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UV PrintHead Life Expectancy

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sunhochoi

New Member
I have a few Mimaki CJV30s printing with ECOsolvent inks. Printers running almost 24/7 and the printheads seem to last 4-5 years on average.

Looking at some UV printers and am being told the print head may last only 200k Square feet which is comparable to 6 months for me. Does that sound right for a UV printer? is there more wear and tear on UV heads? At that rate, it would make more sense to do a print per sq ft all in service contract than buy the printer out right.

Any insight would be much appreciated!
 
FloraUSA

FloraUSA

Master Distributor of Flora UV Printers in the US
I don't believe that I have even seen a spec on print head life based on square feet. If there is a spec it is typically tied to the number of drops fired. Print head life will vary greatly depending on how much you are printing and, more importantly, how well you are maintaining the print heads.

I have several [HASHTAG]#flora[/HASHTAG] printers that we installed back in 2012 still on the original print heads. In fact I can only think of one head that actually needed to be replaced because it failed, all the other replacements have been caused by head strikes or some other form of end user caused issues.
 
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oel10

New Member
UV hardly clogs my print heads have lasted 4 years without a problem. One tricky thing is to have voltage accurate to avoid over spray. Of course if you head strike its a different issue and head can go out quick.

One problem with the MIMAKI, I was told, is if you print too far from substrate the UV lights can dry the ink up on the print head. This never happened on our machine.
 
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chromira

New Member
sunhochoi said:
I have a few Mimaki CJV30s printing with ECOsolvent inks. Printers running almost 24/7 and the printheads seem to last 4-5 years on average.

Looking at some UV printers and am being told the print head may last only 200k Square feet which is comparable to 6 months for me. Does that sound right for a UV printer? is there more wear and tear on UV heads? At that rate, it would make more sense to do a print per sq ft all in service contract than buy the printer out right.

Any insight would be much appreciated!
Click to expand...
We have a Mimaki JFX200 flatbed and had it for 4 years before we replaced the head and that was for a head strike. Was still running great with minimal nozzle loss.
 
V. V.

V. V.

Inkjet printing guru
It only depends on inks quality first, then printer's facilities, and last is the type of print head itself. Epson will never last as Konica will.
 
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