Need Help Mimaki UCJV 300-160 - How long will it survive without being powered up?

[White Haus]

Apparently we had a pretty major power surge last week and it fried all the boards on our UCJV 300-160.
Waiting on parts and a tech to come in, might be another week or more yet. (Yay)

Tech advised to power it down as it won't boot/do anything in it's current state anyways. We've filled the captops with cleaning fluid in hopes of the heads not drying up.

What are the odds of the heads being fine after 2 weeks without power/firing? Is there anything else we can do to prevent them from drying out? I'm not going to dump $4500 into it for boards and labor only to find out the heads are shot, I'd rather cut our losses than waste that kind of money.

How hard is it it to change out all the boards myself? Tech is insisting that main board can only done by a tech - I am insisting that we can't go another week + without a printer.

Thanks.

 

[Solventinkjet]

It's hard to guarantee anything but it should be fine if it's capped in solution for a good amount of time. I'd say at least a week or 2 before you have trouble recovering it. A lot of it comes down to luck and some people might let it sit a month and it still recovers. The newer the head, the easier they recover in my experience.

Installing the boards isn't crazy. Just take pictures of the boards before removing so you can reference where things plug in on the new board. Get your hands on a tech manual and it will also have an electrical diagram that tells you which connection connects to which. A lot of the connectors are size and color coded so it's hard to do wrong, although there are a few that are the same and you have to make sure you plug them in the correct place.

Once the new boards are in, you have to configure the main board which requires the Mimaki Firmware Updater software. You should be able to find it on the internet or here on Signs101. The firmware file might be harder to come by but I wouldn't be surprised if you can find someone to provide it. Then you would need the original factory parameter file specific to your printer. Usually if you ask Mimaki nicely or have your dealer do it for you, they'll send it without hassles.

Once you have all the files and software, you change a parameter to initialize the board for your specific model, upload the firmware, upload the parameter file, and the printer will boot up as if it just came out of the factory. You can change a few parameters to trick it into thinking it's already full of ink etc. Then all you have to do is redo the electronic head alignments since they were saved in the old parameter file you can't get because the old board is cooked. There are some other sensor adjustments that you might need to do but usually not.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

6 years was the worst downtime that I managed to recover a machine from. Since it's a UV printer, the ink won't dry. Keep light off the ink/heads and you have a decent chance of things staying liquid. As for the board swap, it's about an hour job that requires a specialty tool called a #2 Philips screwdriver. Also, don't use impact drivers on the screws.

 

[rvolkers]

if it were me i would take the head off and soak it at leas 24 hours or more - just to be on the safe side

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Seen a lot of people tearing the ribbon cable on the heads and it's not swappable. If you do pull the head, be very careful, but it's not recommended.

 

[dercar]

First of all, I express my sympathy to you. But you don't have to worry about your head. This UV ink does not dry out.

 

[White Haus]

Thanks guys. We'll keep cleaning solution in the captops and will wait for the tech to arrive. I feel comfortable with the physical replacement but all the reconfiguration etc. doesn't sound like fun.

We may have a temp fix for our flatbed so at least we'll have one UV printer up and running (hopefully) by the end of the week.

 

[justjust89]

What error code are you receiving if any?

 

[laertes]

Our UCJV300 (got the printer 2018) was without power for three weeks last year while we were on vacation. An employee had unplugged it and forgotten to plug it back in. On the first day back at work, I thought the printhead was beyond repair. I did a normal cleaning cycle, and not a single nozzle was missing. Don't worry.