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JV3 130SPII – New printheads not firing?
Hi All,
I’m a new member here (although been reading through the forum for months now!).
I’ve searched through this and other forums looking for an answer, and to be honest I don’t know if I’m doing anything wrong, but may be missing something obvious?!
I have a Mimaki JV3 130 SPII, two of the heads needed replacing, and as I’m working on a bit of a shoestring I bought an Epson stylus pro 10600 (cheaply!) which has 3 DX4 heads. The printer has had little use, and as it uses waterbased inks thought it would be a good bet to try and reuse the heads.
After removing them, they looked in perfect condition, I flushed them through gently with a syringe and got a good spray pattern from all of them.
I replaced the manifold with ones suitable for solvent ink.For some reason, I don’t get anything out of them whatsoever.
The process I have gone through so far is:
Flushing the heads gently with a syringe
Changing the dampers
Changing the ribbon cables
Pulling about 100ml in total of ink through each head with a syringe (under the capping station)
Changing the capping station
A few strong head cleans
An overnight nozzle wash
Numerous ink fills
Swapping the head with the ones I know are working (the original ones worked in the ‘new’ positions)I’m at my wits end now! Am I missing anything? I haven’t changed the head ID’s but as the original printheads have been moved to other positions and they still work, I’m thinking that this isn’t the problem, and as I understand, the head rank is just to identify the head? (Please correct me on this if this isn’t right).
I’ve tried all three ‘new’ heads and get nothing from any of them, the previous owner of the printer assured me it was working perfectly (couldn’t see any test prints as it was out of ink), they could have been lying, but don’t think so!
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Sean
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10 Replies
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Sounds to me like you’ve bought some dodgy heads, or fired them somehow. Head Rank values won’t prevent them from firing, they are just fine tune the voltages (allegedly).
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Yes that’s what I thought,
I think I might have fried them as there may have had a bit of ink leaking onto them.Thanks for your reply.
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Hi,
I don’t work with DX4 heads but I do with with DX5 (Which should be some what the same I hope)
The only thing that worries me about what you have done is syringe the heads, did you connect your syringe direct to the the head or the damper before flushing?if direct you could have damaged the head.
In most cases even if you were gentle, you can still damage the head by pushing alittle too hard. Can I ask, what are you using to flush the heads with? cleaning solution?
Firstly check, is there any ink in the damper? if not trace back to the point there is some ink. is there a blockage or an air leak?
If there is no blockage or air leak, you could try and connect your syringe to the pipe at the top of the damper, open the value and gently pull ink though, close the value and reconnect to the damper.
Assuming there is ink in the damper, move the caps away and gently press the side of the damper 1 or 2 times, see if there is any form of ink line on the underside of the head, if not check your suction on your caps, make sure they give a good pull (on all the mimaki’s I work on its called disway), check to make sure all the liquid you put down gets pulled away.
I would then adjust the caps to be alittle higher than normal (under capping just while you try and pull ink through the head) and try a fill up inks to see if there is any ink after.
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I was going to say a fuse blown but you put the old head back and it worked so tick that box
Possible the head rank of the head is saying it’s a water type not solvent.
I have used a couple of heads over the years from the Epson 10000 with out problems in a roland but the head rank was entered
As you say you have pulled ink through the head to the capping does sound like the head is fried but both at the same time? ??? -
Sorry, this is going slightly off topic, but something caught my eye…..
Are you saying that the heads in the larger Epsons are the same as Mimaki/Roland etc?
It’s just that I have an Epson Pro 10000CF, with perfect head test that I was trying to flog, now wondering if it would be worth keeping ‘in case’ the worst happens to the Mimaki I recently purchased, or the Roland Lightbar, come to that!
I may be totally wrong here, of course, usually the case….Hi everyone, by the way, not been about much, due to workload.
Lorraine
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Hi Lorraine, I hope you’re well?
Yes, you are right, mostly.
The printheads in both your Mimaki JV3 and Roland (I forget exactly which model now) use Epson DX4 prinheads. However, the 10000CF is using a water based manifold and gasket and would need to be replaced with solvent proof parts, which can be used from the old solvent head they would replace.
Now, this is a theoretical compatibility. I’ve done this before and it works well most of the time. However, I would always do this with caution. In my experience, printheads can deteriorate once the manifold has been removed and there is apparently a difference in DX4 head type (3 different grades). I don’t mean to scare you away from doing it but I would proceed with caution, that’s all.
Stafford
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Hi Stafford, thanks for such a quick response, but there is no way in the world I would attempt it myself, I would have an expert try it, if it were worth it, or just fork out, I suppose, I did wonder though if it were sensible to keep them, if viable.
I am very well, thank you, now I am over the horrible cold virus that seems to be spreading itself all over Norfolk.
Lorraine
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Oh dear, hopefully it’s working its way out to sea and not over here to Essex….
I think it would be worth keeping the old Epson for the printheads to be honest. For the small amount of money those things fetch these days it’s probably worth using it for the heads, even if they only last 6 months!! I find a lot of the old Stylus Pro machines are worth far more sitting there and being used once a year than what they fetch on the second hand market.
Just my opinion anyway.
Stafford
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Thanks for your opinion Stafford, now I have a professional opinion to throw at Geoff! (Who has been nagging me to ‘get rid’.
Lorraine
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I’ve done this very thing many many times and works a treat. Biggest mistakes when I started was not seating cables straight and powering off entirely the electrics including static charge. Also keep things clean and dry as best as you can as ink can run down cables into head circuitry. You don’t want to be soldiering out transistors and fuses on mainboard which I’ve had the fun of in the past. In fact I’ve fixed many of my machines bit i would never touch my new xr 640 that is too new for my hands 😉
I have two a3 Dtg machines I intend to fix have all parts new heads but no time so may sell on for cheap. Life is about time sadly
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