Hi all, a little issue for you to consider. Advice is welcome.
We are running a 100S and 64S. Around the same time they both developed a problem whereby after a couple of metres all colours would start banding and dropping out.
Our techs looked at the machines for a week then said we must have suffered a power spike, wiping out the heads. The only remedy is total replacement for two machines - which of course, is not cheap.
When asked for an analysis as to how they've come to this conclusion we had a short email back saying something along the lines of "we've looked at everything else and found nothing wrong." The power spike is at best a guess. A $32,000 guess.
So it's feasible they are correct. It's my suspiscion they are correct but obviousely it's a lot of money to spend on what is essentially a guess. Nothing else was effected in this "spike" - computers are the first things to go usually but nothing has happened to anything, other than my very expensive print heads.
how do your heads look when you perform the nozzle check? how many nozzles are out? did the failures happen at exactly the same time? once the failure occurred can you get a decent print out of any of the printers?
q: how do your heads look when you perform the nozzle check?
a: A lot of nozzles have gone.
q: how many nozzles are out?
a: too many to count, a lot on all heads
q: did the failures happen at exactly the same time?
A: They all gradually went at the same time. I'm used to one head gradually going but all of them started giving up the ghost.
Q: once the failure occurred can you get a decent print out of any of the printers?
A: With cleans it can be brought back to some sort of quality (not that good but passable), but the heads would go again somewhere in the print.
UPDATE: After trying and failing to do a head wash with the kit provided, we charged the inks and left it for the weekend. Coming back in this morning we found the situation vastly improved, with most bad nozzles coming back. Don't know how long this will last, as with this printer it can appear good but go midprint.
ALSO: Had a friend running a Roland 1000 Ecosovent machine. They started having all sorts of problems with the images they were printing, with absolutely no explanation. Fuzzy edges, crooked lines and all that sort of thing. Anyway, after having a tech out from Japan for a week some wag asked if the machine was earthed. Of course it wasn't. So they earthed it to the TOILET, and the machine runs fine. You can't use the toilet sadly but the printer runs fine. How is the earthing on these machines? I don't think we have ours earthed either. Should we?
earthing shouldn't be issue, but that depends on the environment you are running it. if you think you do have a problem, you can get a meter to measure the esd off the printer/media/area to see if you're getting spikes i.e. the printer is giving of electrical pulses. from this you should get the seiko rep in to properly earth the printer, as he should know where the best place to earth the printer from.
if all the heads went together i think there is a serious isse there, and it's really hard to guess what it could be. call seiko now!!!
