Printhead 911 Recovery Station

[Big Blue]

Has anyone bought one of these. I operate a Vutek Pv200 machine, and have several jet packs with deflected, and missing nozzles. Vutek told me I have to buy new Jet packs ($5000each) which I refuse to believe that the jetpacks can't be recovered. I tried recovery in the Vutek supplied recovery station, and no luck. I did some research and found this product. claims to recover 90% of all clogged jets. also has a 30day money back policy.

http://www.printhead911.com/deluxe-x2-maintenance-recovery-kit.html

 

[miker]

the link doesn't say it will do printheads for the PV200.

Which Vutek head cleaner are you using? They made a few revisions over the years. I have had good luck with their most recent (2006?) model of cleaner and found it far better to use than any of their older models, as well as most aftermarket cleaners.

 

[Big Blue]

if you go down to the purchase box it has an option for the pv 200. It's the Vutek Recovery staion that came with our machine, 2006 sounds about right. What kind of PSI should I run the head conditioner throught the jet pack, been running around 60-80, with no real luck. How long do you run the cycle? do you use just the head conditioner that you use for daily maintanence, or is there another liquid I can use? I just want to exhaust all possibilities, before buying a new jet pack, and the printhead 911 machine seems like it is a possible option, I just don't know of anyone who has purchased or even used on of these.



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[miker]

yeah, that's the correct machine. do you think there is damage to the jet plate or just clogging of the nozzles?

Here's how I would clean:

1) Load fresh "maint fluid". Clip in head, run for 15 minutes.
2) Scrub with supplied brush
3) Use the "blow" function of the cleaner to blow into all the nozzles going end to end a few times
4) Scrub with supplied brush
5) Use the suck function to slow suck all the nozzles going end to end
6) Scrub with supplied brush

Check for improvement in the flow leaving the printhead.

Never had to disassemble a 200 printhead, but did so to many of our 3360 printheads and cleaned the surfaces between the jet pack and the jet plate which is where the majority of our clogs on the solvent were. Obviously, this will void your warranty but if your printhead is bad and out of warranty already then who cares. I've dis/re - assembled at least spectra 15 printheads for the 3360 and never damaged one in the process. All you will need is small screwdrivers.

 

[Big Blue]

any idea as to how much PSI to run. I have done all this several times. I am still having some banding problems. I reset my carrige height, did the step align, and the bi-directional align. this helped, but in my dark colors I still have some pretty major banding, so I am guessing it is being caused by clogged, and deflected nozzles. any other thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[miker]

I found that running the step align test was not always 100% accurate, better to eye ball that and adjust as needed. The bi-dir test should be spot on though.

how does you jet test look? smooth and clean.....or yucky?

Also, what mode are you printing in?

 

[Big Blue]

Jet test is average, except for the one jet in the black slot. That particular jet was in the cyan slot and I was getting a ton of banding in anything with blue in it, so I changed it to the balck slot in hopes that the banding wouldn't be as noticable, but now most anything with brown and black (dark colors) has some banding. I have ran it in all three modes, heavy smoothing, nothing really changes between modes. Any Idea as to how much PSI I should run in the recovery sation.

 

[Big Blue]

We had an old jet pack that was electrically fried, so I took it apart. There are two plates that go on the pack. they are both made of some very thin metal (aluminum?) what I'm not sure of is how do you get the two plates to stick back to the Jet pack. there was some type of adhesive on it. were your jetpacks similar to this?

 

[Big Blue]

Gonna bump this one for some more looks.

 

[miker]

like i said, i've never taken apart a printhead for the 200. the 3360 spectra heads were held together by screws. I though you are supposed to use the air supply for the take-up winder so I never messed with differing PSI.

On both solvent and uv machines I have always hid the worst heads in the yellow channel. It's definitely the hardest to see.

As for the banding, try printing in unidirectional mode to see if it goes away. If it does, then you are facing the fact that bidirectional uv printing will leave some mower lines, but usually the heavy smoothing will eliminate that. If you are still getting bad uv bands, then I suspect either your profile is putting down too much ink, which can lead to uv banding or your heads are mucked up, and your will need to either recover or replace them.

 

[Big Blue]

I am going to try and "hide" the jetpack in the yellow channel, sounds reasonable, will also try printing unidirectional.

Thanks for your suggestions, I really appreciate it.

 

[miker]

i would try printing uni-directional first, as it doesn't involve doing any work

 

[Big Blue]

Printed unidirectional, and the bands were barely visible, but you can still see them... gonna change to the yellow slot

 

[Jet Fast Printing]

The only real difference between the cleaning station you have and the 911 cleaning station is ultrasonic cleaning, and the 911 station is semi automatic.

If you want to clean them with ultrasound, there are many ultrasonic cleaners on fleabay

 

[Big Blue]

My question is.... Does it work?

 

[Jet Fast Printing]

Well I can't verify that the 911 station works since I have never used it. I have cleaned UV heads (Not Vutek) with an off the shelf ultrasonic machine, got decent results.

 

[Big Blue]

totally ignorant here sorry... Did you have to make an adapter for it to work? What kind of cleaner did you use. Breifly explain the process, and how it works.

 

[Jet Fast Printing]

totally ignorant here sorry... Did you have to make an adapter for it to work? What kind of cleaner did you use. Breifly explain the process, and how it works.

I just made a little Jig that held the head above the bottom of the tank. (touching the bottom of the tank is a no-no)

then just used a syringe to push - suck fluid through.

 

[baijurj]

Vutek 5330 ec ii head cleaning

Hi Guys, sorry if i am interrupting. i have a vutek 5330 ec II machine, and i had some problem, due to which we couldn't flush the heads effectively, now the problems are sorted, but jets are clogged. the service tech says i have to replace them - that's rubbish. So i took out one of those dis assemble it and cleaned it with my ultrasonic cleaner (i do it all the time on my dgi machines.), i put it back, but upon start up the machine didn't work - the tech said the head i cleaned screwed it up and left in a huff. I don't think that is the problem, the power board doen't seem to function at all, so no power is sent to the servos and to carriage subsequently.

has anyone experienced these kind of problems, and has anyone cleaned a 5330 jet pack?

your views will save my days...!

Baiju

 

[MikePro]

i don't see what this machine can do that a syringe and cleaning solution cannot... nor do i forsee you needing to use it more than 4 times every few years, if that.