Video: White ink maintenance & Troubleshooting

Virtually all white inks used in digital apparel printers today use Titanium Dioxide for pigment. This pigment is a relatively heavy material. For direct to garment printers using Titanium Dioxide based White Inks, the following three conditions have to be met to ensure proper ink flow continues in the inkjet printer system: The inks must be agitated daily.

This involves gentle shaking of the cartridges. The inks must flow through the ink delivery system frequently. This involves daily printing with white ink or daily Nozzle Checks followed by Print Head Cleans when Nozzle Checks are below 90%. The inks must not touch open air, otherwise the Titanium Dioxide based ink will accumulateand clog the ink delivery system and Print Head.

AnaJet printers use sealed ink cartridges to protect inks. Open ink bottles or refillable bulk ink cartridges will expose the ink to open air causing agglomeration. The RICOH Ri 3000 and Ri 6000 use a Closed-Loop Ink Delivery system with sealed ink cartridges which prevents inks exposure to air when properly maintained. However, the system operator still must shake the ink cartridges daily, and make the inks move through the ink tubes daily. The RICOH Ri 3000 and RICOH 6000 Auto circulation function reduces the manual maintenance tasks, but the operator needs to perform frequent nozzle checks and also provide the necessary additional manual maintenance.