1) The stupid warranty on Seiko printheads is only 3 months- so my heads are out of warranty already, even though I replaced all 6 of them earlier this year.
2) In 2 1/2 years, we have replaced 10 heads using OEM ink- I don't think we can do much worse.
3) Triangle guarantees that if their ink causes head failure, they will replace the head.
We have been running triangle inks in our JV3 for a couple years now without fault, so I'm confident that we shouldn't have problems.
Wonsngis wrote:2) In 2 1/2 years, we have replaced 10 heads using OEM ink- I don't think we can do much worse.
3) Triangle guarantees that if their ink causes head failure, they will replace the head.
2) 10 heads in 2,5 years? How did you succeed to do that?
3) Ha, ha, ha! How will you prove to them that fault on your head(s) was caused by their ink? How will you prove that to your self, if you already distroyed so many heads?
from my working experience with original and 3rd party inks, on the end, when you sum all costs, it's mostly almost the same thing from financial point of view, but if you compare quality (gamut and durability) original inks are much better!
it's better for you to detect reason why did you lose that much heads. Heaving price of head in minde this is place where you can save lots of $...
10 heads in 2.5 years despite having followed all maintenance recomendations and operational procedures. This is not due to any fault of ours. We even keep the printer in its own dedicated and climate/humidity controlled room! Believe me- with 6 large format printers, we are not novices. Perhaps it is a lemon. Maybe it's cursed. Who knows. In talking to many many many people in the industry, this is not entirely uncommon with these printers.
Also- I do not expect to prove head failures to Triangle as their fault as I have already accepted that this is probably impossible.
The Seiko was the last of my 6 printers to switch to 3rd party. So in my EXTENSIVE experience with 3rd party ink, I would say that if you do your research, 3rd party inks are a solid investment.
We've had technicians from several dealers, GEI Calgraph, and Seiko-i all investigate our problems and no one has any explaination why we loose heads like we do. The best anyone can say is that 'these heads don't last forever.' But there is a reason why these heads have such a short warranty...
Non technician, no matter how good is he, can't be better from operator who is working with machine whole time, and ofcourse is interested in what he is doing. You don't need special technical skills to determine how machine works - what you have to be aware of.
From your past posts (2 years ago!) I see that you lost 3 of them by drying. I know that capping and wiping stations in Seiko are not doing good job - if you relay only on them, on the end it will result with head failure...
This is were you can save your money. It's not enough to press "cap cleaning", "wipe cleaning", "cleaning".. There is a lot of manual cleaning of head surface - time interval depends on job quantity - but definitely something that has to be done. In this way I'm saying that clogged head is mostly operator's fault...
Ofcourse that technician will tell you "do your maintenance and everything will be ok". They don't have time (or will) to show you what you have to be careful of - on the end, they get paid for working at your place - more "broken" machines better for them...
Regarding 3rd party inks: in most cases 3rd party ink is drying much faster than original ones - resulting with more and more cleaning cycles - resulting more ink waste... Faster ink drying (clogging) gives you more probability for head failure. But leave possible head failure aside, more cleaning cycles will "approach" cost of 3rd party ink to cost of original ones.
Like I told I have lots of experience with different 3rd party inks. I'm 8 - 9 years in this business. When I sum all cost, difference in price, on the end, is almost the same (from financial point of view). But when you add quality of inks, definitely "thumb up" for OEM inks...
Ofcourse 3rd inks are better and better every day, but in the same time OEM inks are cheaper and cheaper - on the beginning they were 300$ and look now!
Before, I would always encourage people to experiment with 3rd inks. In that way I wouldn't have to do it - I would just take advantage of their experience. But in most cases they had interest in "sharing experience" with others... These days you can't trust anybody. There's always some kind of interest... For example, my interest in this is to get one more post! (he, he, he...).
We'll be here - you will tell us you experience... We all might switch to Triangle... Or not...
Certainly every experience differs. I cannot say that what works for me will work for everyone. But by the ever pragmatic numbers, lets say that I use 18 litres of ink per month (that probably about average for us on this machine). At $100 saved per litre (again, we aren't paying list so its more than that.. but just for numbers sake...) thats $1800 saved per month. Heads cost us $1600 each. Over 31 months, we have replaced 10 heads. This means that, even if sustaining the same failure rate, our ink savings for that 31 month period had be been using triange= $55,800. Our 10 head replacements = $16,000. This means we could have lost twice as many heads and would have still come out $23,800 better off than using OEM ink.
I'm happy to keep everyone posted as to our success (or not). So far, everything looks promising. If things don't work out, I can always switch back.
As far as routine maintenance is concerned, I am not a believer in the cap and wiper system in the first place. Obviously, I do the daily cleanings of those systems but I do, in fact, regularly manually wipe the heads with lint free rags. Its quite remarkable how much crap the cap/wiper system fails to remove. Interesting note- my Spectra based machines do not have the cap and wiper- just a daily manual wipe- and I have a mere fraction of the drop outs and failed heads that I do with the Seiko system. Also you shold note that most of my head problems are traced to air leaks in the heads themselves- not blockage. And yes, we went through the whole O ring bit with minimal success. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about my operational procedures and machine history.
Our regular tech speculated that our woes were due to older generation heads and that the new ones had been much improved. There are visible differences between the 2 so perhaps it wasn't just BS.
I can also attest that 2 of our early head failures were due to faulty OEM ink. Now while Seiko did pick up the tab on those, it goes to show that OEM's aren't foolproof.
I assume from your username, cs6060, that you have the Oce branded unit, right? I'm curious: were they running different ink, or was it the same as Seiko-i?
I have also lost one head because of bad OEM ink (light cyan).. And that's it! No, more...
If you sad that you've lost 2 - 3 heads it would be "normal" in that time period, but when you say 10...
On my CS6060 I still have 5 "old generation" heads and everything is OK. Yes, from time to time I have to clear air leak...
If you ignore air leak, bad cap (not sealing head to good - something that has to be changed from time to time...) or anything like that, on the end it will result with head failure. If operator is interested in what he is doing, he can notice "strange" behaviour of machine, and on time solve possible failures... No matter in what condition is your printer, 10 lost heads is pretty to much..
Only thing I can do is to assume, and by that, offer you my opinion. Didn't and don't want to be rude or something like that... We are here to help each other...
About ink: ofcourse that ink is same for CS, Seiko, and HP. Only data on cartridge chips are different...
Bottom line - if 3rd party items are available, of coarse Seiko (or whoever) is going to say they are bad for the machine. Because they are selling the same **** for soo much more.
3rd party items are great, bring down prices bring up quality. Thumbs up from me.
I believe that the conversion was $2000 installed- but don't quote me on that. Since we're saving $100/liter, that's paid off in ink savings in about a month.
You said you clean the heads manually? What's the best way to get access to them. I have had my printer for about 2-1/2yrs and have never manually cleaned the heads.
I come across lot of 3rd party inks, but didn't see one that had better quality over original ones. (Ok, except first version of Nur inks - any 3rd party ink was better then that ones...)...
In most cases 3rd party manufacturers use cheap pigments to reduce price of their ink. Cheap pigment can't result with better quality, only with lower price.
I'm definatly for 3rd party inks - they are lowering price of original inks. But from experience I will not use any in my Seiko (read CS and HP). Maybe when Wonsngis says that everything is OK (ofcourse after year of use)
Regarding manual cleaning of heads: to access them you have to remove wiping unit...
My name is Joffre Castejón I'm from Venezuela, I'm looking for 8 damage printhead of the seiko color painter or hp9000 for some study that I'm making in the University, do you have some of those that you can sell to me?
My name is Joffre Castejón I'm from Venezuela, I'm looking for 8 damage printhead of the seiko color painter or hp9000 for some study that I'm making in the University, do you have some of those that you can sell to me?
