Is it true you must print daily to avoid any head damages? If I skip a day or two (machine on)the heads will get worse?
I had one black head and replaced about 3 or 4 times (lost counts now) just after 2 or 3months since replaced, now and am worried if this is why its failing to print well. Could it be because I'm skipping a day or two without printing, if yes why just the black?
I just had the black head replaced on our 100S. The head kept drying out after a period of non-use. I told our tech about the problem and he said that there was an air leak in the ink supply line that was wicking the ink back out of the head. When I originaly called Seiko, they just sent out a new head and didn't ask any specific questions about the problem.
So in short, there is no reason that you can't leave the machine idle for a couple of days and not expect it to work. If you keep having problems, talk to your service tech in detail when they arrive on site. They should be able to resolve the issue.
my shop has been using a CP64S since Aug '05 and i would say a qualified YES to printing something every day, even if it's only nozzle test bars.
first, it came to my attention that if you have some sort of technical problem, the tech can print your maintenance record and if it doesn't show that you performed daily cap/wipe cleans, you are in danger of voiding your warranty.
second, i have experienced heads drying up, leading to banding and awful color shifts, when i did not do a head cleaning before starting a print. my solution for this is to ALWAYS do a STRONG head cleaning before the first print of the day, and before any print of heavy ink coverage or large print area.
after the head cleaning i will also print nozzle check bars. for some reason this is in a secret area of the menu and requires you to enter a maintenance password. this is the button sequence:
online (press to go offline)-shift-cancel-shift-cancel-cancel
then the maintenance password: shift-up arrow-down arrow-rt arrow
left arrow (to choose H.ADJ) then enter-enter-enter.
once i started doing this religiously my banding problems have virtually gone way. (now about that wrinkling and head crash thing...)
SEIKO NEVER gave me a reason why the black heads each time they had to be replaced, although I insisted from my agent to do so. And, yes I was told to at least have a test print (solid) at least in a day when not printing, and it says in the menu that a clean (capping & wiping) have to be done DAILY. Although the last black head that was replace Ive printed daily and done all the cleaning but still gone after 2months only!
From what I was told you do NOT have to print everyday. But you DO have to leave the printer on. There is a setting which does something every 1 or 2 hours to keep the heads from clogging. I have seen this in the menu somewhere.
I have not printed for weeks at a time with no problems.\
As far as it voiding the warranty, I have no idea. Although Seiko is pretty much clueless (at least the service reps in my area, and my distributer) so I wouldn't worry about it.
So maybe they didn't know what they were talking about when they told me you don't have to print everyday?????
As fas as I know the printer does an automated clean every 20hrs. In which menu you can change the setting to 1 or 2hrs? I never heard or read that. And besides I'm very interested to download the service manual, does anyone know a site where I can download please?