Rant UCJV300-160 print carriage major design flaw?

[dariusaleksas]

We have a few months old UCJV300-160. I do like it as a printer despite some well-known software and hardware quirks. But last week something very alarming came to my attention and made me come here and post about it. During the routine head cleaning, I noticed what looked like an ink build-up on the bottom plate of the print carriage right next to both print heads. I was a little bit surprised because I have not noticed that before. I was actually very happy with UV inks (compared to our eco-solvent inks) because there was no build-up and it was very easy to wipe off any liquid ink with the provided Washing Liquid using foam swabs. Anyhow, I tried to wipe off the 'build-up' and noticed that it started coming off with the black paint of the carriage, exposing bare metal. The carriage paint next to print heads looks coagulated and it is flaking off. This is potentially a nozzle-clogging situation. We contacted the support (have not heard from them yet). The printed is under warranty and we will see how that goes. I am wondering if any of you also encountered this problem. Our printer is not seeing much use and it does get cleaned 1-2 times a week (it only sees light printing 1-2 days a week at most).

 

[Solventinkjet]

The official maintenance procedure for that machine wants you to clean that black surface at the end of every day. Most people only do it once or twice a week though. So it is part of the normal maintenance but I can't say that I've seen the black coating come off like that. I assume you're using the OEM cleaning solution for UV specifically?

 

[dariusaleksas]

The official maintenance procedure for that machine wants you to clean that black surface at the end of every day. Most people only do it once or twice a week though. So it is part of the normal maintenance but I can't say that I've seen the black coating come off like that. I assume you're using the OEM cleaning solution for UV specifically?

That area so close to the heads always had seen the OEM F200/LF200 washing liquid every time I was in there doing the cleaning. I believe Mimaki's tech thinking is that it may be from the old Cap-Absorber, but it was replaced about a month ago after being prompted by our machine (it took a week or two to get it).

 

[Dasdesignguy]

That's why Mimaki includes those little black handled dense foam tipped swabs with the angled tip. It's to get into those tight little nooks and crannies around the print heads, Solventinkjet is correct, I'll even take it a step further by saying a lot of folks don't clean out those crevices ever. Im pretty sure that the scrape to the left of PH2 is from a head/media strike (s), and the anodized coating has rubbed off.

With that said I noticed a couple of things. Your heads look pretty okay, however it appears to me you could use a slight cap adjustment (moved to the right a sconch) but I would have your tech triple check the gap as well as the tilt and slant (adjustments). Make sure they use feeler gauges to ensure that the print head is perfectly level to the platen.

If any adjustments are made they should then redo all of your waveforms. Good luck and happy printing!

 

[dariusaleksas]

That's why Mimaki includes those little black handled dense foam tipped swabs with the angled tip. It's to get into those tight little nooks and crannies around the print heads, Solventinkjet is correct, I'll even take it a step further by saying a lot of folks don't clean out those crevices ever. Im pretty sure that the scrape to the left of PH2 is from a head/media strike (s), and the anodized coating has rubbed off.

With that said I noticed a couple of things. Your heads look pretty okay, however it appears to me you could use a slight cap adjustment (moved to the right a sconch) but I would have your tech triple check the gap as well as the tilt and slant (adjustments). Make sure they use feeler gauges to ensure that the print head is perfectly level to the platen.

If any adjustments are made they should then redo all of your waveforms. Good luck and happy printing!

"I'm pretty sure that the scrape to the left of PH2 is from a head/media strike (s), and the anodized coating has rubbed off." - I am sorry, but you are wrong. This is not an 'anodize' coating. Even if it is then it must be very poor quality because it does not feel like an anodized coating at all. It is just a thin film. Again, the exposed metal did not happen from a head strike (this machine had non of those so far). I took a foam swab and peeled off a layer of what to me looked like an ink build-up. The prints are fine and all nozzles are firing properly. For that reason, I am not going to discuss the PHs positions right now. However, you might be right about this. The tech who installed this printer was a rookie. This is actually a replacement printer. When installing the first one, she managed to break one of the print carriage mounts, so the company sent another printer and the same tech.

 

[DL Signs]

Back when I used to work with a Fujifilm UV flatbed, had an ink line start leaking over a weekend onto a painted concrete floor. By the end of the weekend the puddle was about six inches in diameter, and it turned the urethane paint on the floor into snot in that spot. There are reactive things, even in UV inks before they're cured. Not sure if it's ink doing it in your case, but surprised that they made the choice to put a finish on a panel surrounding print heads that get exposed to uncured inks and cleaned with solvents daily, rather than leaving it raw metal, but then manufacturers are always doing weird things that don't make sense.

 

[CreativeCreative]

Unfortunatey, this was confirmed by our tech a while back....design flaw. Is happening to ours too, just not as bad. Super annoying.

 

[dariusaleksas]

Unfortunatey, this was confirmed by our tech a while back....design flaw. Is happening to ours too, just not as bad. Super annoying.

This was Tubelight-Denco response: "Mimaki said that the coating coming off the bottom of the carriage will not cause problems in itself. Please be sure to clean off any loose coating when you’re doing your regular maintenance." NIce... at least we have all of that in writing.