Roland service bullitin - Cap Tops (consumable)

[Jumpshoutmedia]

I just encountered a NIGHTMARE of printing problems on my 2 year old XC540! I started dropping colors, having heads drying up etc. The machine has lite use, and get's cleaned weekly.

My dealer finally came out and spent 4 hours drawing ink down from the dampers with a syringe, replaced all dampers, and concluded that my cap tops must be toast.

I'm kind of pissed about the whole situation because I've spent COUNTLESS hours doing powerful cleanings, sitting with the Roland rep, wasting ink, etc, before they finally told me that about 6 mos ago Roland released a service bulletin saying that the Cap Tops should be replaced regularly as a consumable.

I wasn't told this when I bought my printer, and it's not mentioned anywhere in the user manual! It would have been nice if they would have communicated this info to me months ago (as I would have replaced them and potentially avoided all these printing problems and lost jobs!)

It really sucks to have a $30k printer that you can't use (still under warranty).

My point is: #1, Roland should TELL REGISTERED users that they need to start replacing cap tops to avoid serious problems.

#2, replace my cap tops this time, since I was completely in the dark about what a cap top even was! and it's caused me so many problems. (I was told by the installer, the machine is under warranty, and should only be serviced by a Roland trained tech, so short of cleanings, users should NOT take covers off, or enter "Service mode".

#3, I've printed 0 jobs since June 15th, yet I've bought 6 ink cartridges! At $70 each, that's $420 worth of ink in my "waste ink drum" doing what the manual TOLD me to do (powerful cleanings), and eventually having the tech work on my machine and do MORE powerful cleanings and "filling ink".

 

[Jumpshoutmedia]

I just encountered a NIGHTMARE of printing problems on my 2 year old XC540! I started dropping colors, having heads drying up etc. The machine has lite use, and get's cleaned weekly.

My dealer finally came out and spent 4 hours drawing ink down from the dampers with a syringe, replaced all dampers, and concluded that my cap tops must be toast.

I'm kind of pissed about the whole situation because I've spent COUNTLESS hours doing powerful cleanings, sitting with the Roland rep, wasting ink, etc, before they finally told me that about 6 mos ago Roland released a service bulletin saying that the Cap Tops should be replaced regularly as a consumable.

I wasn't told this when I bought my printer, and it's not mentioned anywhere in the user manual! It would have been nice if they would have communicated this info to me months ago (as I would have replaced them and potentially avoided all these printing problems and lost jobs!)

It really sucks to have a $30k printer that you can't use (still under warranty).

My point is: #1, Roland should TELL REGISTERED users that they need to start replacing cap tops to avoid serious problems.

#2, replace my cap tops this time, since I was completely in the dark about what a cap top even was! and it's caused me so many problems. (I was told by the installer, the machine is under warranty, and should only be serviced by a Roland trained tech, so short of cleanings, users should NOT take covers off, or enter "Service mode".

#3, I've printed 0 jobs since June 15th, yet I've bought 6 ink cartridges! At $70 each, that's $420 worth of ink in my "waste ink drum" doing what the manual TOLD me to do (powerful cleanings), and eventually having the tech work on my machine and do MORE powerful cleanings and "filling ink".

Just spoke with my rep, Rolands sending out new cap tops N/C, and there has been an order placed for a set of carts (we'll see if it goes through or not).

They've also assured me that they are going to investigate why no one was TOLD that the cap tops need to be replaced! I want to make sure no one else has to go through what I went through.

Go go Roland. Fingers crossed.

 

[slangsc]

Roland doesn't want YOU to replace the cap tops. They want a service tech to do it. That's why you were never told. Neither was I.

 

[Jumpshoutmedia]

Roland doesn't want YOU to replace the cap tops. They want a service tech to do it. That's why you were never told. Neither was I.

So is it the dealers responsibility to call me and say "hey your cap tops need to be replaced?" If I'm not supposed to take a cover off, and the manual doesn't even explain what a cap top is, how is the end user supposed to know there there's a new "need" to have a part replaced at a specific interval.

 

[guillermo]

I guess is just the quality of the product, I have an SP300V since 2005, and I have not replaced the cap tops yet, (still is using the originals that came with the printer) and the quality of prints is ok, I do my own maintenance, or I have been so lucky?

 

[cdiesel]

Cap tops, wipers, dampers, pumps, heads, encoder strips, teflon strips, blades, and knives are all consumable parts. Some more than others, but you will go through them regularly.

Cap tops tend to go bad when they're not cleaned properly, especially under light usage. Printers are made to run, and although they tell you that you can get away with only doing a cleaning once a week, set your machine to periodically clean itself once a day. It won't use much ink at all, and it'll save you the headaches when you do use it.

One of the biggest problems I see here is that after a couple cleanings (2) if nothing's improving, you need to be looking for other issues than a dirty head. Either the caps aren't sealing correctly, a pump is clogged or bad, or the head is severely clogged. You may not know this (you should, as you should have been told this by the installer, and by Roland tech support), but your service tech definitely should. It shouldn't take four hours of pulling with a syringe to figure out there are bigger issues.

One more thing.. cap tops don't necessarily have to be changed at certain intervals. The last thing I heard from Roland is that they should be changed every six months, but we change ours as needed. Our XC is about 2.5 years old and is used heavily. We've replaced the black top twice, but no others. Our XJ is 1.25 years old and we've replaced the CMK tops. There's really no rhyme or reason, they just go bad.

 

[Techman]

Instead of a cleaning.. Why not print some decals or something.
I print little decals with my name on them .. I give them out all over the place.

 

[cdiesel]

Good idea Tech. The nice thing about cleaning is that it's automatic.

 

[ChiknNutz]

I have found that I need to replace my cap tops about every 6 months to a year at the most. I think this is partly due to running Triangle ink, which is a bit hotter than OEM ink.