6 weeks printer down

[gabagoo]

6 weeks ago came in on a Monday morning and my Mimaki had an error message (jv15- -130) Called my tech and he was in Spain until the following Tuesday, so put the printer in a nozzle wash and killed all the power. I am very dependent on the printer and without, basically out of business. Thankfully my screen printer around the corner has a jv 100 with Flexi like mine so I made a deal as he never really uses his much and basically daily go over there to do all my printing in batches. Tech reviews the error codes and follows the proceedures outlined by Mimaki and he says that everything checks out so he is pretty sure it is the motherboard and we order it for $1600.00 Wait another week and he comes back installs it and now the problems continue as he tries to update the firmware and get the board to know that I run a jv130. So now we need a com IO board ( which I replaced once already a couple years ago). Wait another week and now we have a new IO board $ 2200 or something like that. He is here today and I know he is super frustrated. He is getting new error messages and he had a spare slider board and tried that but that is not the issue. He gets on the horn with Mimaki technical and now the guy tells him to replace all the ribbon cables as there is a communication error and this is the only thing that it can be. I have no idea how much farther this goes but I just replaced the print head in April and I have the drainage tubes crimped and keep the printer in a permanent nozzle wash but each day I slide the head out and I can see the liquid is down and have to refill it although I can see nothing going through the tubes... I am frustrated, he is fruistrated...I am now worried that once he gets it up and running how is that head going to be..... I think I have basically in 5 years re built this printer. I have to say though that I really am happy with its print quality so it has been good to me. Just don't know how far down the rabbit hole I have to go to be able to print again. Sorry just had to vent. The tech is a Mimaki trained and I have used him for quite a few years so I know he knows his stuff...

 

[Solventinkjet]

The 150s were great machines for a long time but, as they've aged, I've noticed major electrical issues with them. We've had to completely overhaul the electronics on multiple printers. At some point, they changed the slider board design and if you put a newly designed one in with too low of a firmware version, it would blow things up. I'd never seen firmware in a printer be able to blow a board until then. I suspect there were issues that Mimaki addressed but never came out and officially said was a major problem. So your tech isn't in a unique situation with that model, that's for sure. What error message is he getting?

As long as you keep the head capped and do the head soaks like you're doing, the head should be just fine, although the older it is, the more likely it can have issues.