Roland heads- how many shot are they good for?

[Gene@mpls]

I have been looking at and for a XC-540 and they mostly have a ton of
shots on the heads... 8-10 billion common. These are production machines of course and get run hard. They also look very heavy duty compared to my VP- made to run a long time I would think. Any opinions or shared nowledge
is appreciated. Thanks Gene

 

[Robert M]

Heads shots

I recall a quote that 6 billion was considered the estimated life. I have seen 40 billion on a head.
You should do a poll looking for the head with the highest head count.
While the XC 540 is a beefey printer you are looking at $995.00 per head from Roland x six so it could get expensive to run,

 

[Pacific Coast Sign]

The shot count has to be manually reset by a tech or someone who knows how to do it. My guess is these heads have been replaced but the shot count wasn't reset. Of course you never know. It's very common for do-it-yourselfers and even techs to forget to reset the shot count.

 

[rushworks graphics]

yeah, apparently its approx 6 billion, as thats what my tech told me when i was looking at our roland last year.

 

[cdiesel]

I think the spec is 6 billion. I've seen them go as high as 14 billion.. as low as 4 billion.

 

[Jack Knight1979]

I've had heads blow with 100,000 (triangle inx) shots on them. Not cool.
I have a head in now that is 4 billion and going strong.

I notice ghosting and other weak head problems around 2 billion shots usually. They will clear up and work okay for a few months and then get finicky again until they die any where from 3 - 7 billion shots. 6 Billion being expected life.