UV printing is a fast-growing segment of the printing and customization industry. This printing process serves many sectors, from industrial manufacturing to small businesses. With any piece of equipment comes necessary care and maintenance. Good maintenance can greatly extend the service life of a UV printer and its parts, reduce the failure rate, and keep excellent working performance. But before we move on to how you should take care of your UV printer there are some questions you need to ask yourself:
- With a wide range of applications, what are the best practices for maintaining these expensive machines?
- Who should be responsible for the daily care?
- Can the substrate you are printing on effect how often maintenance is required?
- Can the types of inks in the machine affect how often maintenance is needed?
- What products should I use when performing maintenance?
- What are the dangers of UV printing that can damage your printer?
Identifying who does what
You should be very clear about this point, it is very important that you should delegate the work properly so there should be no confusion when it comes to the maintenance of the machine. The daily care of UV printers should fall primarily in the hands of the trained daily operator. In-house service technicians should be the second line of defense. The regular operator has the most intimate understanding of the machine. They run it day in and day out. Your operator should be trained well, along with whoever is in the supervisor role.
Understanding your printer
There are some basic hygiene to follow around the UV printing process. Poor practices can result in damage to your machine. The frequency of maintenance on your machine usually depends on what you are printing on. Products that are not flat may produce more ink mist requiring more frequent maintenance by your operator. Follow the machine manufacturer guidelines and it is always advisable to only use the prescribed chemicals in the maintenance procedure. Also, make sure you are using polyester cleanroom-certified towels and swabs. Lint and dust is your main enemy.
Now that you have a clear understanding about your printer, it’s time for you to understand the routine maintenance of a UV printer:
- Maintaining a clean environment: A proper clean environment is needed for the smooth operation of UV printers. Too much dust may adhere to the surface of printheads and block the nozzles.
- Cleaning the machine regularly: This cleaning includes print platform, printer housing and base plate of the printhead daily.
- Cleaning the UV lamp: It is required to clean air filter every week (for air cooling UV ink curing system), so as to avoid affecting the normal work of UV curing lamp.
- Unplugging the power supply: Power should only be shut down after the UV printer is turned off.
- Lubricating: Regularly adding lubricant to the mechanical part will help in the smooth daily operations.
- Routine maintenance of print head: When the machine is not used for more than 5 days, the printhead should be clean. All ink in the printheads should be discharged. Besides, the printheads should be cleaned with cleaning liquid and moisturized.
Avoid splashing ink or cleaning liquid onto printheads or other electrical components of UV printer during any operation. This might cause a short circuit. If it does accidentally, the printer power should be cut off and the ink or cleaning liquid should be cleaned as soon as possible.
The bottom line
UV printers are built to perform and will give you consistent results if you take the time to perform these steps. With a bit of routine maintenance you will definitely increase the overall performance and the overall life of the machine.
Pixeljet®: A brand of trust
With more than 15+ years of experience of handling various inkjet print head technologies, installation base of more than 250+ UV printers and a team of 35+ qualified service engineers, we are dedicated to accelerate the wide format printing segment and offer the products that help our customers scale-up their business.
