We've been using the Colourpainter since July 04 and have gone through 196 litres of ink, and currently have stored around 75 litres of waste. This makes our wastage about 1/3 which is not great.
However, make sure you run the cartridges until they run out completely. We made the mistake of changing them at 2% but that figure is notoriously unreliable as I've had cartridges doing heavy printing for days on end at 2% before finally giving up. Keep an empty one handy and feel the weight against one with 2% and that's your best indication of how much is left. Our ink consumption has gone down quite a lot since learning this.
Thanks for the input. I have been waiting untill it completely runs out and your waste number correespond with mine. I think I may call my service rep who sold me the machine and ask why he didn't devulge this information when we purchased the machine.
we had only unit for nearly 2 years now and only just filled a 25l drum. not sure why you all are using so much ink. are you performing a lot of manual cleans during the day? how much printing are you putting through? if you're short of oputput, it's better to run it slightly slower than run flat out of only a couple of hours and then leave the printer dormant for the rest of the day.
I myself am running pretty flat out- 4 pass 6-8 hours a day mostly. I suffer a lot from in dropout on light cyan and light magenta (as posted numerous times before) and have to do a lot of cleans.
Yes I am contantly having to do manual cleans and only the Strong cleaning seam to clear the blocked nozzles. I even have to do a Fill cap from time to time to rectify the blocked nozzles.
We are in the same boat. We have replaced out LC and Cyan heads 3x now because they just keep self destructing =/ the techs have no clue why this is happening but we keep this machine clean enough to eat off of between the manual cleans, the capping and wiping, cleaning off overspray etc. still convinced our machine lays way too much ink down and wastes a ton, but the seiko techs say otherwise...
We are in the same boat. We have replaced out LC and Cyan heads 3x now because they just keep self destructing =/ the techs have no clue why this is happening but we keep this machine clean enough to eat off of between the manual cleans, the capping and wiping, cleaning off overspray etc. still convinced our machine lays way too much ink down and wastes a ton, but the seiko techs say otherwise...
If you are using all the canned profiles then I can see why you would say that. I have found that all the canned profiles are using way to much ink and I have tailored all the ones I use and in some cases brought the total ink coverage down to almost half of what they shipped with. I have found the colour hasn't shifted at all but just layes down less ink. The up side to this is in most cases I don't need to use the dryer.
jpg_inc wrote: We are in the same boat. We have replaced out LC and Cyan heads 3x now because they just keep self destructing =/ the techs have no clue why this is happening but we keep this machine clean enough to eat off of between the manual cleans, the capping and wiping, cleaning off overspray etc. still convinced our machine lays way too much ink down and wastes a ton, but the seiko techs say otherwise...
you have lost 6 heads already???
in what time! how many miles did you print...
how is this happening. in what way...
you lose nozzle by nozzle or few of them all of the sudden...
this sounds like some kind of horror movie...
when you say you clean it good you mean on capers and wipers...
did you try to remove wiping unit and to see state of your heads?
when I did this I was shocked by the scene... lots of dried ink all around head surface... horror...
wipers are not doing good job definitely.
you can clean caper surface perfectly, but head can have this pile of dried ink which can/will prevent cap to seal the head and on the end to "perform" nozzle lost night by night...
I hate when they don't leave users possibility to manually clean the heads...
- nozzle drop frequently, check or replace rubber o-ring, check also room temp, 45C~50C, not good if too low, static build-up.
- for deflected nozzle, if you dare, remove head and clean manually, need tools like:
1) head removing tools (from seiko)
2) thermal ultrasonic cleaner with fluid pump (let solvent pump through the head, temp 40C~50C, 5 seconds medium vibration every now and then, total for 15~20 min)
3) aggresive cleaning solvent
result, head good as new (believe it, I am), last about 2 months, then repeat this cleaning again, works for me (18 months old colorpainter), also, my room temp 22C~23C, Humid 40~50. You might want to do it on every month basis if you run heavy.
every morning, manual cleaning on cap, wiper, front wall of where wiper sponge seat (ink residue build-up), after that i let printer do it's self cleaning cycle after print.
I'm quite happy and relax now compare the initial few months of owning this printer.
also, ICC profile, 250 ink limit for matt PSA vinyl, 230 for gloss PSA vinyl, individual ink limit on 90% for all colors, works great.
I have used Roland AJ1000 for 5-6 days in a exhibition in Delhi, India. Although it uses same seiko heads the ink waste was negligible. Hence I think there is a problem with with the machine and technology.
