flush the heads we are suppose to be printing a job with white and the banding is BAD. Thanks

 

[cstone94]

HI so we have a 16H how do you flush the heads we are suppose to be printing a job with white and the banding is BAD. Thanks

Sounds like you are not printing your daily white printing job. Are you cleaning regularly?

To flush the heads, follow this video:

 

[Superior_Adam]

HI so we have a 16H how do you flush the heads we are suppose to be printing a job with white and the banding is BAD. Thanks

If you follow the video above you will be fine. I have a different video but steps will be the same. I also put a clamp above the sub tank for extra safety.