Head Soak Procedure

[David Rogers]

Power off.
(Cover Off if you don’t already run it with it of anyway)
Wind down the capping stations – to TOTALLY clear the heads.
Push head carriage assembly out of the way.
Clamps off the drain pipes.
Fill the caps with solvent / cleaning fluid to a ‘miniscus’ (fluid dome)
Push heads back into place and VERY carefully re align them whilst..
…wind up the capping station.

Leave over night.

Unclamp pipes.
Power up…

Run a clean cycle or two & test print.

If it’s still patchy – you might have to manually draw ink through with a syringe & clean again.

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE:

The ink levels in the PAIRS (Blk/Cy & Yel/Mag) must be as near to the same as possible or the risk of siphoning is very real.

Dave

[Will Plane]

many thanks! :lol1:

[Martin Oxenham]

We used to have a Cadet and would not recommend doing this for more than 20 mins. Everytime we did it then the ink syphoned into the other colours and ruined the cartridge.

[David Rowland]

agreed, only short times first, if problem persists then try long periods.
soak is a later resort really, if cleans and general maintenance is not working.

[David Rogers]

quote Martin Oxenham:

We used to have a Cadet and would recommend doing this for more than 20 mins. Everytime we did it then the ink syphoned into the other colours and ruined the cartridge.

Only siphons if the ink levels are different. I use a bulk ink so can see what the levels are.

I’ve left mine leave mine overnight…in fact even over a weekend with no issues. Couple of quick cleaning cycles & perfect.

[Russell Huffer]

This is how i leave my machine with the heads soaking if not to be used for a week or so, altougth siphoning would not be a problem on a Grenadier especialy as i run refilable carts.

Will check next time and see if each colour ink level has equalled out..

Regards

Russell.

[Kevin Flowers]

Russel
you wouldn’t notice it as you have 1 colour per head where as the small Rolands have 2 colours per head hence contamination of colours

Kev

[James Boden]

I need to do a head soak on my Grenadier but not sure how to manually lower the capping station? Also when you say clamp off the drainage pipes how do I go about this?

[Kevin Flowers]

Hi
you need the Roland tool which inserts in to an hole under the machine below the heads, which allows you to wind the heads down. Use some small bulldog clips to clamp the pump line but be careful if they are the plastic pipes as they can clog with ink the rubber ones can as well but don’t seem to be as bad.

Kev

[James Boden]

Many thanks Kev,

Is this the hole your talking about and is this the correct position to clamp off the pipes?

When I purchased the machine I don’t think they gave me the tool. Is it possible to purchase a new one?

If you have time could you post a picture of it please?

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