Anyone every crack open a print head?

2891 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Lucky Sky, Jul 2, 2018

Lucky Sky

Discussion Starter · Jun 22, 2018

Ok, so here's a quick back story. Bought a Brother GT-381 at an auction, the company was seized by the bank and the doors were locked, equipment sat idle for months. Picked up the machine for a fair price. Now trying to get it cleaned up and running. It was not well maintained when it was running. Needles were clogged and one ink line took some real effort to clean. Drain side has some issues that I haven't dove into yet. I've got 2 of the 4 white heads close to clean the other 2 are allowing solution around the stainless steel insert where the ink ports are located. I know this isn't right. What am I going to find if I disassemble the head itself...has anyone ever gone there?

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TABOB

· #2 · Jun 23, 2018

If you manage to unclog these heads, please let us know how.
That'll be a miracle

For Epson print-heads, I know you can remove the Manifold, but that's as far as you can go.

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jamco

· #3 · Jun 23, 2018

Lucky Sky said:
Ok, so here's a quick back story. Bought a Brother GT-381 at an auction, the company was seized by the bank and the doors were locked, equipment sat idle for months. Picked up the machine for a fair price. Now trying to get it cleaned up and running. It was not well maintained when it was running. Needles were clogged and one ink line took some real effort to clean. Drain side has some issues that I haven't dove into yet. I've got 2 of the 4 white heads close to clean the other 2 are allowing solution around the stainless steel insert where the ink ports are located. I know this isn't right. What am I going to find if I disassemble the head itself...has anyone ever gone there?

Once that SS plate allows liquid to seep out around you are done, sorry! The adhesive used to hold that in place is easily softened with too much soak time especially with stronger solutions.
I have disassembled heads that had bad dampers and installed another damper, but that is a real tedious chore. Only $1300 for each head, I have about $20,000 work of defective heads laying in a box from past 3-4 years of printing. Kinda affects your bottom line!

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florib

· #4 · Jul 2, 2018

I have recently found this website that refurbish or recondition the print heads, have not used before though. feel free to check it out.

https://www.garmentprinterink.com/shop/brother-print-head-cleaning-service.html

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Lucky Sky

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jul 2, 2018

Thanks for your reply's and comments. Looks like I'm replacing all 8 heads. Fun...

I just need a big bag of money.

This machine only has a little over 7000 prints so I feel confident that I will have a great workhorse of a machine once we get the new heads. I've also learned quite a lot about the machine after taking it almost completely apart and reassembling. I'll have no issues now with almost any parts change out when it gets to that point.

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