How to Prevent White Ink Damper Bursts and Maintain Your DTF Printer

Question:

A dedicated follower of our YouTube channel, asked for advice on recurring issues with his DTF printer. After replacing the printhead, head cable, ink lines, and dampers, the printer ran successfully for about 100 jobs. Despite regular maintenance, one of the white ink dampers burst twice, spilling ink into the printhead area and potentially causing a burned board. White ink circulation was as it should be, with no blockages. What could be causing this issue?

Answer:

Well, thanks for contacting us and being such a long-time viewer of our YouTube channel. We appreciate your support of BCH Technologies! Questions like these help us to improve our technical knowledge and share a better solution in our community.

Capping Station:

White ink burst from the white ink damper is quite common among DTF (mainly where white ink is used as it requires more significant maintenance) systems that match your description. The primary problem here is that not enough attention has been paid to the daily quality of printhead maintenance, especially the capping station.

The capping station clogs pretty easily (1-2 days of idleness is enough), and when it gets clogged, your printhead will get dirty. Meanwhile, the white ink management system keeps pushing ink into the damper, so if the printhead is partially clogged, eventually, lots of extra pressure will accumulate in the damper and burst.

Cleaning the capping station is essential to avoid such issues, so regular care should be given to any part of the printer. To ensure this doesn't happen again, here's what you can do:

Daily Maintenance: If your printer is unused for a day, the capping station will dry out, and the printhead will likely become clogged. You can watch my video here [https://youtu.be/44WEw6UKp2A] on how I perform daily maintenance to keep the printhead unclogged and healthy for the capping station.

CIRCULATION OF INK: White ink is denser, so it needs to be circulated constantly so that it doesn't clot. You said circulation is fine, but that would have been a clog at the print head, probably not in the tubes. 

Damper Burst : The white ink damper keeps failing to work because of the high pressure caused by a clogged printhead. Because the damper is not able to take such pressure continuously eventually it breaks, which will result in some ink being discharged into the printhead region.: The white ink damper keeps failing to work because of the high pressure caused by a clogged Printhead. The damper is not able to take such pressure continuously, and eventually, it breaks, which will result in some ink being discharged into the printhead region, causing that problem with your board.

During idle states of the printer,

1–2 days: Regular maintenance steps as described in the video.

It is still usually fine at this point, but you should take extra care.

4+ days: Causes effects start higher. We will publish a comprehensive video on managing medium (>15 minutes) downtimes shortly.

However, those problems should be preventable. If your printhead is in good condition, then the damper can be saved.

Printing concerns are one of the tricky things to solve because many problems have to do with working issues, such as blockages and mineral deposits. Unfortunately, we don't offer remote technical service, advice, or repair... Even so, we have an area diagnostic facility to conduct an on-site analysis or carry out any essential fixes. You can find out more about our services [https://bchtechnologies.com/printer-repair-service] or ship it to us for service, we will fix your printer whenever possible, however we are booked 10 days ahead and we take mail in orders: Each print defect need a diagnosis process.

We also understand that sometimes our rates may not be the cheapest. We welcome you to keep using resources such as our YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@bchtechnologies] to troubleshoot these issues if you are looking to fix them yourself. Just search for the search icon next to About on the channel menu bar, and you will find videos that will help with some of the more common issues. There might also be some other creators that YouTube suggests for their videos related to what you are doing.

Thanks for the question again, Paul. I appreciate your continued support of our work. Thanks for your input, and we hope this answer helps you keep enjoying a better-operating printer!