DIGIPRINT Extreme Pressure Grease
Prolong the life of your pumps
Maintain your printer to reduce down times
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DIGIPRINT Extreme Pressure Grease
This product is a multi-purpose thermally stable and thermally durable grease that is recommended for use where extreme pressure characteristics are needed.
It is blended from 100% pure paraffin base oils available.
Blended into these 100% pure paraffin base oils is a highly specialized non-corrosive thermally stable and thermally durable multi-functional extreme pressure additive package that provides it with the following performance advantages:
- Enhanced thermal and oxidative stability and durability to handle high operating temperatures.
- Excellent extreme pressure properties
- Prevention of the formation of sludge and carbon deposits
- Enhanced protection of copper, brass and bronze components from corrosion
- Non-corrosivity to brass, bronze and other non-ferrous metal parts
- Excellent protection of components from rust and corrosion in dry conditions and in the presence of moisture
- Excellent resistance to water and moisture
- Enhanced gear, bearing and seal cleanliness
Printer manufacturers now operate the equipment at higher speeds, loads, power densities and increased torque. This results in moving items such as pumps, gears, carriage rails etc being subjected to higher operating temperatures. These higher operating temperatures have resulted in many lubricants being subjected to extreme thermal stress.
Therefore, it is important that a lubricant possess thermal stability and durability characteristics. Lubricants that do not possess these properties rapidly oxidize and decompose when subjected to high temperatures, resulting in the formation of sludge, varnish, and carbon deposits. Premature hardening and brittleness, and a loss of the lubricant’s extreme pressure additive chemistries ability to protect against excessive wear.
Prolong the life of your pumps
The early peristaltic pumps fitted to Roland, Mimaki and Mutoh printers have a tendency to become very dry where the tubing comes into contact with the plastic cam, causing the tubing to crack over a period of time this is normally on the output side of the pump as ink residue builds up. Keeping the area where this comes into contact lubricated with grease will prolong the life of the pump. For those of you who change the pumps on a regular basis you will know how simple it is to remove a pump on say a Roland and Mimaki. It is straight forward on the Mutoh as well but the smaller units have extra items to be removed before gaining access to the pump.
With the pump removed it is simple to disassemble and fill the chambers which house the tubing with grease. You may have purchased some replacement tubing for your peristaltic pump, when removing screws to strip down, always lay the pump on its side before pulling apart slowly taking care to note how to reassemble. It is well to drill a 1.5 – 2.0mm hole on top of each side prior to reassemble this will allow you to grease using a syringe when the pump is refitted. Place the grease around the tubing and plastic cam prior to reassemble.
Carriage rails on all printers especially Grand format that require periodic cleaning and greasing.This example shows the carriage rail on an Agfa Anapurna M printer. Whilst the grease has cohesive additives it is recommended that the rail is cleaned using a lint free wipe and a mild solvent not only to remove any current grease but more importantly the build up of any debris caused by media and the operating environment. Care should always be taken when cleaning to avoid contact with any Mylar encoder strip in the proximity of the rail; if the encoder itself is dirty this can be cleaned with a warm soapy solution.
When applying the grease, do it sparingly to avoid any build up as the carriage moves thus avoiding any falling into the media path.
On large format as opposed to the grand format example above, the same care needs to be taken with respect to any encoders, and the carriage rail cleaned the same way, at the same time check around the bushing housed in the carriage as quite a lot of debris will have built up on the outside edge of the bushes, applying the grease only a thin film should be put on the rail and the outside edge of the bushes to aid the carriage movement.
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Regardless of printer size and manufacturer all printers consists of one motor or another all requiring greasing at some stage. This example shows pump motors on a Roland printer, but similar if not the same are used on other manufacturers, and locating these motors is not as daunting as it looks. Covers are usually easy to remove to gain access. As mentioned before it is recommended to remove existing grease using a lint free wipe or bud. Do not use a mild solvent to do this as it will affect the gear. The lint free wipe should be sufficient but if required you can use a warm soapy solution (washing up liquid).
Smear the grease all around the metal gear of the motor this should be sufficient enough to assist in help prolonging the life of the nylon gear.
This example shows a scan (servo) motor on a Roland but as already stated similar or the same is used on other manufacturers. The procedure for greasing is the same as above. It is important that this motor has sufficient grease, because if allowed to run dry it can cause carriage servo errors, and possibly quality issues shown as the image stepping out in the Y axis.
Maintain your printer to reduce down times
Regardless of the printer type or manufacturer, maintenance will help reduce downtime and by spending a little time checking out the items listed above and indeed any other such item such as bearings that are not sealed, cleaning and applying new grease will almost certainly help. Some manufacturer’s state that scan motors for instance be replaced every six months so carrying out maintenance every three to four months is something that should be considered, this is of course dependant on how much the printer is being used. An ideal time would be to carry this maintenance out just prior to a shutdown, such as Christmas or annual holidays, allowing you to restart knowing that some maintenance has been carried out.