Any idea what these gelatinous blobs in my PiezoFlush carts are?!
These carts had a 50/50 mix of PiezoFlush and deionised water and were inserted int a 9900, to flush the system before installing PiezoPro inks. I was not able to get the system to properly fill with flush. Nozzle checks showed missing channels and I could see air in the lines. I put it down to the cheap carts I was using for the flush. So I pulled all the flush carts and fitted new carts with Piezo Pro.
But when emptying the flush carts I noticed 2x of them had formed thick gelatinous blobs of PiezoFlush while in the cart? See attached pics. The blobs are really thick, have the feel of jelly or slime.
No wonder the flush wouldn’t fill the system.
And now I am struggling to get the PiezoPro inks to fill. 2x Initial Fills and 4 Power Cleans and at least 4x channels are completely blank on the nozzle check.
That is a new one for us. The last PiezoFlush sales we have to you are single bottles 700ml back in 2022 and in 2019. We do not have any samples of either batch on hand, but we generally produce very large batches and there have been no other reports on either batch or any subsequent batches between or after.
We do not generally have customers reducing PiezoFlush with dionized or distilled water, or at least none that have informed us - as it’s strength is in using as is. Reducing it doesn’t give the same benefits. I can’t say that reducing it with water can do that, but potentially some storage issues over the years may have, or a possible contamination exposure to some material it is not compatible with?
Hello Jon
Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated
Yes the flush has been sitting on the shelf for a long time; the conversion of the 9900 to PiezoPro has kept being delayed for various reasons
I can’t figure out where the blobs could have come from. I think I have been careful (am generally careful) about not contaminating inks/flush etc when handling. And the carts I put the flush into were new (albeit cheap Chinese) ones. Possibly some silicone sealant in the carts reacted? Main concern now is that some of the ‘blobs’ are now in the ink supply system of the 9900.
I have put Piezo Pro inks in the machine and 2x Initial Fills and a couple Power Cleans and still unable to get the inks through to the head on all channels. Please see nozzle checks below.
Any suggestions welcome
Prior to the conversion I replaced the Ink Selector Unit (damper unit) with a new one. Possibly something is wrong with the Ink Selector, my next step I guess is to open the machine up again and see if I can see anything wrong. Maybe re-seat the Ink Selector
It’s probably a chemical reaction with some component of the cheap cartridges you bought. That it’s in your printer’s system is really troublesome in that I’m not very confident you may be able to clear it. Hopefully it’s not in the print head and only requiring a new ink selector unit and a flush of the ink lines. Once the ink selector unit is removed you should push distilled through the ink lines and insure the flow is unrestricted. Better yet use fresh PuezoFlush. Then replace the ink selector unit with a new one. All that is remaining is the print head and you should install PuezoFlush filled carts. But please use ours which are inert. Run an INITIAL FILL and then nozzle check test the head. If still in that condition either exercise patience in repeated sitting and INITIAL FILLS or replace it. Your Piezography inks may be contaminated and you would risk reintroducing whatever that compound is back into the system. I wish I had better news but it’s a worst case scenario in my opinion.