Roland BN-20 White Ink

[hobbymad]

Hi guys, new to the forum and to wide format printing in general. Just got a Roland BN-20 and loving it

I chose the White/Wh option as the fifth cartridge. During the install the technician said that the Wh configuration causes a load of problems. And I am starting to find that now as well. I shake the cartridge gently just about every day and print a few white blocks (since I print mostly colour day-to-day) but still get a nozzle clog every other day on the test prints and then that needs fixing with a Medium clean (Normal doesn't seem to cut it). That of course eats white ink and wastes CMYK ink as well, just to clean the white head. It's a pity Roland don't offer a white-only head cleaning/flush option for Wh config (hope someone from Roland reads this

Anyway, looking around on other forums I saw that some people recommend replacing the Wh cartridge with a cleaning cartridge until you actually need it? You can then do a powerful wash or two to remove the cleaning fluid from the lines and print white. Or just print a bunch of large white blocks to flush it (so you save your CMYK inks). Of course being new to this I'm a bit afraid of messing anything up. Does anyone have first-hand experience with this? How long would they last like this? I see cleaning carts go for around the same price as the colour one

 

[victor bogdanov]

I have a vs300 (same inks as the bn20) that was set up with metallic and white inks, totally useless imo as the metallic and white clogged within the first two ink carts used. Now I've just had cleaning cartriges in there for 7 years. Finally going to change the head and go to dual CMYK. White/metallic on eco solvent is a toy at best

 

[Boudica]

Hi guys, new to the forum and to wide format printing in general. Just got a Roland BN-20 and loving it

I chose the White/Wh option as the fifth cartridge. During the install the technician said that the Wh configuration causes a load of problems. And I am starting to find that now as well. I shake the cartridge gently just about every day and print a few white blocks (since I print mostly colour day-to-day) but still get a nozzle clog every other day on the test prints and then that needs fixing with a Medium clean (Normal doesn't seem to cut it). That of course eats white ink and wastes CMYK ink as well, just to clean the white head. It's a pity Roland don't offer a white-only head cleaning/flush option for Wh config (hope someone from Roland reads this

Anyway, looking around on other forums I saw that some people recommend replacing the Wh cartridge with a cleaning cartridge until you actually need it? You can then do a powerful wash or two to remove the cleaning fluid from the lines and print white. Or just print a bunch of large white blocks to flush it (so you save your CMYK inks). Of course being new to this I'm a bit afraid of messing anything up. Does anyone have first-hand experience with this? How long would they last like this? I see cleaning carts go for around the same price as the colour one

White ink capabilities is a tricky whicket. It's great, until you realize you don't have enough need for it, to pay for it. If you're requests are enough, yeah, it uses up more ink in general to keep it in. Swapping in and out is also very time consuming and uses a lot of the cleaning fluid.
If it's just here and there, I would recommend out sourcing white ink projects

 

[Joe House]

If it's just here and there, I would recommend out sourcing white ink projects

Excellent advice that we always try to recommend to our customers when they say they want white ink. The problem with switching back and forth (not really a viable option in my opinion) is that you have a circulating system for the white channel. Moving to cleaning fluid in that channel isn't a problem, but when you go back to a white cartridge, the normal cleanings (all levels) don't purge the circulating system. So, unless you perform an ink fill operation, you end up with cleaning fluid in one of the tubes of the circulation system. When you go to print, the printer will do an ink circulation and mix the white ink and cleaning fluid which is what will print - roughly a 50/50 mix of ink and cleaning fluid. It would take several ink circulations to get to a good printable white.
I have a few customers that print white ink 90% of their jobs and they have no problems. Until you develop the white ink business to the point that you use it daily, it's not worth the trouble of having it in your system. Switch it to a cleaning cartridge and move on.

Good Luck

 

[hobbymad]

Thanks all. By the sound of it, its just not worth trying to maintain white. I will go ahead with installing the clean cartridge and unless I get a large job or something I really need will leave it in there. Hey on the bright side it might even prolong the life of the cap top - heard that can be a frequent replacement as well with white cartridges and maybe the cleaner regularly entering it will prolong its life even further for the CMYK setup. Maybe Roland should just offer that as well ha CMMYK, CMYK-Wh/Mt or CMYK-Cl

 

[Sean@CedarHouse]

Hmmmmm. I have white ink on a VS as well. Never had an issue. I use it maybe once every other week for certain jobs.

I shake the cartridge once a week. But I do print white everyday. 3 inch by the width of the material. (Usually I do my own labels so I actually create something instead of just a white block) White is more maintenance heavy than CMYK, but so far this has worked for me for years.