Air purge issues

[LP_UV]

I am about tapped out troubleshooting this thing. I figured maybe one of you have seen a similar issue and could point me in the right direction

JFX200-2513


When I go to do an air purge on this machine, regardless of which head or quadrant of the subtank, all of the ink drains out on the second or third purge. The tank appears to be refilling but not quick enough or perhaps the vacuum or pressure is not correct or air line leaking somewhere?

What I have done:

• Replaced the air pump with a supposedly good working used one
• Replaced the solenoid air valve in the carriage (again with a used one – I will try swapping one out of another machine today to confirm the used one not bad)
• Readjusted the pressure and vacuum to spec.
• Replaced subtank and subtank sensors
• Bypassed air filters on top of subtank to rule out dirty/clogged filters
• Checked that ink pumps working correctly

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Replace the air pump filter in the glass fishbowl?

Also, subtanks can be the issue, the screens gradually get filled with more and more gunk that can also fill up the air channels inside the subtank. Doing mine next week for that very reason. Drain subtanks, remove metal shields and take a good look in through the clear film.

 

[LP_UV]

Replace the air pump filter in the glass fishbowl?

Also, subtanks can be the issue, the screens gradually get filled with more and more gunk that can also fill up the air channels inside the subtank. Doing mine next week for that very reason. Drain subtanks, remove metal shields and take a good look in through the clear film.

Thanks for the tips - Keep them coming all!! . I think I ruled these suggestions out - I bypassed the fishbowl filter completely (letting the air for vacuum line come in unfiltered [of course then I had to readjust the neg. pressure]). I also replaced one of the subtanks with a new one and it still drained out on air purging.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Are you getting errors or faults as a result of this? As for ink flowing out of the air purge port, this isn't really unexpected. The Gen5 heads have 2 input ports per channel, Mimaki just uses one and the second is setup with a bleeder line. Gravity can cause the ink to flow out even without pressure assist to some degree. On a good healthy system, air purges are rarely needed unless the subtank somehow runs out.