Maintenance is important for the long life of any machine and your Sawgrass Printer is no different.
This guide will walk you through several important maintenance and troubleshooting steps to help along the way
Some quick important notes
- Not performing maintenance regularly can lead to damaged and/or worn parts, eventually creating more sever issues such as Jams or Service Code errors.
- The printer does some of its own maintenance. It performs a brief cleaning cycle every 10 hours. During this cycle, the print head nozzles are cleaned to help reduce the chance of print head failure or clogged nozzles.
- Because of this, it's very important to leave your printer plugged in and switched on at all times.
Nozzle Check
The Nozzle Check will show you if you have any nozzles that are clogged or damaged. It is recommended to print a nozzle check periodically or at the start of a large print job. Blocked nozzles appear as missing dashes/lines on the nozzle check print out. Please refer to the troubleshooting tips below if you print a nozzle check and you have missing nozzles.
If you perform a Nozzle Check and see that there are missing nozzles, we recommend the following steps to recover them:
- No more than 3 head cleans, each followed by a nozzle check
- No more than 5 head flushes, each followed by a nozzle check
- If the nozzle check is still not satisfactory with limited improvement, then the next step is cleaning the capping station with some hot distilled water. (Do not use anything besides warm/hot distilled water. This can cause damage to the capping station sponge and print head.). We would recommend cleaning the sponge in the capping station until the water drains quickly from the capping cup. As a result, you may need to clean the capping station multiple times. Once the capping station filter is clean, perform a head flush followed by a nozzle check
Tip: To reduce unnecessary ink consumption, it is recommended to perform the head clean or head flush on the relevant head, this will either be Head 1 (Cyan/Black) or Head 2 (Magenta/Yellow).
Head Cleans and Head Flushes
A Head Cleaning will usually clear any blocked or clogged nozzles. This process does consume ink but is sometimes necessary to clear the clogged nozzle(s).
- Perform a head cleaning up to 3 times to clear missing nozzles.
- Print and check for any changes in the nozzle check test pattern between each head.
- Do not turn the printer off during print head cleaning. If the printer is turned off during a print head cleaning, start again by printing a nozzle check test
A Head Flush is only suggested to be used if the Nozzle Check is not satisfactory after 3 Head Cleanings. This process uses a higher amount of ink.
Follow the steps to perform a Head Flush on the menu of the printer.
Below are some things to keep in mind:
- Perform a head flush only if print head nozzles cannot be cleared by up to 3 head cleanings.
- Head Flushing consumes more ink than Head Cleaning
- If nozzles are still missing after 3 Head Cleanings and 5 Head Flushes, contact Sawgrass Care team for further assistance.
Important: Do not power off the printer during the Head Flush or Head Cleaning process. If the printer loses power, power it on and repeat the cleaning process beginning with the Nozzle Check.
Capping Station Clean
The capping station is located under the print head and its function is to prevent the ink on the print head from drying out. A dirty capping station may cause one of the following:
- Missing nozzles
- Banding/lines in the print out
- Service code errors
Horizontal banding that is present in one or more colours and presents as thick dark or light bands can indicate that you have a dirty capping station. To clean the capping station, we recommend that you pour a small amount of hot distilled water into the suction cup and let it soak for 5-10 minutes. Once the sponge inside the suction cup is clean, the water will drain to the waste tank.
Regular Printing
Despite the printers being equipped with the auto-clean function, we still recommend regular printing in order to keep it at its best. We recommend printing at least 1-2 prints a week if you do not use the printer on a daily basis. This will also prevent the printer from performing any further extended cleans that may use up more ink.
Printer Adjustments
The printer adjustments are separated into three parts:
These adjustments control the positioning and feeding of the paper and print head. If the adjustments are incorrect this can result in one or more of the following:
- Skewed Prints
- Ghosting
- Streaks or Patches on Images
- Banding (either vertical or horizontal lines)
Inspect and Clean the Feed Rollers
We recommend you regularly check the state of the rubber paper paper feed rollers, both at the rear of the printer and inside the printer. Reason being is that certain sublimation papers produce more paper dust than others and can as a result leave the feed rollers with a white coating. This can prevent the rollers from feeding the paper through the printer correctly.
Clean the Registration Sensor
We recommend you also regularly check the state of the registration sensor in the printer and clean if necessary. Reason being is that certain sublimation papers produce more paper dust than others and can as a result coat the sensor in paper dust. This dust can then prevents the sensor from detecting the page being fed into the printer and can contribute to a Paper Misfeed Error.
Clean the Paper Feed Belt
We recommend you occasionally clean the paper feed belt as, through printing, it can pickup paper dust and ink stains. If left uncleaned, these stains will accumulate on the feed belt and on the charge roller hidden to the rear of the printer and will result in a Service Code error (SC 57000, SC 57001).
Auto-Off Function Disabled (EU Models Only)
As per our recommendations, the printer will need to be left switched on at all times in order for the printer to performs its automatic maintenance. The printer has an auto-off function which allows the printer to power itself off when not connected to a network. We recommend setting this Auto-Off function to Off as per the instructions below. This only applies to the EU model.
Menu> System Settings> Admin. Tools> Main power off network disc.> Off
If you are still experiencing issues or have further questions, please contact our Sawgrass Care Team for assistance by click the 'Support' button on the bottom right of the page, or click here.