Print Head soak questions...

[Andy D]

First: a FIY to all Roland Cammjet printer owners, don't leave vinyl in the printer over night...
I came in Monday and apparently my vinyl curled on the edge enough to foul up my newish printhead,
I should have known better.

I'm working on getting the heads back, I'm pulling ink through the capping station and the soaking in cleaning solvent for a couple hours, test & repeat. I'm still missing around 20% of my nozzles on
all of the heads, which is much better than where I started.

1st question, I'm using a 60ml vet syringe to draw the ink. Do ya'll do a slow & steady draw or
a powerful draw?

On my UV flatbed the tech had me soak the printhead in alcohol overnight & that worked like a charm, cleared them right up. As a last option anyone use anything besides roland solvent to soak the heads?
I would hate to destroy the head completely because I might be able to work around the bad nozzles until\
I get a tech in.
Any suggestions would be welcomed.

My printer is a Roland Cammjet VS 540 (not 540i )

 

[OADesign]

I've got an sc545 that i need to do this to right now. I keep putting it off. But its been sitting for a month now. interested to see what other have done too.

 

[Andy D]

Usually I recommend flushing the head form the top as that seems to clear more nozzles out but you have to be prepared to buy a new head if that doesn't work or damages the print head so try at your own risk.

Thanks Solventinkjet!
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "flushing the head from the top ", do you mean pushing solvent through the ink supply line?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Thanks Solventinkjet!
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "flushing the head from the top ", do you mean pushing solvent through the ink supply line?

Yes flush solution through the head from where the dampers normally connect to the head. The proper way to do it is to hook the syringe to the damper and then flush through the damper into the head but I usually hook the syringe directly to the nipple on the manifold using some soft pump tube. Then I push slightly until I see solution bubble out of the nozzles on the bottom. Once that happens I push a little harder until it starts to spray/waterfall. You will actually be able to see the nozzles that are missing. Usually I only push 1 or 2 10ml syringe full of solution through the head but you can keep going if you see nozzles coming back. Just to repeat, it can damage the head permanently so only do it if you are prepared to buy another head. If you push solution through one channel and it comes out of another channel, it's cooked. I would try the overnight soak first to be safe. Just make sure to clog the waste line so it doesn't create a siphon and drain all of your inks!

 

[Andy D]

Thanks dude, I wish you were closer so I could use you as my tech!

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

You have a VS machine, so I would not use a syringe for anything. The VS models have the choke valve built in for exactly this purpose. You want to do a choke clean from service mode. probably 2 of them and you'll be golden.

 

[Andy D]

disregard

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

haha, I got the email version of your answer Andy. did you get past the error and get a choke clean working?

 

[Andy D]

haha, I got the email version of your answer Andy. did you get past the error and get a choke clean working?

Yes I did, Thanks C5! I did two choke clean & it helped some; all of the black nozzles came back but only a few of the other colors...
I was thinking about doing a overnight head soak and then a couple choke cleans 1st thing in the morning.

 

[Andy D]

I'm not going to risk it, because I'm getting by now but I really want to try an alcohol head soak.
Anyone who has had to clean up a large ink spill can tell you using cleaning solvent or water makes the ink worse and it smears,
but pouring denatured alcohol on a ink spill breaks the thick, sticky ink into a water like consistency & makes it so much easier to clean up,
seems like the same would be true for print heads.

 

[Andy D]

The problem is that it could damage the fragile membrane of the print heads.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

I honestly wouldn't try anything but the Roland Head cleaning solvent. I know what you mean about how it is oily and smears ink, but its the only thing Id use. Block off the captop lines and fill the caps up with the solution and park the head. Then unplug the machine overnight and let it soak. As soon as you unplug the cap lines and plug it in, run 2 more choke cleans.

 

[TimToad]

I honestly wouldn't try anything but the Roland Head cleaning solvent. I know what you mean about how it is oily and smears ink, but its the only thing Id use. Block off the captop lines and fill the caps up with the solution and park the head. Then unplug the machine overnight and let it soak. As soon as you unplug the cap lines and plug it in, run 2 more choke cleans.

We have an older Roland VP-540 VersaCamm and even after replacing the captops, dampers and Black head, one channel on ONLY the black head will drop out intermittently. We can run yards and yards of prints and its fine, then out of nowhere after an inch, six inches or a foot or a couple feet of another print, it drops out.

Zooming through tons of ink trying to both manually and machine clean it. Is there a way to machine clean ONLY one head?

Any suggestions or guesses on what the issue might be?

 

[Technician]

Did the vinyl glue come in contact of the nozzle plate?
If so, you need to clean of all the glue on the nozzle plate and from wipes or it will smears around and make you life miserable.