CJV150-107 Clean/Flush After Long-Term Storage

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Ended up landing a CJV150 and it sat a good two years without maintenance cycles and power off. Printer is in AMAZING shape, all the drip pads are clean and the thing apparently only had a couple hundred hours of use. No signs of head strikes, ink appears to be liquid in the lines still, carts still had ink. Head/cap are definitely pretty dried up, but I think a soak might do it. Used to UV, where everything but the primer stays mostly liquid and can be cleaned off pretty easily. Maintenance cart is totally dry, but that just seems to apply to the wiper and maybe head soak? I have a few liters of dirt cheap eBay solvent flush I have used to varying degrees of success, but I don't want to risk trashing a head if at all possible. Might look into just refilling the maintenance cart instead of dropping $50ea if it's practical.

Plan is to do a head soak for a good hour or so, draining and refilling cap as needed to break down the gunk. Then, with low vacuum, pulling the ink back out of the head at the cartridge valves. After that, gently push/pull cleaning solvent through the lines to flush them as well as the dampers.

So, anything I need to be careful of? Should I replace dampers just by default, or check and see if they need replacement?

Also, anyone happen to have a factory service manual/parts breakdown on these handy?

Also, solvent ink from Mimaki is 2x the price of their UV inks for their ES3 series, anyone had good luck with bulk ink systems? Thankfully the carts came with older DS2430 chips, so I can reprogram those to be whatever I want them to be.

 

[damonCA21]

If it has sat for two years powered off, chances are you will be looking at a new head. First job is to clear out the ink lines and fit new dampers, and check to see if ink is flowing to them freely. The ink may still be partly liquid. but you need to make sure the lines are completely clear from the cartridges to the dampers.

The problem with solvent ink left sitting in the head is that it can turn into a think gloop which is very hard to remove with head soaks.

I would do a first head soak for at least 24 hours to really give the cleaner a chance to work. An hour won't really do anything. .Also. check the lines from the pump to the waste to make sure these are clear as well.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Cap seems to flow, poured some cleaner down through the flushing station and flows good. Did some work on Mutohs years ago, same heads and everything. Might try a top/bottom soak by priming the dampers with cleaner as well as the cap. Even if the head is shot, the printer is in really great shape. Also landed two UJF-3042 MKIIs in the same lot, but those are way easier to flush.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Wow, so little use. Now I have to figure out why it is saying 'Can't Print/Cartridge" Using ink type ES3, maybe it isn't set.

Re-coded the date byte from 14-16 on the old cartridges to a value of 24 (so, 2026 abouts) to reset the expiration date. No luck on that, but it gives less IC errors at least.

Might have to snag some Bordeaux ES3's from Solventinkjet, good price, I like their UV inks, and the seller is a big help here in the forums. Mimaki's price is a tad obscene for my liking for solvent based.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Solvent moves through head, but zero ink going down, new head time it seems.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Are you sure your machine was setup for ES3 inks? I ask because only a limited run of CJV150s were configured for ES3 inks and the rest don't support it.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

We got some chips programmed with es3 and they worked. The printer also came with them in dual cmyk setup.