[jeremyc]

Now that most of us have had our machines for a few months maybe even longer, I was wondering if anyone out there has ever been given or figured out how much ink we lose due to our daily ink retrieval/reload, normal cleans, and the weekly tube cleaning?

I've asked probably half a dozen people ranging from people at Brother, to users, to sales reps and every set of numbers we get are drastically different.

 

[loloxa]

My most conservative calculation is 20 cc per ink reload ( measured including the head clean), and another 20 cc , minimum, per weekly clean. So if you do it everyday, almost 1 cartridge per month not including head cleans in between.I might be a little off, but just a little, something I have noticed is that the white ink head cleans, flush a lot more ink than the color head cleans.

 

[jeremyc]

Now when you do the reload how many head cleans do you do to get a good nozzle check and dislodge those air bubbles? Also, although the initial clean you run once per week to reload the ink shouldn't waste much ink since the lines are cleaned out, the pump does run for quite a while after the ink has reached the in-line filters and the head. I would assume that you'd loose more ink during the weekly maintenance than the daily just based on how long that pump is running.

Based on what you've seen do you know how much ink you loose per normal clean for all 4 heads?

I've heard numbers similar to yours, but I've also heard ones much much higher, which is a cause for concern when we're trying to figure out how much usable ink we're getting per cartridge versus loss due to maintenance. Not to mention the fact that we keep getting different numbers.

 

[loloxa]

20 cc is conservative, If I let it run in auto it will eat up to 35cc or 40 cc depending how much ink is left in the lines after retrieval ( I can never get all of the ink in the cart there is always some left in the tubes that will be wasted), What do I do?, I load the ink one tube at a time and stop it when it reaches the head, staring from 4 to 1. Then I also retrieve the ink twice, one in the current/full carts and another one in some empty carts I have, somehow if the carts are emptier ( less pressure) more ink gets inside and less in the tube. when the ink reaches the head I stop it, I do this also for the weakly maintenance. I do the maintenance every 2 days and try to print faded designs at the beginning of each day ( mostly for me, then I can tell if the ink is still keeping it's whiteness or I need to retrieve). It will take almost 3 strong head cleans to get a fairly decent check ( one or 2 nozzles missing) and then I print a batch to get the ink flowing. I would say a strong head clean will use about 1 or 2cc, but I'm just guessing, it is very minimal compared to ink loading, that's why after following wholsaleprint advice on running ink load to get good nozzles I reverted to head cleaning, less ink waste and I get better and consistent results.

would you be willing to post a picture of the inside of your machine mostly interested in the arrangement of the white ink tubes, I think the slope they have might affect how much ink is left on the line when retrieving.

 

[jeremyc]

30-40 is more in the range of what I was hearing for the daily maintenance. As far as good nozzles go I've never had to run anything other than the normal cleans. To run the ink load with ink in the lines to get a good check is just throwing ink down the drain, no offense. From what I've seen in the past 6-7 months, if you keep with the maintenance you shouldn't have any issues a few normal cleans can't clean up. In the morning I've found that around 3-4 normal cleans gets me to a place where the nozzle check is perfect or very near. When you say that you "stop" the load when it reaches the head, do you just hit cancel to quit out and then to back to the load ink screen and start the next cartridge?

 

[zoom_monster]

The simple solution to find this out is to weigh the cartriges. On my machine I kept a log for the first 6 months. Begining of day, end of day, before and after print runs. Keep records of the environmental conditions in your shop in you log as well.

Ian

 

[jeremyc]

Well we do that. Problem is unless you know the weight of 1 cc worth of white ink that really isn't going to help. Unless of course you can figure out the exact weight of the bag/cartridge components with absolutely no ink in it. Then compare that to a full cartridge assuming there's exactly 500cc's of ink in it. Then you can figure out what part of your weight is ink and divide that by 500.

 

[loloxa]

Yes, I press the stop button just when it reaches the head, if you pay close attention to the sound/noises, you'll hear when the ink starts flowing out of the head (small clicks). I started doing this because the machine cleans 4 heads every time one line loads ( nonsense to me). Just buy a measuring glass and place it at the end of the line to measure the cc's(ml's) being poured through it.

 

[zoom_monster]

All you need to know is the weight full and when the machine shows the cart empty. The empty weight is the cart, left- over ink. You can even weigh ink in the waste tank. Water is 1gram per ml. Ink is slightly more because of solids and minus alcohols and esters. You will not get an exact amount until you measure over a large sample or over time, but it will give you a number to work with.

 

[loloxa]

OK for the sake of accuracy I bough myself a measuring glass this morning after the retrieval/reload procedure and 2 head cleans, 35 cc where used. Next procedure I'll try stopping the load as previously stated to see If I'm saving ink at all or just waisting time. According to this, every time we reload the ink we waste 21$ ((300$/500)*35) so its pretty expensive to start this machine up.

 

[jeremyc]

I'm at a loss for words with how much ink is lost just from the daily maintenance. How did you hook up a measuring cup to the lines? I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't thought of doing that earlier.How much do you think is lost in the weekly? Do you know offhand how many cc's of ink are in the lines?

 

[loloxa]

at the end of the draining line. pic included

I would guess that the lines hold anything from 20 to 50 cc ( per line), that would be something hard to measure, although I have some lines lying around from another project that I might try to fill with water just to check.

Today, since I have my measuring glass, I ran in to one thing that threw me off, I still have to double check , will do in couple of minutes, but I think the regular clean it does before printing when it has been idle for a while ( about one hour) wastes about 10cc, If that is so I will contact them, because It means that for every first piece of production I'm wasting almost 3 shirts worth of ink. will double check.

 

[jeremyc]

Oh ok now it makes sense. I envisioned the glass container somehow inside the machine which was throwing me off.

 

[jeremyc]

I'm going to do this for the next few days so I can get some solid numbers regarding maintenance and how much ink is wasted during a job.

 

[Justin Walker]

OK for the sake of accuracy I bough myself a measuring glass this morning after the retrieval/reload procedure and 2 head cleans, 35 cc where used. Next procedure I'll try stopping the load as previously stated to see If I'm saving ink at all or just waisting time. According to this, every time we reload the ink we waste 21$ ((300$/500)*35) so its pretty expensive to start this machine up.

Is that every day, or just on the weekends?

 

[jeremyc]

Unfortunately that's for the recommended morning maintenance. The weekly would use as much or more.

Guess these are the things left out when looking into the machine. To be honest we researched this thing to death and knew alot of the ins and outs as far as how it operated and maintenance and at no point did we think it was using this much ink for things like the daily maintenance. The printer pump doesn't even run THAT long where you would think that it's forcing that much out. Not to mention that either we couldn't get solid numbers from anyone or the numbers we got now end up being way way off.

It wasn't until recently when we started printing a lot more that the amount we were printing vs. how often we had to order inks didn't add up. So for the past few weeks we've been keeping logs and keeping track of what was printed and how many cc's used and that started to head us in the direction of questioning the original numbers and approximations given.

 

[loloxa]

Well this is just ridiculous. the picture posted before was prior to me running a set of prints through the machine, those of you who own brothers know that the machine upon being idle will do a clean before printing, this picture is after i finished printing 30 pieces.

I'm speechless my head is already doing the numbers,nowonder the carts feel so light after a couple of days when you shake them. I'm going to bed.

 

[TPrintDesigner]

I think the regular clean it does before printing when it has been idle for a while ( about one hour) wastes about 10cc, If that is so I will contact them, because It means that for every first piece of production I'm wasting almost 3 shirts worth of ink. will double check.

Very good point. If you leave it on for a period of time then it performs a clean before you can print again.

What we need here is a firmware hack to control the cycles.

 

[PPop]

What is the comparable ink usage on Epson DTG Machines like the Kiosk, HM1 or a Mod-1?

 

[jeremyc]

That I'm not sure. I've never needed to measure the ink usage on our flexi. However that's predominantly due to the fact that their inks are much much less so you probably aren't throwing away 20-30 dollars per day in maintenance. But I could be wrong.