S80600: new to eco solvent: minimal print or autoprinthead cleaning?

[Rayd8]

Hi All,
I'm really new to eco-solvent, smalltime printshop here, coming from hp latex but due to lot's of printquality issues and also the price of the inkcarts and other consumables becoming more and more expensive lead me to migrating away from HP, that's why i bought this S80600 used (new printheads installed all functioning with perfect nozzlechecks printing). The Epson wins for speed and colorgamut, i got a great deal buying this printer because the printshop was upgrading to the newer S90's. I'm technical, do a lot of my own repairs on the HP's. But eco-solvent is fairly new to me. So that's why i most likely will be asking you guru's some basic questions that i don't really seem to find a satisfying Googling-answer for. Since i still have several sets of ink for the HP's and it's for me slow season i will be only doing limited prints for now on the S80600; she's also temporarily at a different location due to logistics reasons, but i have full remote access to the rip via remote software. As i know eco solvent printheads tend to clog i was wondering what you guys would do with an idle S80600 printer?

1. i have configured the autohead maintenance (or what's it called again in the menu) for now to run each 48 hours, so i leave the printer on in standby so it can do this task, e.g. "day 1, 3, 5, 7, 9,...) . Is this enough to prevent the heads from clogging to your experience?
2. i was thinking of printing some small color squares (2x2inch, one for each colorchannel ) each week or so at minimum, e.g. "day 6", do you think this would be enough to keep the ink 'flowing'? If so, does there exist any of such a printfile/pdf?
3. i was also thinking of printing/doing a nozzle check each week, e.g. "day 3"

Thanks for any insights on what to do best in such situations or any other helpfull tips for such situations.
Greetings to all and have a jolly sunday,

Ray

 

[netsol]

one of my favorite topics
2 years ago, my wife had a serious health issue
hospitalized for quite a while, and still at this point, unable to walk unassisted

i have spent practically no time i the shop for the last 2 years. we print sporadically

EVERY DAY run 1 manual cleaning cycle. i print a 4inch color wheel on each printer.
THEN i use a syringe to manually wet the felt in the capping stations with cleaning solution (Mutoh VJ1617h running MP31 inks)
or isopropyl (Roland Sc545-ex running eco sol max)

wetting the capping station allows for the possibility of missing a day.

the HP designjet t1700dr seems perfectly happy with 1 cleaning a week, it is aqueous, though

 

[Rayd8]

one of my favorite topics
2 years ago, my wife had a serious health issue
hospitalized for quite a while, and still at this point, unable to walk unassisted

i have spent practically no time i the shop for the last 2 years. we print sporadically

EVERY DAY run 1 manual cleaning cycle. i print a 4inch color wheel on each printer.
THEN i use a syringe to manually wet the felt in the capping stations with cleaning solution (Mutoh VJ1617h running MP31 inks)
or isopropyl (Roland Sc545-ex running eco sol max)

wetting the capping station allows for the possibility of missing a day.

the HP designjet t1700dr seems perfectly happy with 1 cleaning a week, it is aqueous, though

Hi NetSol, Thanks so much for you info, i'll wait a bit till i see some feedback of Epson S80-series users, cause i saw an automatic headcleaning function in the menu's that i activated and i'm hoping this with a weekly colorwheel/colorpatches print will suffice. The capping station wetting is most likely also a very good idea, i guess the epson cleaning liquid should do for this or better to use isopropyl(which completely evaporates if i'm correct or is it more a 50/50 water/isoproppyl mix)?

 

[Rayd8]

I have one other info from a Roland Eco-Solvent user telling me that a daily headclean is a myth and shouldn't be needed even with ecosolvent, but i'm for now not taking to much chances and scheduled autoclean every 48 hours so at least that is running autopilot (so i only need to check that she is standby/online and that the carts aren't empty)

 

[netsol]

I think A LOT depends on what temp the office sits at (and what humidity ) during off hours.

if you are still climate controlled it is more forgiving.
a healthy cappingvstation with a perfect seal also helps.
do your inks ever PULL BACK leaving air bubbles or gaps in the ink lines?

I worry much more about my mutoh given the aggressive nature of MP31 inks & how quickly the inks evaporate.

 

[ikarasu]

Daily cleanings is a myth if you're using the printer every day, or every other day.

If you're going a week between prints.... You're going to want to do a daily cleaning.


We use our printer 8 hours a day, and not only will it do an auto cleaning every xx days.... It'll run cleanings sporadically before each print job.... So our printers are doing 2-3 cleanings a day.


Leaving it over the weekend with no prints but using it every other day... Then it'll do all its own maintenance and run its own cleanings.

Inks cheap, heads are not..... Personally if I weren't using it daily I'd set it to run A cleaning everyday, then every 2-3 days I'd run a small 100% c 100% y 100%m, etc, assuming I can remote into it.


I had a Epson s40 solvent in my garage.... Printed every 3-4 days on it, despite using it 1/10 as much as my work printer, the heads died way faster. Could be luck of the draw... But main reason I switched to Epson resin in my home.

 

[netsol]

i am of mixed feelings on this
certainly a printer that is kept busy EVERY DAY is much less troublesome

and certainly the more agressive inks are more trouble.

WHY are so many printers programmed to stop in the middle of a print to do a cleaning if
it "is time"?

as i have said air bubbles allow the ink to "clump" (kind of like how blood coagulates)

when these tiny particles bunch together it is much easier for one to end up causing piezo's to not open or stay open

this is also why it is so important to agitate certain inks (white ink, anyone?)

there is certainly an advantage to one of the new epsons (better design) and the newer chemistries

i am certainly leaning to the over cleaning side on all this, but, it's like what a friend ron ananian says about oil changes.

"once you open the hood, the oil change is the cheapest thing you can do. IF YOU DON'T DO IT ENOUOGH you are not going to like the other things you end up having to do"

a bit of overcleaning fits in the budget better than the occasional $3000. print head change