Need help getting a used Mimaki UCJV300 running again

[HGdesign]

I hope you are all doing well. I am starting to consider the pros/cons of replacing my LcLmWW setup with Cl Cl WW.
- Main reasons are in order to be able to add tone on tone effects selectively using matte & gloss
- Secondary reason is to for occasional metallic foil applications
Questions:
- Am I giving up any noticeable benefits losing the LcLm? I am assuming it will hurt some color range, but do not have a first hand example of how much of a gamut loss it would be.
- Are there any cons to having clear, for example does it clog more, or cause print head issues, etc.?
- Will the printer FORCE me to perform certain fluting and cleaning steps for the switch to clears?
- For example, can I simply drop in the Clear bottles, and let the old pigments rinse out slowly over time, or do I HAVE to perform certain steps before the machine will allow the new clears to run?
- I have control of most of the projects that run on the machine, so if I get some color tints in the clear for some time, I think I can live with that and would rather keep the priocesss simple, and avoid major waste of inks, or time and possibly mess of performing flushes if I can avoid it
- If there is are easy ways to get close to clean swap, say 90-95% clean without too much waste or hassle I would consider that
- Any specific settings I must change on the machine before it will allow me to put the clear ink chips in?
- And any tips on what specific techniques and settings I would need to do post print foiling on partially cured inks? If you guys have done this and found it to be high quality results, or is it not really worth doing in terms of getting clean polished accuracy on the foiling
Thank you so much as always for all your guidance!

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Yup, gonna need a keyboard for this one.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Ok, time to knock these out.
Gloss/Matte selectability is a great reason to add clear to color set.
UV ink in general is good for metallics
Losing Lc/Lm will result in a slight loss of color gamut, yes.
Clear ink is ink without pigment, less likely to clog, especially compared to white ink.
Not sure what fluting is, but a flush is highly recommended. Clear ink will be tinted color of last inks otherwise. At the very least, flush bottle tanks with alcohol to do quick and dirty.
Will have to change ink set, not hard, just somewhat time consuming.
Tuning media takes time, test and adjust is usually required.

 

[Norman Clifton]

Smoke - i have been following your thread with HG - i have had the same printer from new - over 6 years now and was hoping you could share some more advice.
Some lines wont clear when i try to do a air purge - any suggestions - also one head is starting to deteriorate and ok now but eventually will need replacement. I got a price on a head replacement over $6000 just for the one head.
They (my vendor) are pushing purchasing a new UCJV300 in lieu of the repair. I have also been getting an intermittent error: error 128 HDC FIFO UNDER allows us to finish a job and rebooting takes it away - but wondering how long our printer will hold up and how to keep it running longer - I am handy but dont want it to be a full time job keeping it alive. Another option is get a new UCJV with same ink config CMYK LC LM WW and convert the older one to LUS 200 and use for flexible prints and cut only - extending the life - of it - and use software to hack/.reset the expiry dates on the inks - but would still need to be able to purge and flush the lines that seem clogged. Our printer is printing will now BTW - any advise recommendations appreciated

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

A bit high for the head, but pretty typical quote, welcome to DM me for dollar talk as things change and people digging up old threads have a bad habit of holding me to numbers in 4 year old posts.

I am running a very early 2016 version of the UCJV300 and they are quite capable of being a very reliable machine in the long term. As for expiration dates, easy to just roll the clock back, all the cool kids run printers 2 years in the past.

Flushing lines is pretty easy, takes a couple of hours though. Not hard, just tedious and not a bad idea to do every few years as the only filtration on these things is the subtanks.