We finally got our Viper running after some pretty major issues, but we're happy with it so far. However, it seems that every few days our white ink filter clogs.
I read that perhaps sealing the edges with silicone would help, but we tried that to no avail. Roughly every 3 days, the filter clogs.
Our tech suggests we blow it out with a syringe; however, we waste a LOT of ink when we do it. Bottom line is that the filter they provide simply does not work in our environment. Replacing them every few weeks (after flushing them every few days) is ludicrous.
Does anyone have the same experience? Are there other filters that work? Our shirt fulfillment customers are anxious!
Thanks,
Dmfelder
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Eco-Friendly printing at GreatApparelForYou.com for organic tshirts and Direct to Garment Printing in Chicago, Illinois including shirt web fulfillment, and Funny Tees at gafy.com!
This may sound silly, but I have very dry skin that often cracks and bleeds this time of year...yet there is no issue in the shop. I don't have a humidifier, but the air here seems to be fine.
We also don't have any issues with prints. The head lays down seemingly perfect layers of ink.
Any other thoughts or solutions? Does your filter look like a 2 inch white saucer with an outer plastic seal?
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Hey, pretty new to this. I also have the Viper and have the same filter issues. I recently was sent some filters that were sealed around the inner rings as you stated. They used hot glue on these. My filters were clogging up every 1.5 weeks and they stated it was do to a dry climate and that the filters had a small amount of air allowed inside and this was drying em out. I just replaced it on the 14th so time will tell with mine. Not sure what other problems you have had but mine has been takin me for quite a ride. How does your green and pink print out for ya on the standard settings?
Thanks for the info. We heard the same about sealing them, and we actually applied silicone ourselves, but still seem to have the issue. Please let me know how it goes.
As for the machine, we definitely went on a ride like you, but we eventually got this working well thanks to the help of this board and the support from Pantograms. Great Apparel For You and its direct to garment printing process in general almost disappeared. We do internet shirt fulfillment, and our shirt printing clients were getting VERY anxious! Anyway...phew, it's working now.
As for colors, we've actually been quite happy with the consistency as well as the vibrant colors on darks. Although...we were coming from a T-Jet, so just about anything is a step up.
One thing to consider, most of our shirt fulfillment services customers submit RGB art, and we print in CMYK. We have done a lot of work and printed many color swatches to understand the variances, but over time we have been able to create a kind of cross-reference.
Again, please let me know how the filter thing goes, and good luck!
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Sealing the edge of the filter where the edge ring joins the two shell halves together will reduce the amount of air suctioned into the WIMS pipework at the filter section as the filter functions. This would however, not cause any variation in the filter performance in terms of clogging.
Thank you for the recommendation. We have sealed our filters with silicone around all of the edges but we still have the problem.
Is there REALLY only ONE filter that can be used? I mean...what are the material specs? There must be something else we can try...
Is anyone else having these issues? (Obviously some people are or you wouldn't have suggested sealing the filter.) Doesn't it seem that replacing the filter frequently at $9 each is excessive? Also, we were advised to blow out the filter every day or two. Um...that's a lot of ink! Do we really need to capture the ink and recycle it? That sounds like a good solution. LOL
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Eco-Friendly printing at GreatApparelForYou.com for organic tshirts and Direct to Garment Printing in Chicago, Illinois including shirt web fulfillment, and Funny Tees at gafy.com!
The filter that is being used is the one that has been recommended by the ink manufacturer. The clogging issue is being examined by laboratory teams from both the ink manufacturer and the filter manufacturer.
Before trying to blame the filter you have to know EXACTLY what your humidity levels are where the Viper is located. In order to do this you will need a hygrometer. You can pick them up at any hardware store for around $20. We thought that our levels were good enough because it FELT fine, but guess what when we checked it accurately, it was down around 30%. You won't print good whites with the humidity down that low. Get the levels up between 45-50% and you will be amazed on how many of your problems go away.
I might be reading the other posts wrong, but I don't think they are talking about a problem with the ink clogging on the print head. They are talking about the inline ink filters. With the print head having the potential to being exposed to air, keeping the humidity around 50% is very important or the ink that is exposed to the air on the metal piezo plate will begin to dry up and clog the nozzles. But with an inline ink filter that has the ink moving periodically through it to prevent the ink from clogging in the ink lines, that would be a different story. Humidity probably does not play as big as a role (or little if any) with the filter clogging up because of the constant moving of ink.
I am starting to get more knowledge on the inline ink filters because they are used on another dtg machine that I have been working on. From my basic understanding, there are many types of filters and each one has a screen (usually metal) in it that needs to be a specific size based on the particles that are flowing through it. The filters tend to look like flying saucers to allow the fluid when it hits the filter to spread out and have more holes to flow through so the overall flow of fluid is not slowed down. If the holes in the screen are too large, then the filter will allow the larger particles to flow through it and go to the print head. If the holes are too small, then the particles of the fluid will clog up at the screen and prevent the fluid from passing through it.
I talked to a company that makes the filters and custom filters are very expensive and requires you to purchase approximately 5,000 of them. However, there are some companies that sell these filters to medical device companies that have stock ones. But you will need to know the correct micron size of the filter.
You are correct with the head being exposed to air which makes the humidity levels critical, but with the Vipers continuous circulating of the white ink if the humidity levels get too low the white ink will start to "gel" or "clump". One other thing to consider, if you do not shake your spare ink bottles daily you will introduce the thick stettlings into the system when adding additional ink. White ink needs to handled very carefully if you want to print with ease.
I agree with everything said above. (I started this thread, btw.) While I'm not a white-ink-printing guru, my business partner and I have been in the business for four years. He and I are both mechanical engineers by education, so we're looking at the problem much more like DAGuide has described. The positive-pressure ink circulation system by design should be a "closed system." In reality, it is not because there is a way for air to get into the reservoir as ink in used up (similar to a vent); however, we have now measured our humidity level in the upper 40s and still have this problem. Meanwhile, the head is printing very well and we get great nozzle checks. This seems to point to an issue with the filter (at least partially).
Rob K makes a good point about agitating the ink, but we do that multiple times per day with the extra bottles, and the "pumping station" (the system that circulates the ink) also has a built-in mixer. We are also constantly printing (on darks), so the head has yet to sit still for more than 24 hours since we took delivery of the machine 2 months ago.
We have heard from Pantograms (who, btw, have been exceptional to work with), that someone (who?) is working on a new filter but only prototypes are available. We, of course, asked for a prototype to no avail. In the meantime, when we're running a big job, we often check the flow. If we see bubbles in the line, we often bypass the filter for a short period of time to make sure we don't ruin the shirt due to ink starvation. It's a risk vs. reward thing.
So, whether or not humidity is playing a role I cannot say; however, the bottom line is that we are doing everything recommended and we're still having this very bad problem.
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Eco-Friendly printing at GreatApparelForYou.com for organic tshirts and Direct to Garment Printing in Chicago, Illinois including shirt web fulfillment, and Funny Tees at gafy.com!
This is just a suggestion but I know that they have a "new" white ink manifold for the Vipers. This may or may not solve or help your problem. SWF East can get you the new manifold. We just put them on ours and I am seeing a difference in how it prints.
Rob K, thanks. We actually got the new manifold three weeks ago and it hasn't really impacted anything. Thanks for pointing it out, though, for the others on the board.
Cheers
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Eco-Friendly printing at GreatApparelForYou.com for organic tshirts and Direct to Garment Printing in Chicago, Illinois including shirt web fulfillment, and Funny Tees at gafy.com!
I might be reading the other posts wrong, but I don't think they are talking about a problem with the ink clogging on the print head. They are talking about the inline ink filters. With the print head having the potential to being exposed to air, keeping the humidity around 50% is very important or the ink that is exposed to the air on the metal piezo plate will begin to dry up and clog the nozzles. But with an inline ink filter that has the ink moving periodically through it to prevent the ink from clogging in the ink lines, that would be a different story. Humidity probably does not play as big as a role (or little if any) with the filter clogging up because of the constant moving of ink.
I am starting to get more knowledge on the inline ink filters because they are used on another dtg machine that I have been working on. From my basic understanding, there are many types of filters and each one has a screen (usually metal) in it that needs to be a specific size based on the particles that are flowing through it. The filters tend to look like flying saucers to allow the fluid when it hits the filter to spread out and have more holes to flow through so the overall flow of fluid is not slowed down. If the holes in the screen are too large, then the filter will allow the larger particles to flow through it and go to the print head. If the holes are too small, then the particles of the fluid will clog up at the screen and prevent the fluid from passing through it.
I talked to a company that makes the filters and custom filters are very expensive and requires you to purchase approximately 5,000 of them. However, there are some companies that sell these filters to medical device companies that have stock ones. But you will need to know the correct micron size of the filter.
Hope this helps.
Mark
Mark, as usual, brings up some very good points. Any equipment manufacturer who includes a filter in their equipment has to research through hundreds of different filter styles, filter materials, and micron sizes. They then have to run extensive tests on individual filters to make sure they are the right fit and have the right performance features for their intended use. For example, when we were selecting a filter for our SpeedTreater Automatic Pretreater we had to go through over 80 different filters before finding the one that worked best. If there is a problem with the current filter on the Viper printer then you might want to wait for the manufacturer to test and approve an alternative. If you try just buying any filter on your own from a filter catalog you have no way of knowing if that filter would work better or work worse.
Viper Filter Constantly Clogs 
