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Solvent Printer Environment!
We keep our Seiko colourpainter 64S in a separate heated room, had a few problems over the last couple of months with the printer (long story). On Friday it was agreed that Colourgen would come in today and change various parts (again).
Engineer turns up today, the room is heated to 16 degrees. Engineer does some nozzle checks and reports deflection on all 6 heads, then proceeds to tell me that the room is too cold!!!!
They tell me that the room should be maintained at a constant 25 degrees (had the printer now for 12 months and never done this!).
Just wondered what everyone else does. Do you have separate rooms? are they heated? what temperature?
I have the Senior Engineer and Technical Engineer from Colourgen coming tomorrow, so it would be useful to have some amo!!
Thanks,
Chris.
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17 Replies
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Chris, I don’t have a printer but what were you told when it was first installed and what guides were you given? 25 c sounds a bit high thats 77 f which sounds a bit high just to keep the printer, must cost a fortune to maintain a room at that temp 24/7
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That’s just it Martin, we’ve had it for over a year now, 16 degrees in my mind is more than adequate when the printer is sat idle over a weekend!
I really think they are clutching at straws, don’t want to go too much into detail as the MD of Colougen has got involved today.
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chris, you know the score as i do… some temperature is better then nothing… we are not at 25, thats like pretty damn hot, anyway its more for the materials and not the printer…. more like 15-20 as the blasted door is open most of the time!!!
deflection on all heads? how did that happen?
sounds like solvent has been present in the heads for a long time. How many deflections you have before the engineers came? are you on some kind of 3rd party ink? Did someone wipe the bottom of the heads with cleaning solvent?Good luck with it
dave -
i would say your room temp is fine… our room is certainly way off that but never have i had an issue like that. we have had ours nearly three years now…
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Dave
Deflection in the light magenta on Friday when the engineer left. No one has entered the room since he left, turned up today and saying deflection on all 6 heads and saying due to the temperature drop over the weekend.
Cr@p I said, we have a thermostatically controlled heater in the room maintaining that constant 16 degrees. And to top it all, it’s been colder round here today than it has been all weekend.
Like I say…… clutching at straws!
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Chris, say no more. I used to have an encad printer and they are the UK agents for Encad so I have had dealings with them in the past and I know exactly what they are like. If 25c had been mentioned when the printer was installed I am sure you would have remembered it, like Dave says thats pretty hot.
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flush cartridges I wonder? i remember my supplier saying dont flush the machine, only the head you are working on. If left to soak with strong flush solution in the heads over the weekend, likely to wreck heads.
Photograph and document everything chris, find a test print from friday and archive it ready mate…
you have a case of engineer fixing the machine but it sounds like the wrong ‘ingrediants’ were left in the head over the weekend, some plastics inside the head have melted which has now caused deflection. Longest shot is peizo xtals that shake that ink and squirt it is not getting enough voltage, but compare test prints as that might the clarity of the heads, has light magenta got worse, is the deflection similar between the heads like a pattern (e.g. top left bits only). But yes, it is straws, I think you have a fight on your hands.
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Dave,
The heads have never been flushed, that was the plan for the light magenta today, Nothing (other than ink) was in the system over the weekend.
Getting too involved now, which is not what I wanted from this topic, just wanted to get a feel for room temperature.
I know I’ve got a fight on my hands, been fighting it for 2 months now, hence the MD of Colourgen now getting involved and the Technical Director and Senior Engineer in tomorrow.
Thanks for your thoughts, hope I don’t sound ungrateful, but like I said earlier, it’s a long story (with more engineer visits than you’d care to guess!).
Chris.
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i must admit that since i put my machine in a separate room and heated it it has printed that bit nicer with less problems alround.
but it was bad before when i came in in the morning the temp of the bed was down to 9 deg at times and thought it unfair on the machine.now it has not been seen below 14 deg bed temp and apart from normal maintenance have not forced a clean since but 25 deg is taking the mick.
chris
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quote Chris Dowd:We keep our Seiko colourpainter 64S in a separate heated room, had a few problems over the last couple of months with the printer (long story). On Friday it was agreed that Colourgen would come in today and change various parts (again).Engineer turns up today, the room is heated to 16 degrees. Engineer does some nozzle checks and reports deflection on all 6 heads, then proceeds to tell me that the room is too cold!!!!
It’s bullshit Chris – as you already know. My Cadet printer sits all weekend at temperatures that get as low a 0 – no problems. If anything – the lower temperature will delay the evaporation of any solvents causing the head to dry up.
Don’t let them bullshit you – and let us all know how you get on.
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quote Chris Dowd:We keep our Seiko colourpainter 64S in a separate heated room, had a few problems over the last couple of months with the printer (long story). On Friday it was agreed that Colourgen would come in today and change various parts (again).Engineer turns up today, the room is heated to 16 degrees. Engineer does some nozzle checks and reports deflection on all 6 heads, then proceeds to tell me that the room is too cold!!!!
They tell me that the room should be maintained at a constant 25 degrees (had the printer now for 12 months and never done this!).
Just wondered what everyone else does. Do you have separate rooms? are they heated? what temperature?
I have the Senior Engineer and Technical Engineer from Colourgen coming tomorrow, so it would be useful to have some amo!!
Thanks,
Chris.
Chris,
Seiko has told us the same line just about when we had a problem with our machine, turned out we needed heads replaced instead. HP never tried that line on us when we called about our 9000s and its the same machine basically. The one thing you do need to keep in mind is having the material @ room temp and not so much the printer. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that having a controlled enviroment with the same temp/humidity at all times would greatly narrow down any questions should they arise during technical difficulties, but don’t give the manufacturers an easy out as to blame their malfunctioning machine on the ambient air temps. Like I said though, if the material isn’t being stored at a constant warm room temperature this might be a source of your problems. We would get mottling, banding, and the ink would not adhere in some places on different materials if they were too cold.
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Thanks for that George. Interesting about the HP bit!
We do keep our media in the same room, however, (here we go again!) the Colougen Engineer brought his own (MD5) media from the back of his cold car (and the media had been sat in his car all weekend!), put it straight on the printer and then ran his test prints (something he forgot to tell his manager!).
What makes me laugh is that they always put MD5 on the printer, say it prints okay on that, so it must be fine. They never want to here about any other media, as they say that MD5 is the media Seiko built the machine around!!! Funny thing is I bet Seiko haven’t even heard of Metamark!
Chris.
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I bet if you maintained the machine in a 25 degree atmosphere, they will be telling you its too hot and that causes the ink solvent to evaporate and clog the heads!
Peter
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has the printer been moved recently? i installed a few seikos a couple of years back and colourgen told me that the machine should be gently wheeled into place and not run other anything like rough ground for example.
also they dont like the shock associated with a drop or heavy nudge. the only thing i could think with that would be if the piezos were week and the shocks damaged them.
i always use md5 as a test material too. if i have problems or i want to compare profiles i have created, just because it is such a stable well made material that gives consistant results. having used it on many differant setups,rips printers inks etc you get confidence in the results it gives. in my opinion its the benchmark around what all others should be judged.
i have the service notes somewhere for the 64, ill check what it says about environment.
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Hi Mark
Thanks for your reply. Nope, the printer has not been moved. Nothing has changed in the last 12 months (except the weather!).
I have today had to accept the fact that we were keeping the room too cold at 16 degrees! Having had the temperature constant at 23 degrees for the last 24 hrs we now have no problems!
In the mean time, I’ve had to install a HP5500 to clear the backlog of pop-ups and banner stands we’ve been sat on!
Chris.
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ok… perhaps we need the official line from Seiko themselves.
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I don’t think that deflecting heads means something went wrong with the piezo. I have seen deflecting heads that by some reasons (beyond my comprehension) recovered themselves. I myself, had around 8 deflecting heads that I changed. The last 2 I didn’t want to exchange anymore. After printing a huge mesh with large fixed dot and suddenly the heads looked like new.
Regarding room temperature, I think it depends on the printer. I don’t know Seiko, but I have a Spitfire and it is extremely sensitive to temperature and humidity and I had a lot of problems with it. Now I keep my room temperature between 20-23 C and 40-50 relative humidity.
Deflecting usually happens when changing ink type.
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