the history of your machine is that before the current owner and I were here they switched ink companies 3 times so Vutek maintenance will cost us $$$$$ if we ever need it. It's actually forced us to learn more that most people about the machine but every now and then we still have problems.
just curious if you're still using Vutek Ink or if you use 3rd party inks. how long have you had your machine? what kinds of problems have you had. our machine is almost 4 years old and we've been working with it almost 2 years.
I would say from my experience that running third party inks with such a great machine as Vutek is a bit of nonsense, especially that this ink is quite cheap in the first place and surely is of great quality. I've worked with 3360 and other Vuteks at a demo in Brussels, finally decided for a different machine, but that's irrelevant. It's a great machine and deserves good inks.
It's a different situation than in case of Seiko, but quite close - Seiko inks are just insanely good IMHO. THe only problem is that they cost approx 5 or 6 times more than the inks we use for our other solvent machines. And i have tested many 3rd party inks for the other machines and i know it's been a wrong, greedy decision to change inks. Just a general advice - don't buy cheap ink. Most of the problems that you're ever gonna have with a solvent machine will be because of ink. So use a good one.
My company 3 years use VFP inks on our vutek 3360 without any problem. It's some French company and chemistry is the similar like original Inkware. Head condition is perfect (machine working 24 h/day) and every 12 h we put solvent in heads for 15 min, and run again!
Haha, that's a good idea. Unfortunately not many machines allow you to put solvent in heads twice a day ;)
Is the original Vutek ink made by Vutek or Inkware, cuz i didn't understand exactly...
VFP is a renowned company. Probably Lyson is renowned too. But Lyson inks are unbelievable crap. Or my dealer urinates into my ink because i dislike them ;)
My experience with VFP is very good! Inks manufactured in europe (France) not some chinese ****! Inkware is the part of Vutek company (across the street) and produce inks only for Vutek printers (solvent?). But, for Vutek UV Curable? I think this is SUN Chemical (only stick Inkware label on bottle).
paragon wrote: just curious if you're still using Vutek Ink or if you use 3rd party inks. how long have you had your machine? what kinds of problems have you had. our machine is almost 4 years old and we've been working with it almost 2 years.
we have our machine for 3 years!
still using inkware (vutek) inks.
problems:
- drive roll motors (both front and back - not in the same time ofcourse)
- and one machine design problem: when i was printing maximum width in maximum speed (of heads) i didn't notice that caterpillar (or umbilical assembly how they call it) with cable and ink tubes is striking that same tubes on the place were they come out from machine and entering that caterpillar. striking was slight but it gave saw effect and cut one of the tubes... be careful of that - put something on tubes on that place to prevent such problems...
but mainly no bigger problems (except drive motors). just stick close to maintenance rules and everything will be perfect...
we have a piece of styrene that sits on our tubes coming out from the machine to prevent the tubes from being cut =)
our current problems are:
1-we can only run in 8 pass mode. any time we try and run 4 pass the banding is terrible. heads are in OK condition. not terrible, not great. we've adjusted all settings we can think of (pinch pressures, step, bidirectional, vacuum, etc). some colors are better than others. the only thing we can do that makes a difference is adjust the head alignment (TEST6) but they tell us not to do it.
2-after printing mesh (with no liner) we seem to have gotten something on the back roller. we have run mesh 100 times before with no problems. basically, we clean the back roller with roll cleaner vutek gives us but it won't clean all the stuff off (though it will remove paint from the walls). basically, we have to use "saran wrap" on the back bottom roller to print. =(
3-occassionally after the machine has been sitting for 10 minutes when we run a test or start a print the carriage moves about .5 meters and then quits. Error is "servo excessive following error" and I have to reset the machine.
So.....the only problem that is bad is that I have to run in 8 pass mode all the time (SLOW.....like 250 sq. ft. per hour). The roller and the reseting I can live with since Vutek won't help me.
1. What print speed and mode are you using? Have you tried using different speeds and modes? What is the vacuum setting at the Jet Packs? Have you tried adjusting it down a bit? When was the last time the filters were changed? What is the ambient temp in your print room? Do you notice more banding with colors where the Jet Packs are so-so? Have you printed on this media before without banding?
The standard problem on 3360 is "umbilical assembly" and life time of this part is about 1 year, after 1 year you must replace complete ink lines. I work on 4 color machine and I have 4 spare tubes for replacement. And replacement for complete inkline is about 2-3 h. Banding problem on 4 pass (enhance mode) comming from carriage! Some machines used old design of carriage (with 2 level screws on top) is not good - positions of printheads is problem. After I replace old carriage with new type (1 level screw on top) machine printing excelent in enhance mode.
we have many Vuteks (Vutsecks).. got me a 3360, a PressVu 180 and a PressVu 600.
the 3360 is prolly the big headache of the bunch, seems like ours may be slightly out of balance, as we have a consistant media crawl to the left...a real bitch if you are printing over 20ft..
jmz wrote: the 3360 is prolly the big headache of the bunch, seems like ours may be slightly out of balance, as we have a consistant media crawl to the left...a real bitch if you are printing over 20ft..
same thing here...
tried everything, but anyway geting media crawl to left side...
i would be mach happier if it would go to right - regarding to my political devotion
Very important is leveling of machine! Check it! When you place the media in machine try to fix material on media bar (to prevent moving left or right), then try decrease back pinch, increase front pinch and tension!
Try adjust vacuums on jets. If not help check "venturi ejector" inside carriage (white elements on upper left side), and check condition of tubes before and after ejector. Also, maybe ink inline filters inside of carriage need to replace?
same thing here... tried everything, but anyway geting media crawl to left side... i would be mach happier if it would go to right - regarding to my political devotion
turns out that the supply roll side was a hair outta wack, Vutsecks had us get a Dial-gauge and re-align the pressure rollers, it seems much better now...middle of the road.. kinda like my political devotion..
jmz wrote:turns out that the supply roll side was a hair outta wack, Vutsecks had us get a Dial-gauge and re-align the pressure rollers, it seems much better now...middle of the road.. kinda like my political devotion..
Ive been having troubles with losing tension in the back pinch on the right side (facing machine) and on front pinch it seems like it has plenty of tension in the center but it doesn't grip tightly as it closes on the sides. Which Dial-gauge did you use to re-align the rollers so that i may give it a try?
I have worked with Vuteks for the last 11 years, 2360 3360 prevu 202. 320, QS and GS, Solid machines but you really need to understand them.
Media crawl is cause by five things,.
Not loading straight to start with, make sure you measure front and back from body of machine to material, ( yes 1/8 off is too much. )
Pinch rollers must be properly adjusted for up down time , they need to come up and down left to right at the same time.
Air pressure can be set too high or low. on the 3360 especially too high will cause the pinches to bow open in the middle. allowing no traction of material.
check and make sure that if you are using the motor driven media winders that the rollers are parellell to the pinch rollers.
platten not even ( too high /low across width. )
10ft or 3m material will tend to stick if too hot on pre and post heat.
First make sure there is no ink ink in the vac tubes.
Then lower vac until ink drips out of heads. Raise the vac slightly higher than that point. Most of the time this will do it for you. Idea is to provide enough vac to keep the ink raised in the head ( meniscus )
