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can anyone adise with problem & Mimaki JV3-160?
We have had this mimaki for a year and a half now. We switched from regular mimaki ink cartridges to a bulk ink system. The problem is, if I set it up for bi-directional it will print the sign fine, for a while. In the middle of printing, it will only lay ink down on the first pass but not lay ink down on the returning pass. It varies how long it does that. It could do that for 8 passes or it could do it for 20 passes. What it does next is, it will make the passes but not lay down ink at all. So pretty much, it makes the color of the sign get lighter until it prints nothing at all. We have been told numerous times that it might be air in the lines, but we just purchased new cartridges. We have just replaced the capping station, the pumps, two print heads,and the dampers. We were told to keep the ink level almost full in the cartridges to prevent any air from getting in it. This has been happening for almost two months now and I can’t take it anymore! I have to have this machine functional! Orders are piling up and i’ve run out of ideas to fix it. If anyone has any idea of what the problem is, your help would be very much appreciated! Thank You!
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18 Replies
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hi welcome
do all the colours start fading at the same time or just one colour drops out
chris
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Hi Drew,
Take off the front of the print carraige and check the gun metal nuts
that hold the pipes in the dampers There are 2 to each pipe, one on the damper and one half way up the pipe. Inside these there should be a tiny
o-ring. This has to be fitted correctly inside the gun metal nut. When fully tightened this o-ring flattens and locks the pipe in. If this isn’t fitted right air gets in the pipes and the inks travel back up into the cartridges causing the dampers to empty. By the way the o-ring is blue and around 2mm wide. When you are sure everything is tight do a strong clean. This will fill the dampers.Hope this works.
Karl.
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Karl has a point, but if u do take them off please be quick and put them back on as ink runs back to the carts.
You should have your ink at a good height behind the printer. Imagine hospital with a blood drip, thats how a printer works except it pressurises ink to the material in the head. Although you did say carts, so they should be fine in the back of the machine in the normal holes.
I think you are saying all colours, thats whats bothering me as I am expecting 1 or 2 colours to drop out.
If you get a moment, take a pic of the print fading and the printer layout and send it to admin@uksignboards.com and we get it put it up here.
Might be something we can easily spot.
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Dave. I placed my thumb over the end of the pipe whilst trying to fit the pipe back in. Lost count how many times I ranted Boll*x. Could have really done with a clamp to close the pipe off.
Karl.
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it freaked me first time i did it.
the machine is printing now, has been for 48 hours practically non-stop.. however came in to see capping station lifted off its pins yesterday, luckly didn’t effect anything until i started printing again then I noticed.
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Dave. Is your head height set right. I’ve noticed if the screws aren’t tight the heads hit the capping station. Not good news if you value your heads.
I know you probably do tighten them it’s just a thought mate. -
Thank you guys for the tips. I will definately try that and will get back with you and tell you if it worked. Thanks again!
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I know the stress your under mate. I’ve been there many a time.
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Hi
i use baby bull dog clips to clamp head or pump pipes when i’m working on my Roland saves the ink running back or leakingKev
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I wasn’t sure if they would damage the pipes.
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I don’t think clamping the ink lines is a good idea as it could damage them. Rather than worrying about the ink running back down the line when a damper is removed, just use a syringe to pull the ink back up the line and half fill the damper before plugging it back into the head.
Drew, sounds like you have an ink starvation problem. Might be that your new bulk ink is slightly more viscous and requires the bulk reservoirs to be set a little higher. Also, you could try keeping the carts well topped up.
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yes Karl.. i know what you mean… just a bit of lazyness crept in on cleaning i think.
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I took the carriage off and looked at the O rings. I checked if they were tight and they were. I did a strong clean anyways. I still had the same problem. How do you set the reservoirs higher? I would like to try it but I can’t mess with it right now because my yellow ink is low and our vendor put it on back order. If I didn’t have two machines I would be screwed.
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I trust by ink reservoirs you mean dampers. I don’t think these can be filled any higher than they are when running. Find yourself a torch and look at the pipes when the machine is running. You will see if any air is trapped as it will move up the pipes. It does sound like an air problem to me though.
Karl.
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looking at this from a different angle.
if you are convinced that the ink is coming through ok,
then the head voltage may be dropping as the print progresses causing the heads to fail, as all the colours are dropping out together, seams strange to have the same ink flow fault on all the colours.chris
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Hi Drew-
I have a bulk ink system also and I have found it is important to keep the tanks at the right height. Mine have a line that must be the same height as the original cartridges. Also make sure your lines are not too long. They can’t be too short either, they must hang down. And if you undo the lines or change filters make sure you do several ink fill functions.
Good luck, David
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Thanks for the tip David but we recently switched back to the regular JV3 cartridges. We are still having the same problem with the machine. We have found out that the problem does not occur when it is printing uni-directional. However, it will do it every time on bi-directional. Our tech has been out here several times but still no luck. The printer is functional right now but I am still very curious to why it does that. The printer will be set up to do 4 pass but the print ends up looking like it would on 2 pass. After it starts looking like it’s on 2 pass, it stops laying ink down on all colors. So if anyone knows a reason why it doesn’t do it on uni-directional and does it on bi, feel free to tell me. Thanks again everyone!
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Hey Drewski, are you still having the same problem with your JV3?
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