Colorspan 5400 UV Series Problems

[rexm3]

We have owned our Colorspan 5465 for about a month now and are just getting it up and running for production purposes and putting it through its paces. Its falling flat on its face. While the support staff at Colorspan have been very nice, the 5400 series from Colorspan has design issues.

Even though the printer is specified to handle rigid material up to 1" thick, we cannot get ours to print on anything thicker than 1/4". The printer has a problem feeding sheet goods. It will not even feed 1/2" thick FomeCor. We just had a service technician for two days and they have given up.

Another issue the printer has is static electricity. While they designed in ionizers to help dissipate static electricity on the media, they do not work well. The only real solution is to slow the printer print speed or pause the print head between passes. That is hardly a solution in a production environment on a machine that was sold as fast and versatile. Another suggested solution from Colorspan is to reduce the head height. While this helps some, it increases the risk of head strikes on the media - an expensive risk. The static charges on the media result in fuzzy lines, "over-spray" and ghosting.

Yet another issue we have experienced with our printer is UV lamp overheating. The printer has numerous fans on the case to help keep the UV lamps cool. One fan was added after the printers first began shipping. At our most recent service call, the UV lamp assembly was replaced. So far so good, but it has only been two days.

Seems HP has bought themselves a bag of problems (HP just purchased Colorspan).

Has anyone out there experienced similar problems? We are considering sending ours back.

[ScottyDoo]

We have HUGE static issues on our p9840 with no solutions so far...it's the worst on Coroplast and Sintra. We had major lamp issues early on, overheating, not firing, shutting off mid-print, you name it. It's all ironed out now, but there's still a bad taste in my mouth after all of it. Always had issues with Colorspan.

Here's one previos post I made...
http://printingdigital.net/forums/ge...continues.html

[rexm3]

Yes, our static issues are greatest with Sintra, Coroplast and backlit film. We have even noticed a pattern. The ink/static charge gets attracted to the feed rollers. The overspray/ghosting is frequently right in line with the rollers on top of the media. I guess that is the only way the electric charge has to reach earth ground - even though they are rubber and plastic and not good conductors.

We have thought about adding a few stainless steel wires to the "horse hair" brushes on both the input and output sides of the printer that are connected to ground. But we are hesitant to do so because of the risk of a wire falling off and damaging the printer in some way. Just the use of these brushes increases the amount of static electricity (I assume they are designed to block UV light and allow media to pass through). Ever rub a balloon on your hair?

[RyanLockDesigns]

There is a product called StaticStop...which is a liquid cleaning agent. Simply wipe the material down and static is no longer an issue. That doesn't solve all of the massive list of problems with the machine, but it takes care of the static issue.