How to Extend the Lifespan of Your DTF Printhead: Daily Maintenance Tips and Best Practices

Question: I ordered a printhead from your website and received it quickly. The installation went smoothly, and it printed perfectly until just yesterday. I’m at a loss because I don’t understand how a brand-new printhead could fail in less than two months. I know the printheads are non-returnable, but I’m looking for help on what to do. These printheads are expensive, and I can’t keep replacing them every couple of months. I perform daily maintenance, yet this still happened. Could I get some assistance, please? Thank you.

Answer: 

Thanks for getting in touch and thank you buying, we really appreciate your support. From all of us at BCH Technologies Thank you much for sticking around, especially subscribing to our YouTube channel .Your feedback helps us to improve our technical knowledge and assistance for the community.

As for your worry, it is important to make sure that daily maintenance increases the life of a printhead because of potential abnormal use. These printers are built for regular printing, not DTF. Therefore, you need to maintain it like crazy. Otherwise it may shorten service life. First, we will touch on how to get the most out of your printhead and stop it from having damage so often.

How Printhead Sensitivity Occurs

Most significantly, printheads are vulnerable to air. A printhead that is perfectly healthy can create clogs as ten to fifteen minutes pass after being exposed to the air. So, the solution for long life lies in performing maintenance and using regularly with minimum air exposure. I have made videos explaining it. If you need, I can forward you a copy.

Daily Maintenance Tips:

How are you maintaining these daily/weekly? If we have an understanding of how you work maybe it may show us where there are areas that can be refined the process. That all said, this is what I do to take care of my printheads in the hopes that it prolongs life.

Maintain Your Capping Station:

99% of printhead clogs starts with a bad capping station. I maintain the capping station everyday and make sure there is zero ink in the capping station, then fill it with distilled water. If you haven't treat your capping station like how you treat the printhead, it's time to start doing so.

Minimize Air Exposure:

CAUTION: Because the printhead gets exposed to air, always ensure it is never kept outside for a long time. Cover the printhead as much as possible during cleaning or shoe-shining, so not to dry up those nozzles. Wet capping everyday. Do not use cleaning solutions to cap. Use distilled water or diluted wetter solution.

Regular Nozzle Checks:

Check if the printing head is working optimally by performing nozzle checks from time to time. It will help you identify clogs earlier and address them before they reach a serious level.

Proper Cleaning Techniques:

Do not use cleaning solutions unless it's absolutely need to. A healthy printhead will need distilled water only. However, when things gone bad, choose the right cleaning solutions and methods Therefore, do not use strong for cleaning the head as this will destroy delicate parts of it. Some recommended solution for cleaning this can help to maintain performance of the print head.

Proper Unclogging Method:

Do not use power cleaning (with adjustment program) unless the printer is rested for at least 12 hours. That's what Epson recommended. Then, there are whole series of unclogging methods, too much to list here. I may make another video explain to people. Epson's built in method some are good, some are too powerful. You will need to use a combination of Epson's method with your hand cleaning to manage during printing.

Roll Your White Ink.

If you don't know what is a rolled ink, check out my YouTube channel.

What is the Life of a Printhead?

Depending on the use and preservation a printhead can work for different durations of time. From my experience:

High Usage: If a printhead is used heavily, it will be good between 4 – 6 months for about an average of covering around approximately up to 5,000 shirts before the tab comes due.

If printheads are used less often, they have a life expectancy of up to one year and require proper maintenance.

The Longevity Rotation Method

Another approach is a rotation method to get the most life out of your printhead. This means swapping ink channels, so that white channels has the opportunity to rest and build up again if there are any minor clogs. This can help in "unclogging" the printhead and perhaps extend its longevity.

The Hands-On Nature Of Printer Problems Makes Them Tricky to Solve Regrettably, we do not give guidance or provide assistance in troubleshooting a printer over the phone. However, we do have in person evaluation and repair service at our local diagnostic facility [https://bchtechnologies.com/printer-repair-service], but it will take several weeks for us to diagnose your printer because of a large demand. We offer mail-in and local drop-off services for full printer repairs as well as individual parts, but what do you need to specifically if opting in? Although we are not the cheapest service out there, I can suggest that self-help is most likely your best measure to combat this issue by researching online. The quickest way to get started is either by visiting YouTube [https://youtube.com/@bchtechnologies] or using the search icon/group, also on our channel homepage side menu "About" section. The same search function is the best way to find useful content. YouTube also offers suggestions of videos from other channels that might be helpful.

Thanks again for the reach-out; and I hope this helps you better keep up on your printhead. If you have any other questions or need more help, let us know.