Mixing Ink Bottle Sizes

[Old Printer]

We have a new 6042 UV Flatbed installed last October. The dealer talked us into the 1000 ml inks, even though we are a low volume user, because they burn so much during the install. After the install the tech said Mimaki must have changed the firmware because he used only a fraction of the ink he normally goes through. Here we sit five months in with the first ink at it's exp date, though they give a two month "grace" use period before the software refuses to print. The ink, clear, is still 80% full At the time he thought all of the ink bottle sizes needed to be the same, but at our usage rate I would like to go down to the 250 ml size. Does anyone have any experience mixing ink bottle sizes? Is it possible? Not feeling confident I will get an accurate answer. Thanks for any help.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Mixing bottles is fine. What ink set are you using? If it's LH-100, can do self-resetting chips or can just modify the expiration date on them.

 

[Old Printer]

Mixing bottles is fine. What ink set are you using? If it's LH-100, can do self-resetting chips or can just modify the expiration date on them.

Thanks for the reply. We are running an 8 bottle setup, all LH-100 except the Primer which is PR-200.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Can get self-resetting chips for both PR-200 and LH100, so all good there. Primer is cursed for me, but I use the channel for homebrew metallic ink and it basically gives me an extra spot color.

 

[Old Printer]

Can get self-resetting chips for both PR-200 and LH100, so all good there. Primer is cursed for me, but I use the channel for homebrew metallic ink and it basically gives me an extra spot color.

We have had three Mutoh 426's here before going to the Mimaki. The Mimaki is superior in a number of areas, but without the primer, ink adhesion is not good. We run mostly cast acrylic with gloss finish, and without the primer the inks can be easily scraped off with a finger nail.
I am just an employee and I don't think management will be too keen on experimenting with doctored chips while the machine is still under warranty, but in case I am wrong about that, where do I learn more about the chips?

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Had a thread on chips but it got black-holed. If under warranty, you are best sticking with Mimaki supplies in-date to comply with their end. We run all used machines here, so we do all sorts of dumb, fun and crazy stuff with ours.

 

[Kemik]

We have a UCJV300, I'm not sure if it will work the same, but we just go into the service mode settings and change the date on the printer, you can use the inks well past the expiry date.

 

[Tatonka]

nothing wrong with getting the small bottles...when they're available. Some colors I struggle to find the small bottles, especially Lc&Lm, so those usually end up being the big bottles with everything else the small bottles.

 

[Jrassel]

We have had three Mutoh 426's here before going to the Mimaki. The Mimaki is superior in a number of areas, but without the primer, ink adhesion is not good. We run mostly cast acrylic with gloss finish, and without the primer the inks can be easily scraped off with a finger nail.
I am just an employee and I don't think management will be too keen on experimenting with doctored chips while the machine is still under warranty, but in case I am wrong about that, where do I learn more about the chips?

We've had that even with the primer so much so that I'll cut them on the CNC but before running the end mill to cit out I'll first run a v bit on them to give them ever so slight of a bevel on the back side. (We back print sign blanks we use for a.d.a projects.)