Mimaki 3042MIIe 2022 Excessive use of White Ink

[Adaptid]

Hello everyone,

first time I have posted here so please bear with me, we are a small business producing PVC contactless business cards in relatively small volumes.
We purchased a brand new Mimaki 3042MII e in 2022 and other than the normal annoyances (Price of Ink, date on ink and cleaning liquid) it has run very well.
However, this last 5 weeks it has used 1 litre of white ink LH100, our production level has remained more or less the same, prior to this we were getting 4-5 months usage.
The other inks remain unchanged on their usage, the only thing I would add is that we are finding that a Hard head clean or Ultra head clean is required daily to clear banding!
Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Paul

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Which channel is requiring the hard cleans? I think those are like 10ml/channel. Also, white ink is abrasive and tends to wear heads out pretty bad. If white ink is the one that keeps dropping out, might be the nozzles getting worn the heck out and bleeding ink when sitting. Look at the capping station after the printer has been off for a good 30 minutes or so by nudging the carriage over while it's still off to see if white ink is pooling in the cap. Could also indicate a vacuum issue.