Need Help Tips for Cleaning UV Printer Belt?

[Kaitlin Boisvert]

Hello,
Anyone have any tips for cleaning the belt on a HP 550 UV Flatbed Printer?
We've tried denatured alcohol, the UV cleaner and tape but not having luck with old cured ink and it's becoming a problem.

Let me know. Thanks!

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

alcohol and a plastic scraper is what ive used in the past

 

[signman315]

I have 2 go to methods to clean my FB550 belt....I print large amounts of high tack (oracal 3105) and am often left with a few useless feet at the end of each roll, and I save trimmings scraps of the high tack....then stick all that high tack onto the belt, squeegee it down and tear it off aggressively. I'd say roughly 90% of the old ink comes off with the vinyl. Whatever remains just scrape it off or leave it. The catch with this is that you can't use laminated scraps, it's too thick/rigid to conform to the ink and get a good grip on it. But this is a pretty fast/economical way to do it without risking someone damaging the belt when scraping on it.

My other method is used only a couple times a year, depending on how much ink ends up on the belt. I learned this one from an HP tech. Cut a large sheet of plastic, big enough to completely wrap around the belt, including under the machine, and as wide as the belt. Use a spray bottle to generously spray denatured alcohol all over the belt and cover it with your big sheet of plastic. I usually spray a whole lot on the top of the belt, wrap the full belt (top and bottom, end to end) in the plastic sheet, and let it sit for a 30 minutes to an hour. The plastic seals in the alcohol and prevents it from evaporating, allowing it time to soak into the ink and break it up. Remove the plastic and wipe off the ink with a brillo pad. Repeat as necessary until the belt is as clean as the day it came out of the crate! Slow and messy, but fully cleans the belt. Just be careful not to saturate it with so much alcohol that it's dripping down into the vacuum fans inside the belt, but enough that it soaks the belt fully. Hope it helps!

 

[Boudica]

LOL I'm in the middle of cleaning my FB belt right now. I use scraps - Hi-tac as mentioned above, and cast vinyl (8519) works well too. I try to leave it on overnight, or over the weekend if possible. For really built up ink along the leading edge, I use a plastic razor blade which works really well and saves my poor fingers. I used to use my finger nail to pick at it, but then it would lodge under my nail and that gets painful.
Another thing I've started doing when I print, is don't allow the ink to bleed right up against the left edge - I move the pin in an inch or two, so I'm not laying ink over ink all the time. That has help prevent too much build up in one spot.

 

[signman315]

Oh another good tip is to put masking tape in strips along the belt in the areas where the ink builds up the most, like the user side edge. We actually have like 10-15 strips of blue masking tape running along the Y axis of the printer at the spots the most ink builds up for our jobs. When the ink gets too thick just peel off the masking tape and put on a new one...just have to poke holes for the vacuum holes in the belt, we use a trusty ballpoint pen to do that! We've got it down so that we can replace the masking tape strips in under 15 minutes before the lamps kick off

 

[ikarasu]

we'll spray all of the front, and end of the belt we can see ontop... throw down some sheets of packing foam ontop so it doesn't evaporate... let it sit for 10-15 minutes, and it'll all be flaked off. Then you just use a plastic scraper or something and rub it off. This makes a huge mess.... So we put a long roll of laminate backing under the printer for all the pieces to drop onto, then roll it up when we're done. It's good to have a tiny vacuum to vacuum the belt off after doing this also... It's the easiest and fastest way, and actually what HP told us to do.

High tac strips also work.... we do that a lot.


we've thrown down some dry erase overlaminate on the parts we thought get hit a lot - You can actually wipe the UV ink off of dry erase pretty easy with some rubbing alcohol. a bit more expensive than strips of masking tape, but a bit more permanent!

We tried to dry erase the whole belt like someone else mentioned... but it ended up wrinkling over time and was more of a pain. Peeling it off was not fun either... it ripped easy, while when it's a 2-3" strip it all comes off in one piece.

 

[Kaitlin Boisvert]

Thanks, everyone! I'll try your suggestions!