JV33 Head, Captop, Damper or mind?

[MrPixelPuppy]

Losing my head my captop my dampers or my mind.

After a long battle with my Mimaki JV33 i am losing the battle. I lost bars on my printhead and have not been able to get them back. I have bleeded dampers, fill in ink on head. Soaked the head for 99 minutes and ran several cleaning tests on my machine. I still find my self lost. I hope that a local company from NJ can help us out but in the meantime any opinons on matter would be greatly appreciated.

Attached are pictures of curent print test and bottom of print head and captop.

Thank you very much

Daniel

D3rg.com

 

[Robert M]

Cap top

I would do a cap top and a wiper

 

[artbot]

i'm not too familiar with the jv33. try this though is possible. have a partner press down on the carriage and up on the caps making a better seal then current. while that partner is doing that pull a vacuum from below the caps at the waste or pump line. immediately do a cleaning cycle to purge the ink out of the pump lines to avoid a syphon. now do a test file.

if the performance change signficantly, ...

you may just need to adjust your capping station.

also you can turn off EVERYTHING that makes noise in the shop and pull a vacuum below the caps. if you are leaking air then you will be able to hear it.

 

[Case]

You don't want to pull from underneath the cap on a JV33 without opening the valves first... trust me on that... And if you ask how to do so, there are threads explaining the procedure...

JV3 and it isn't necessary....

Case

 

[artbot]

thanks case for the heads up.

 

[Vinylman]

Judging by the condition of your ink capping station my first guess is that whoever is running this machine doesn't have a clue about proper maintenance.
I have a JV33 that has been in continual use in my shop for over three years and it is cleaner and properly maintained than the one you show.

You are not drawing any magenta ink from the picts of the cap as well as the lousy test print you show. One of the cyan nozzle sets are plugged, and you have major issues with the black nozzles needing help as well.

When was the last time you changed the wiper?
If the picture is any indication you have a cheap aftermarket wiper installed. A real Mimaki wiper should be a bright blue, soft wiper with clean sharp leading edge. Yours is not.

What you need is a complete tutorial on how to PROPERLY do a deep cleaning on the print head and then do your test print to see what condition your print head is really in.

By doing some research here on Signs 101 you can find the proper draw down procedure for clearing the print head from below the docking station.

 

[4R Graphics]

That head maybe dead. You need to check as stated earlier that the cap and head are making a good seal if they are then try this. To test it out try filling a syringe with flush and get a piece of tubing (the size of the pump lines cut a little piece from the pump line if you have to) now put tube on syringe fill syringe with flush and pull dampners and put tube on nipple of head (where the dampners plug in) now push the flush throught the head but go slow you want a nice stream coming out of the nozzles of the head but to much pressure and you will kill the head. Do this for all of the colors even the ones that are working as they look bad. Now on the back of the machine where the ink cartradges are there are white L shaped plastic pieces you need to lift these up (they are locks for the ink lines) I cut some cleaning swab sticks and use them to prop up the plastic pieces. You only have to do the 2 cartradges for each color at one time. Now prop the L pieces to open the ink lines go over to the head pull the 2 dampners for the color you have proped open put a syringe in the end of both of them now trun the dampner upside down and draw ink until it gets in the syringe do this for both syringes and dampners now put dampners back on do this for all the colors now clean the top of the cap station really well and clean the wiper once all of this is done turn printer on and run a ink fill cycle 2 or 3 times then do a test print/nozzle check and if you are not working better post up what it looks like now. If you get color back but still have missing nozzles then you can try the syringe method again and then just do an ink fill you maybe able to recover alot of the nozzles this way but you may have to do it several times.

It looks like you have a clogged head or you are not getting ink through the head which wil clog it eventually. What I wrote above will help with both if it is a dampner or clogged head issue if it is a seal issue the above will not help until you fix the seal leak.

Good Luck