johnson4

They size the bulbs from tip to tip of the ceramic end caps where the power wire goes in. They all seem to have that gap from the end cap to where the winding starts, at least the ones I’ve seen. Maybe to prevent the heat from running back into the actual wiring I’m not sure. With the bulb 15” In length, you’ll get about 13”-13.5” of curable width. if you redesigned the lid and made the bulbs about 6” away from the film, you would get a more consistent cure without risk of overheating and could use the bit smaller bulbs. The further away the bulb is the more they overlap and create a more consistent heat zone. You would need to move the coupler down to about 1.5” away from the film on the side to keep the temperature in check. It’s what I’m doing on my shaker build anyway.

The original bulbs are 300W(220v) on mine that looks like that, that’s actually one of my favorite shakers to this day. finding bulbs has been the biggest pain I have run across, without having them made specifically which is expensive. I did find some, but I’ll have to go back and look. I was told they were 120V bulbs 300W, but when I hooked them up on 220V they were at 300W and worked normally.

Those holes are fine, they don’t need taped. That looks like the original shaker DTFSS sold, back when they first started. The ones that needed taped were poorly designed. See, most of these are 30cm shakers sold as 33cm shakers. It’s rare to find an actual 33cm shaker. Especially back then, I guess it was assumed if the film fit it would work. for this one, I alternated the bulbs being pushed over all to one side. eventually replacing it with 15” bulbs( where the actual cure portion is about 13.5”) to solve the issue with 13” film. Otherwise, you can only print 11.75” or so wide and it cure fine as long as it’s centered properly. Personally I’d source some 15” 300w bulbs to replace them with, otherwise it will be endless tinkering. See the coiled wire in the bulb? Measure that from end to end- not the entire bulb just the wire- that’s about the largest cured width you’ll get.

I would recommend lowering the voltage to slow the motor down. How’s it do on boot up

I’m fine with sharing it, I just have to find it. I have tons of files intertwined so the various version- which I wasn’t good at properly naming, haha.

Do you have it set in the RIP to print the white under everything?

I have no idea. I always did everything from the printer menu in that aspect. The only thing I aligned with cadlink was the white/CMYK alignment head pass alignment, the rest I left alone and it worked fine.

Swap the ink order in the RIP. I’d think for that printer the original black tank would be white.

No worries at all. No it was an issue with cadlink, they were in the middle of selling out to another company when I purchased mine. Other issues usually are resolved in 24 hours or less. They always follow up with a phone call to verify all is well No negatives from me though, just what happened. They were super helpful about it. It was just the add-on code for the PMC add-on that took that long for some reason. As for the other thing, I'm sure there is something in place and I'm probably doing it wrong or something. I know other users have experienced it as well, figured I'd mention it though. Cadlink will crash and pop up error codes when your drive with cadlink on it fills up. That's when I go and empty them. haha.

It works alright, I couldn’t get the NIX to recognize with Cadlink but I had the other one laying around and it worked. Cadlink did get back to me after a couple days how to get it going but I just use the nix now to replicate printed colors. it took Cadlink about 10 days to send me the “upgrade” code to “unlock” those features. It was quite lengthy. i have four copies of Cadlink running in my “ eco system” of machines. I opted for 4 individual copies of the software instead of purchasing additional ports. The price difference between another copy VS another port was very little, plus I have redundancy and the ability to resell individual copies. I setup “ workstations” with each machine so it was the best route for me. it’s a good program, I dislike that I have to constantly go in the software folder and manually delete files- which come from the print files you print. If not, after a few days you’ll have 100+GB locking up your pc. Even if you delete the print jobs from within the software. Other than that the software crashes on me randomly, usually once a week and I lose where I am at with my print jobs. i guess normal reboots would prevent this. Not a huge deal but worth mentioning. other than that it Makes things consistent and easy. Well worth the cost. I just wish they had an “ all in” feature rich version for “ advanced” users that didn’t require multiple “ add on” purchases. i personally still like and use other RIP software. Acro being my least favorite. With Chinese machines you have limited options, Cadlink being the best one in my opinion. i tried to try flexi, but couldn’t get anyone to get back to me.

It’s a $300 add-on for the DTF Cadlink version to be able to setup your own color profile, among other things plus the cost of the color sensor.

You can have ink flow issues with a perfect nozzle check. I wouldn't consider it clogging, I call it " soft clogging". Ink flow issues can happen for a ton of reasons, the best way to check this is to print a large 6" X 6" or 12" X 12" solid color of each color, CMYK, to see if you have an ink flow problem. If it drops out or shows any irregularities, then there is something up. If it checks out, It's likely your resolution in cadlink. Are you using 1440X1440, or something less than that? 1440X720 is like the minimum, which you'll see that ever so slightly in some prints even at that resolution. That is about the best you can do to keep it in standby.

Yea, Cadlink is a lot better from how far I went with maintop. Just all around.

You need the color sensor and the Cadlink add on to make the profile. I use the i color studio and the NIX mini.

1. Clogging or too low resolution. Even one nozzle can cause this. Poor ink flow can do this. 2. Ink is too wet. When ink is wet, powder goes through the ink to the surface. It needs to gel before powdering, so it sits at the back. 3. Teflon always makes a glossy finish, and you probably have a hot peel or glossy film. Change film, stop using Teflon.

That is a film problem or a cure problem. If you can see those " dots" on all the colors with a light at an angle, its a cure problem. You will inherently see it the most obvious on black.

As far as my testing went it would be a fantastic replacement. On top of that I was going to laser cut a specific thickness rubber ( you know that rubber/sponge type material) and replace the " hollow" rubber seal on the printhead that seals these. Those two things being changed, there would be no chance of leaking at all, a white ink circulation system could easily be implemented and the printer could run nonstop. I was going to place a small sponge material in that cavity on the bottom of the damper so the machine would soak it up as normal since it wouldn't need to be removed often, if at all. Beyond those things, I was going to use a timer on one of the Waste tank pins on a relay. It would "open" every 15 minutes and close to reset the ink levels, in total about 1 second. Even while printing this wouldn't cause any issues at all, it wouldn't even stop printing. worry free self resetting ink while printing. I already had it setup to roll print and tested that for about a half roll/ 3/4 roll of film. So with those things the final outcome: An actual ink system/damper system in place without the risk of settling, leaking, or any of that crap. White ink recirculation No more mid print stops or worrysome ink resets. You could essentially roll print an entire 320 foot roll in about 27 hours of printing on the machine without stopping, other than for head cleans as needed. Personally I would add a fan as a precaution to the mainboard. That was where it was going anyway pretty successfully. Then I got busy and had to stop " tinkering" and find something that worked quickly and right away. Ever since it hasn't stopped and haven't had a time to revisit. It could be replicated pretty easily with a caliper and a resin printer.

V2 has a fully adjustable ink order among other small but helpful things.

It is an option in Cadlink.

That was mainly my issues with hot peel as well. I assumed it was just me, who knows though. I've been printing for 2 years now so back then I always thought the issue was me, haha. That and the transfers fall off the film easier than I would like when handling them but again, likely just me. People seem to love hot peel. Usually cold peel has more " pretreatment" so it handles more ink, could be the difference. Honestly I'd personally go back to the film I was using if possible and see if the issue persists, if not, I'd stick with that under any circumstance. I know K usually puts down more than any other color else if it's solid " K" and not composite. I don't think I have ever had white cause an issue, other than just overall too much or too little on the varying film types. Whenever you do figure it out, I'd love to hear what it was. When that happened to me, the " cracks' before running through anything out of the printer looked like "clear jelly" around the cracks. Likely where it tried to " suck up" the carrier and was overwhelmed. Again, just speculation and could entirely be unrelated. Just figured I'd chime in my experiences with that.

No worries at all. Makes sense. Have you tried printing a composite black instead of just K? It looks like the grays are doing fine which is usually from a composite. It sounds like something just isn't working right together. I know when I switch films I have a hell of a time trying to get everything adjusted to " perfection" again. Hot peel is what usually gives me the problems for some reason. I tend to gravitate toward the " hybrid" film that is hot or cold peel to stay close to what my settings are. Otherwise I end up flooding the film and running into various issues. On the flip side, Cold peel requires more ink so I stay away from that as well. As for the resolution, makes total sense. I know running dx7 heads I would run into good nozzle checks but poor ink flow in prints, mainly with cyan, sometimes with magenta. Figured I'd mention it. Happy printing!

Looks like slight banding in the prints aside from the cracked look, maybe a few clogged cyan nozzles being most prominent in the green. I have had this happen before, But it was my ink/film combination. Ever since using DTFSuperstore I haven't had this issue so it's been awhile. Likely overloading the film with ink in those spots. It's also why I buy everything in bulk, so I can get the settings for that " batch" in place and forget about it for awhile. Are you using the same film supplier and type as before?

Cool, Thanks. Looks like you are using an Adruino to try and control the paper feed so roll printing as well as other features for conversions can be used in " sheet mode" and other things following that aspect. Basically manipulating the machine to be able to roll print, cut, advance, load, so on and so forth even if not natively supported correct?

Any Cadlink experience with them?

Could be the image, cadlink picks up pretty much any transparency, including anti-aliasing on fake "high quality" images and poor background removals. Try " transparency 50-50" and see if it changes anything at all. For me and this specific printer, It was a little bit of a couple things. When I would align the heads on the printer then go to cadlink for a print, it was insanely off. So I thought, I'll align it from cadlink then by eyeballing the prints. Well, that worked to a degree. After I used a decent image and made sure cadlink didn't pick up any transparent-ish pixels in it ( you can check by going to the CMYK preview or print preview, whatever it's called). then it worked perfectly. Ever since, I have to just make sure the image doesn't have any hidden transparent pixels. EKprint, Acro, Literally everything I have ever used and all of my designing programs- they do not show anything so that is new to me. In cadlink, sometimes, It DOES find transparent data that it deems as part of the image and needs corrected before printing that no one else can find, even professionals, even people I have sent images to that work at cadlink. I don't know, But I pay real close attention to it now. I feel like the majority of what I do likely isn't the " right" way, so keep that in mind with the aforementioned. It's just what worked for me. That was my issue anyway.