Colorific / Selectech / Tech8 Bio ink problems?

[Neil Davey]

Hi Paul, I saw your comments on the thread I started regarding Tech8.
Since then I’ve made my own enquiries into Colorific inks and it appears to me that it’s really not worth changing over from genuine inks. Not much use to you now I know!!
I was thinking about it but won’t be doing so.
Also, like you I believe Tech8, Selechtech and Colorific are all part of the same company.
Hope you get things sorted.

[David Rowland]

in the past i made the switch from SS2 to Colourific ink on my JV3, it has a similar story but at the time I couldn’t put it down to what was causing my problems. Ink was not ruled out and I am my own engineer.

[Jamie Wood]

Me too. Swapped from SS2 to Colorific. Low and behold…blocked nozzles and
deflection (and stink). Swapped back, and no problems since. Not worth the bother
in my opinion, as the ink is costed into the jobs anyway.

[Jason Davies]

They don’t strike me as a reputable company. I am very unhappy with the way Tech 8 treated their customers with maintenance contracts and I never had to call them out.

I would give them and their inks a wide birth. Change back to OEM.

Good luck.

[David Hammond]

I tried 3rd party ink and use OEM now.

A 440ml cartridge at £79 works out around 18p per CC, with 3rd party you might save 5p per CC.

It just sounds better buying a 440ml cartrige for £50 rather than £80.

[Adrian Hewson]

Been using third party ink (Sun Chemical) for over 5 years now with same heads, we have solvent printers SC540 MKII AJ740 MKII and Uniform 1900

Buy in litres at less than RRP for 440mml cartridges and go through litres a month no problems

Had previous with B&P and forerunner to Colorific and had nothing but problems maybe not a third party problem might be specific to colorific, I have heard from an engineer friend that Colorific inks are very agressive

[Colin Crabb]

Not used 3rd party ink on solvent machines but, we had an issue with 3rd party inks on our photo printer, ran fine for 6mths, then as we started to get banding etc, but after the issues I had with a poor breakdown service and large bills to fix I only use the real stuff now – This was for our HP Z6100 not a solvent printer, HP don’t like 3rd party inks and you kiss goodbye to any warrenties (Our new Z6200 only runs the real deal).
In the long run we’ve learnt that 3rd party inks while work out cheap at the start end up costing in the long run.

quote :

Correct me if I’m wrong but I would say the print heads have been damaged or clogged by the Bio ink. Is this why Selectech/Tech8 seem to have washed their hands of this problem? Because of the expense of replacing the printheads? On their website they show Warrantees and Money Back Guarantees which don’t seem to be worth anything! Of course they failed to inform me of the Money Back Guarantee they offer on their ink, I’ve only discovered this since revisiting their website

SAM INK also have a warrantee like this, I had to send the replaced parts to them, they ‘sent them away for there tech guys to investigate’ – thats about as far as it went, they reply with ‘I’ll find out’ or ‘No reply yet’, luckly we paid for it all on company credit card so used their legal services to get us a refund.

[Phill Fenton]

I’m getting confused now…

When B&P marketed the Cadet printer the ink that went with it was Activasol.

After B&P went bust the activasol ink was re-branded as colorific activasol and the suppliers assured me that this was the same ink and formulation asthe old Activasol. They then brought out Bio claiming this was the same ink (but improved), and in time, Activasol was no longer marketed and sold eventually being superseded by the new improved Bio.

Now (according to this thread) I’m hearing that Bio is a third party ink that has "issues" and I’m left wondering what is the recommended ink to use on a Cadet or Grenadier printer?

As most people know, the Cadet is a re-branded Roland Versacamm – so presumably The Roland ink is the ink to use (Or is this what Roland would prefer us to believe)?

And why did Roland sell their machines to B&P in the first place to be re-branded as Cadets and Grenadiers?

So many questions and doubts now..

Can someone enlighten me?

[David Rowland]

Lets just say that when Colorific ProJ3 litres bottles were released, we tested it our machine, The bottles were branded Sun Chemical ink before the labels got replaced. Did i just blow the doors off here?

I believe AIT are doing the same thing?

I learnt a lesson, stick to OEM if you are colour concerned and rarely print a full day on the printer, if you are printing mass banners daily, consider 3rd party ink. I think they are better for the mass production work.

Cost saving isn’t really a factor, repairing the machine is more expensive in the long run for a machine that isn’t pushing ink thru every hour.

[Robert Lambie]

My Post here is not to appear to jump to anyones defence, merely give my views like everyone else is and also to try and help answer points raised, best i can.

"Good third party solvent ink"
For the sake of the following, let’s call it “Fab-Ink” for now…

Fab-Ink was a good clean ink, but a more aggressive solvent ink.
The benefits of the more aggressive solvent Ink meant that the ink would key better to the likes of Vinyl, Banner and many other types of media that sign makers use daily.
It had great abrasion resistance and far more chemical resistance than the likes of Roland Inks of the same day. Remember the famous old ink tests done on UKSB 8 years ago that had everyone and their granny talking about it? That was Fab-Ink!
[Of course there was pros & cons of fab-ink long term, but for now, this is about the history of the ink till today.]

B&P had the license to sell Fab-Ink in the UK.
They did so under their own Brand Name “Activasol Ink”
B&P owned the rights to the brand “name ACTIVASOL” only.

B&P purchased Roland machines in bulk and modified the machines
to accept the more aggressive Solvent, Fab-Ink.
These newly modified machines were then re-branded under the “Uniform Range” of printers.
This range of printer consisted of the likes of The Cadet, The Grenadier, Brigadier… etc. all machines running Activasol Ink.
This range of machines and Ink became famous within the sign industry over night and the brand dominated everything from magazines to exhibitions for several years after.

Some years later the B&P as we knew it had massive staff changes/moves etc.
As a result, the company started to nose dive. Also, No longer could they get hold of Roland machines to convert but worse still, they lost the rights to sell Fab-Ink.

Colorific:
Colorific stepped in and won the rights to distribute Fab-Ink.
However, B&P still owned the Brand name “Activasol”.
So Colorific branded Fab-Ink Colorific Elite or something like that…

The trouble at the time was B&P had sourced different types of printers by then and a different ink. But still sold them under the brand name Uniform & Activasol as they rightfully owned those brand “NAMES”, but the machines and the ink were completely different.

This was where many will remember the confusion was with all those Uniform machine owners. B&P were still calling them up on a daily basis saying “they were the only ones selling Activasol” and they were… but it was NOT Fab-Ink.

Colorific on the other hand had the task of calling the same companies saying they were now selling Activasol, but is now called Colorific Elite. Truth was, this was the same Fab-Ink under a new brand.

Hope you’re not sleeping now or ive lost you at Good Solvent Ink??? :lol1:

Anyway, as you know, there is a wide range of inks under the colorific Brand these days, not just Fab-Ink as we know it.

The Bio-ink in question here is the same ink I have been using for about 4+ years in my Grenadier. This ink is NOT Fab-ink but a biodegradable version of the ink. It is also less aggressive on machine parts and doesn’t require the light maintenance cleans Fab-Ink does.
My take on it to be honest is it was more on par with the likes of Roland’s Eco-sol max.

I also use Colorific Pro-AJ Ink in our other Roland AJ printer and have done almost 3 years now.

In all the years I have run both these types of Ink I could not fault them.
I have never had a single technician call out or down time on my Roland AJ in the life I have had the machine.
My Grenadier must be about 8 years old now. The past 4 since moving to Coloriifc Bio has been the best. I think Ken McKnight was out to our machine about two times in the 4 years and that was really just for annual maintenance service, which we all need to do. I do not even have a maintenance contract for either of my machines and haven’t the full time using the inks.

I also want to add here, I was the first sign makers in the UK to move to Colorific Bio-Ink and I swear by it…

However, last week I had printing issues. In short, a damper was clogged on my Grenadier. I took pictures and explanation of the issue and sent them to Tech8. I received a phone call the next morning saying something along the lines of they believe they had a bad batch of black ink gone out and were currently addressing it. As a result they have stopped supplying the Bio-ink. This morning the Printer Technician arrived flushed my machine and installed new ink, Colorific Elite aka Fab-Ink.

Was I happy about the situation? No, not at all… My Printer was down and I could do without the hassle… But I couldn’t have asked for more from them in rectifying my problem. My machine is now running perfectly and I am back trading with a full new set of Ink.

As said, our second machine runs Colorific ProAJ, my grenadier is now running Colorific Elite.
I have no intention of moving on and changing my source of ink. In the 4 years of using it I have had one problem, which was last week, it has been quickly dealt with and I am back up and running.

I have also received an email from Tech8 saying they have saw this post and are looking into the original posters case and will come back to me in due course.

Take my post as you wish, I am merely voicing my own personally experience here like everyone else. I have nothing to gain by my comments and if you look around the homepage you will see there aren’t any adverts either. (before that old stone gets thrown) :lol1:
The bottom line for me is bad batch, product recall, whatever… happens with Motor Giants like Ford, Zanussi Washing machines and more… nobody likes it, some will move on due to the inconvenience, some will just get on with it.

What I would like to just mention to the original poster of the complaint.
I sympathise with your frustration and anger over your printer problem, but it would have been nice for you to register on UKSB properly, introduce yourself in the “say hello” forum, load your profile picture and then maybe make your post complaint? 🙄

The above is my sketchy version of how things came about, or should i say, my take on things.
As i said, I am merely giving my views like everyone else here, nothing more.

.

[Phill Fenton]

Thanks for clarifying the history of Activasol – colorific elite – colorific bio

I am now in the situation whereby my machine is loaded up with colorific bio, and whilst it is working perfectly at this moment in time, I have recently had a problem with the black ink clogging up a damper:-
http://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=55647

If there is a known issue with this ink, why haven’t the distributers been in touch with their customers offering advice on what to do next?
Should I flush out my ink and buy the colorific elite brand (which I previously understood was no longer available) and if so what do I do with the old unused ink – surely if this is defective the suppliers should be replacing it.

And when damage occurs to the machine – who’s responsible for the cost of repairs?

[Stafford Cox]

That’s a great post Robert and made an interesting read. There was some information there that I didn’t know about and it’s nice to be able to add some history.

As I’ve said in another post and to echo what Robert said, all manufacturers (of which there aren’t many) have problems from time to time. Look at the Mimaki HS solvent for the JV5! Hybrid had to change 4 x DX5 printheads on several of their printers because of a fault with their ink. It did upset a lot of people but they handled it perfectly. They also reformulated the original JV3 SS1 ink, that’s why users now buy genuine Mimaki SS2. The case with Colorific (which I was not aware of until reading this post) will be rectified. The key to it all is down to the way the reseller handles it.

My understanding is that there are only a handful of actual ink manufacturers (or chemists if you will). Most of these big names are just rebadged inks from one of the manufacturers. I have a good idea where most of the ink comes from these days from my own deduction and comparisons, and a lot of people will say ‘ink A’ was fantastic and so much better than ‘ink B’, when the truth is, they’re BOTH from ‘manufacturer A’.

I do not benefit from bigging up any ink over any other as I don’t sell inks, all I’m saying is ALWAYS go to a reseller you trust as that’s what makes the difference. I have only ever had problems with 2 types of ink and neither of them were Colorific.

Stafford

[David Rowland]

As I said in posts, my own tests were based on our own JV3 at the time, anoher JV3 may have behaved differently, as I was trying to solve some issues at the time of switch over.

Black, I have known from other people that this is the first head to show signs of deflection, but how well does a machine look after the head (or the operator) or even machine design?

[Paul Kearney]

Thanks for all your comments on this, I now don’t feel completely alone in this nightmare!

Robert, I’m sorry but I knew very little about the correct procedure for posting in forums, I just needed to register and get the word out about my situation after hitting a brick wall with the suppliers. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to reply individually to these comments but I am struggling to find time at the moment as I am a one man band working from home.

I understand that things can and do go wrong but my frustration is in the way in which this supplier has handled the situation. I’m thinking maybe because I am not a huge buyer of ink they just can’t see what is in it for them to repair the damage caused?

I’m wondering also from reading that some big users of this ink have not had a problem maybe it is also down to the fact that I don’t have the machine running and ink flowing too often that has caused the issue in the first place?

Robert, you say that the Bio ink is less aggresive on machine parts and doesn’t require the light maintenance cleans but I have heard from someone working at Tech8 that it is a more aggresive ink and that the sales people at Selectech were not trained to give the best advice to customers regarding the different types of ink available. From my own experience with the Bio ink, I found if I left it three or four days between manual cleaning the ink was very difficult to remove with a swab from around the printheads. Since I flushed the ink and installed the Promax ink they supplied I have hardly had to do manual cleaning, about twice in six weeks! Is this how it behaves within the print nozzles?

I have to say, apart from the banding I now have in my prints from the damage already caused, the Promax ink does seem to be doing a good job but when I came to order a new set recently I was told that I now had to pay upfront (I’ve always had 30 days with Selectech). I can see why they are doing this, to protect their own back, but what about the little guy who’s business is at risk because of the potential cost of replacing print heads due to no fault of his own? They just don’t seem to care! They didn’t even make me aware of their Money Back Guarantee shown on their website (100% money back if your not happy with your ink for whatever reason), ok they sent a set of cartridges (after tough negotiation) (they first tried to offer me £15 off per cartridge for the next 16 I order) but a set of cartridges is less than half of what I paid for the bulk Bio ink. They also asked me to send them a copy of the engineers invoice which I did right away but heard nothing until now, six weeks later, thanks to this forum they say it will be paid next week, not sure why I have to wait another week but fingers crossed for that anyway.

If they were truly customer focused they would have sorted these issues before I had to spend time making others aware but to me they just seem to be profit focused, (who cares if we put the little guy out of business as long as we don’t put a very small dent in our huge profits).

I am still hoping they can turn this very angry customer into a satisfied one and I can let you know that it all worked out good in the end, on the other hand if you don’t hear from me again it may be because the last two months worth of work has been returned to me due to the banding!

Enough venting, back to work!

[Paul Kearney]

Just to add, yes it was the black that first started showing a problem but the others did follow.

Maybe if I had known that it was the ink causing the issue and I had flushed the ink out earlier I could have avoided the other heads being affected but I was not made aware of any issue by the supplier and I struggled on with lots of cleaning cycles and dodgy looking prints before eventually giving in and calling an engineer to look at it.

[Luke s Bremner]

I was running colourific in anaperna xl was promissed big things but I was not impressed. Was suppose to be inkmill rebranded, I now import ink from india that is far better. I also have been running a jv3 fullsolvent on jetbest for the last 2 years with no change in heads, recently changed mutoh VJ to jetbest and 3 sets of ink heads no change still all clear. I have 2 new printers coming that will be on jetbest.

I have looked at alot of inks and you find alot more ink brands then manufacturers.

[Luke s Bremner]

I was running colourific in anaperna xl was promissed big things but I was not impressed. Was suppose to be inkmill rebranded, I now import ink from india that is far better. I also have been running a jv3 fullsolvent on jetbest for the last 2 years with no change in heads, recently changed mutoh VJ to jetbest and 3 sets of ink heads no change still all clear. I have 2 new printers coming that will be on jetbest.

I have looked at alot of inks and you find alot more ink brands then manufacturers.

[Justin Atkinson]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments on this thread…ALL feedback is welcome – Rob, thanks for your ‘tidying up’ of the ink history – Spot on!

Firstly – Bio Issues: We have been proactively fixing these issues over the last couple of months, since we were made aware of the BLACK problems. The ink manufacturer did assure us that these issues would be fixed BUT as part of the way that the Colorific brand works, if we see problems with the ink it gets removed – This has only ever happened once. I understand everyone’s frustration when they get problems with the inks and agree that ALL issues should be fixed at our cost, if the ink is at fault. This is what has happened. We have contacted people that had no problems and were not aware of problems – BUT all priorities are obviously given to customers that are down and not able to earn money. We are also limited to the resources we have at hand and could not change all customers at the same time….But have invested in a dedicated team to deal with the problems.

Please stay with me!

Secondly – Colorific Brand:

All Colorific inks are tested over a period of at least 6 months in accelerated tests and real life tests with real sign makers. Only after we get a 100% good feedback do these inks get a Colorific Sticker on them. BUT as we have seen things can go wrong…as we are NOT the ink manufacturer we cannot control this 100%. We do have random tests on all inks, but again this did not stop the Bio issues. So all we can do is provide good customer service and fix things at our cost if we believe that the inks are at fault, and this has happened. Tech8 would not put their name and good reputation on the line if there were ANY concerns on the Colorific brand…..I would be out of a job!

And finally: There will always be a grey area between wear and tear, bad ink, faulty dampers, lack of maintenance etc….But we do try to rule in the customers favour, but unfortunately this is not always the case. We can only go on the expertise of the engineers on site and what the customer tells us – then we make our decision based on that information, luckily this is not something that happens often!

I cannot and will not argue with people here if they say they have not had the best service or did not get a call back – BUT please call me and discuss your issues, we take everyone’s comments seriously – good or bad.

I believe Tech8 has been in contact with a few of you over the last few days and cleared up any outstanding issues, but please let me know if you are in need of assistance or just have questions about the Colorific ink brand.

Justin Atkinson

Business Manager (Tech8)
07917 117949
0845 873 9707

[Phill Fenton]

Following on from my earlier post I have had time to reflect, and to discuss the situation with my supplier.

I think the right decision has been made to withdraw the Bio ink. It may or may not have been the root cause of problems with some machines (who can say for sure) but to their credit they have decided to withdraw the range.

The advice I received by phone today was to discontinue use of the Black ink and replace it with the Elite range (which is compatible with Bio) with immediate effect.

There was never any concern about the other colours in the range so it is safe to continue using the other colours until all the old ink has been used up. This phased changeover is the same as the way I switched from Elite to Bio in the first instance so I have no reason to believe that a phased return back to Elite should cause any adverse effects.

I beleive there is no point in panicking (if it aint broke don’t fix it) but it does make sense to proceed with caution and switch back to the alternative proven ink.

One thing we should be wary of is tarnishing a perfectly good brand (colorific) with a reputation that may not be justified. After all many of us have used this brand with good results for many years. I welcome the fact that there are high quality alternatives available to the Roland brand and would not like to see less choice in the marketplace which is bad news for the consumer

[Paul Kearney]

Justin, I have tried ringing to ‘discuss my issues’ but have now given up ringing you guys after being told that ‘heads wear over time’!!! This is your answer to my problem!

I take extremely good care of my printing equipment and always have, before switching to the Bio ink my test prints were perfect. I have lots of test prints here that show the gradual loss of quality since using the Bio ink. The heads are under 3 years old, the black one is less than 2 years old. They have not been worked hard, your engineer checked how many times they had fired and in his own words he said ‘this machine has hardly been used’. Take one look at this machine and you would say it is brand new! If it was ‘wear and tear’ would all 4 heads be showing the same signs of wear at the same time as each other so early in their life?

It is obvious to me that these printheads have been blocked and/or damaged by the Bio ink and you guys have just made up your minds that it is down to ‘wear and tear’.

The last time I spoke to you guys on the telephone I was given the email address of a guy at Colorific and was told how great he was at dealing with problems with the ink. I have emailed and left messages on his phone but no reply! Then after checking the website it turns out that they (and Tech8) share the exact same address as Selectech who sold me the ink and Colorific’s telephone number is also the same except the last digit is 4, Tech8’s is 3 and Selectech’s is 2.

Maybe you all sit next to each other in the office! Maybe you think it’s amusing that I’ve tried dealing with you individually to try and get answers! I feel like I’m fighting a David and Goliath battle but I will not let it go because I know it is a fact that I started to see problems in the printing just after installing the Bio ink and it’s not a coincidence that the Bio ink has been discontinued (black, cyan, magenta and yellow).

[P. Harris]

Hi All, like many of you I also went straight over to Colorific
Elite once B&P went under… after much research/advice mainly
from this site… As a uniform printer-owner on bulk ink as they
say "your on your own" I moved and had zero problems….
Then I like most here I was enticed to move over to the well..
sort of eco-ink "BIO". All ran well then I’d say 6-8 months down
had issues printing red colours dark and light or main one black
with a bright magenta, just got a C**P pink. So time went on and
trade customers started to complain….
So I rang around a few long estabished ink suppliers,
and printer engineers and hey, there was a clear pattern.
So as a result I just swopped 1 ink and its wet parts over
and hey presto colours are back, nozzles as good as I can get.
I just think "BIO" users should have been told, instead of having
to result to this. If i’d been told months ago I would have moved
back to there "ELITE" brand… so they’ve lost my custom!
Cheers Brock

[P. Harris]

Hi All, like many of you I also went straight over to Colorific
Elite once B&P went under… after much research/advice mainly
from this site… As a uniform printer-owner on bulk ink as they
say "your on your own" I moved and had zero problems….
Then I like most here I was enticed to move over to the well..
sort of eco-ink "BIO". All ran well then I’d say 6-8 months down
had issues printing red colours dark and light or main one black
with a bright magenta, just got a C**P pink. So time went on and
trade customers started to complain….
So I rang around a few long estabished ink suppliers,
and printer engineers and hey, there was a clear pattern.
So as a result I just swopped 1 ink and its wet parts over
and hey presto colours are back, nozzles as good as I can get.
I just think "BIO" users should have been told, instead of having
to result to this. If i’d been told months ago I would have moved
back to there "ELITE" brand… so they’ve lost my custom!
Cheers Brock

[Justin Atkinson]

Hi Paul,

As I mentioned earlier – I will not argue on UKSB about what calls have not been returned and by who etc…. You have my mobile which is on all day. I will call you tomorrow to put an end to this – I hope you received my email earlier in the week.

For everyone else – As Pauls investigation has shown some companies owned by IGSUK do share the same address, this is no secret and this is why it’s published on all websites, along with the phone numbers. As for us finding any situation like this amusing – I can sincerely say that NO ONE who works for me at Tech8 or any company we are working with would find this amusing.

Thanks.

Justin Atkinson

Business Manager (Tech8)
07917 117949
0845 873 9707

[Russell Huffer]

I have just read this thread from beginning to end and it brought back many memories, I bought a Unifrom Grenadier 1900 from B&P infact Justin from Tech8 was the enginier who installed it.

In those days B&P was one of the best companies to deal with there was an ammount of confusion about what ink would print on what media and how long it would last, B&P offered a 1 stop solution ink, media and printers all under one roof and designed to work together, problem solved.

Today I run a Mimaki JV33 and have only had 1 deflection/blocked nozzle problem with it in 3+ years and that was shortly after we put colorifc ink from Selechtech in it, Tech8 where very good and discovered a problem with
2 of the dampers worn which they replaced free of charge, however whilst I could not fault Tech8 service an any way I got cold feet about the ink and went back to genuine Mimaki SS21, when this problem occured most nozzles where showing about 1.5 million shots, today they have all done over 4 million shots and none of the other 6 dampers has caused any problems.

The 3rd party ink debate has rolled on for many years and I see no sign of it stopping but I am trying to look at the bigger picture, in the past we used Activasol because it lasted better than Roland inks and stayed on more media
today the genuine inks work very well and the 3rd party inks are designed to match them rather than better them, so as I see it there is no longer a performance advantage but the decision is based purely on cost.
This is important and £30 per cart can save you alot of money over a year but personally I belive that a large chunck of that saving is likely to be spent on printer maintance/ down time.

When I started printing nobody would own a solvent printer without some form of warrenty or maintance contract now lots of printers run all day long without these, this alone saves us £2000/year.

I think the best way is to run the printer on the ink it was designed for.

Kind regards

Russell.

[Adrian Hewson]

Been using non stop for over 6 years without head replacement every single day, Sun Chemical inks. We only use this for banners now but quality is still perfect, wish I could count how many metres had gone through it, well ooked after machines last for ever. Andy Malcolm services them all reguarly once a year ???

[Paul Kearney]

Hi Justin, after you called me yesterday and asked for more pictures of test prints I did send them right away and you did say you would get this problem sorted. I have heard nothing back today and I have tried emailing you but no reply.

You said in your email yeterday ‘I have spoken to the ink manufacturer and I will have an answer from them within the next few days, I will keep pushing them’

… well I don’t want to seem too pushy but I have been trying to get by with this banding issue for long enough and would really appreciate it if you could arrange to fix this issue ASAP.

Whether you recover your cost from the ink manufacturer is none of my concern and it’s not really very fair to expect me to wait even longer while you sort that.

This whole problem has had a huge affect on my business already and each extra day that passes without a solution is making things much worse.

Could I please be given a date to expect the engineer to call and replace the damaged heads? You have said the test prints ‘don’t seem to be that bad’ so I would be very happy for you to take them back with you and use them on your own machine or sell them on as used, whatever, maybe you can use whatever equipment you have to recover them and get them back to perfect working order.

I just would like my machine back to printing how it was before I was sold your bulk ink system.

[Martin Oxenham]

Just stick to Roland innit !

[Stafford Cox]

Paul, I’m sure Justin’s guys have tried this before but have you tried back flushing the heads? IF it’s a problem caused by the ink, it could be that there is either some sediment in the mix or, or there are some bits of pigment that are too large to fit through the nozzles. I had this once before with another supplier of 3rd party ink (nothing to do with any sort of Colorific/IGS/B&P ink in any way shape or form I might add), simply flushing from the top of the head instead of trying to push cleaning solution through it, removed a vast amount of the deflections.

This is only a suggestion and I would recommend that only a competent and qualified service engineer attempts this.

If you would like any more information on this at all, please do not hesitate to contact me.

[David Rowland]

i agree with Stafford, done this before and has helped but if you get cleaning solution on the head (circuit) then ur screwed

[Stafford Cox]

quote Dave Rowland:

i agree with Stafford, done this before and has helped but if you get cleaning solution on the head (circuit) then ur screwed

Ah, yes. I forgot to mention that bit 😳

[Paul Kearney]

Thanks for the advice guys, this does sound to me like something that needs to be tried Stafford, I assume ‘back flushing’ means attaching a syringe above the heads and pulling fluid through them in reverse direction? I can’t remember the engineer trying this when he was here, I’m wondering why??

Justin, I sent you the email of test prints on Wednesday, it’s now Saturday??

[Stafford Cox]

quote Paul Kearney:

Thanks for the advice guys, this does sound to me like something that needs to be tried Stafford, I assume ‘back flushing’ means attaching a syringe above the heads and pulling fluid through them in reverse direction? I can’t remember the engineer trying this when he was here, I’m wondering why??

Justin, I sent you the email of test prints on Wednesday, it’s now Saturday??

Yeah, that’s one Paul. Just in case there was some crap stuck on top of the filter in the manifold. As I said though, I’m sure the tech guys have tried this already.

Justin, let me know if I can help at all.

Stafford

[Phill Fenton]

Just a quick update based on my own experience.

I was sent replacement black elite ink to replace my black Bio. They also sent me a flushing cartridge along with a new bulk ink cartridge to replace the one that used the bio ink. I’m pleased to say that I am now using Elite black along with the old Bio CMY inks with no apparent ill effects. As and when I have used up my stock of cyan, magenta and yellow, inks I will be switching these back to Elite in the same way.

If I get any problems I’ll let you know

[Paul Kearney]

An update on what has happened, Justin emailed me on Saturday the 4th of August to say that he will be in touch in the week to arrange a day to replace two of the heads, he also said I would get a payment that same week to cover my initial engineers costs. I rang Justin on the Monday to ask for an expected date for the heads replacement, he said they were waiting for the heads to come in and should have more information Wednesday/Thursday.

Wednesday/Thursday came and went, I tried Justin’s mobile Thursday and Friday, no answer and no reply.

Also, no payment received to cover the engineer’s costs.

I felt something was not quite right when I was told they were waiting for heads to come in, they offer nationwide next-day on-site service cover and they also sell these printheads from their website, surely they have these items in stock?

If they are having genuine delays then why not just be honest and keep me updated?

[Stafford Cox]

I would imagine that they only stock so many printheads at a time. You’ll be surprised at how little they make on the printheads these days. Like me, they probably just order however many they expect to use over a short period and top up as necessary. It only take 2 or 3 customers to have a head crash and you could quite easily need to use 12 heads in a week!!

Having said that, they are usually available for next day delivery in my experience.

Stafford

[Paul Kearney]

Ok it’s been a long hard struggle but I finally have my Roland versacamm back on track and printing how it was before this whole nightmare started.

Justin came out on the 21st of August and replaced two of the affected printheads, the cyan and magenta. So an immediate improvement in print quality, unfortunately both the remaining yellow and black printheads were still showing the same signs of damage when doing the test prints, the yellow was not really noticeable in general printing but the black showed slight banding unless I used the W+pass feature in Versaworks.

So I spoke to the guys at Roland, they sent an engineer out yesterday to replace the remaining two affected heads, cap tops, dampers etc.

His attention to detail was incredible and although I am left ‘out of pocket’ I now have a machine that has been restored to basically ‘factory new’ condition.

Some of you may be using third-party inks without any problems, but from my recent experience, if and when a problem does arise, you have to deal with not only the cost of replacement parts and downtime for your business but also the personal time and effort that goes into dealing with that ink supplier and fighting to get them to admit liability for the problem and deal with it accordingly.

I’m very happy to be back on track but I have learned a valuable lesson and will now be sticking with eco-sol max ink.

[David Rowland]

Thank you for the update… most interesting.

I think manufacturer ink is the best way for those who are not running "mass-production". This is my personal opinion tbh.

[Stafford Cox]

Glad to hear you’re up and running again Paul, I’m sure this post will get a lot of attention.

Stafford