Brother Gt 541 Head Cleaning

[Big Daddy D]

Has anyone had any luck cleaning and salvaging heads for a brother gt 541 dtg printer?  According to the folks at brother, I need to buy 4 new printheads, and I really can't afford to part with 5k right now.

Thanks,

Derek

[mk162]

what happened?  I've never heard of this...the 541 is only CMYK and those inks don't solidify like the white, so I am surprised you can't fix it.

what's the backstory on this

[Big Daddy D]

I bought out a shop to add to my current screen printing operation.  It came with 2 brother printers.  One was used daily and one had been sitting idle for 5 months.  The daily use one had 50,000 prints on it.  The idle one has 3500 prints on it.  I desperately need both running and have 1 operating.  Had a brother tech come work over the entire machine and he said I had to buy 4 new heads. 

[mk162]

i would honestly then look into the 381...my understanding is you can get it with 8 heads and do dual CMYK for faster printing.  The ink is way cheaper too.

if you are printing that much, the cost in ink savings might help offset the printer itself.  CMYK ink on this one runs about $.55 per cc.

with the machine off do this.

to the right of the head there is a black wheel barely exposed through a square hole in the metal.  turn that wheel to lower the capping station.  pull the head out.  fill each capping station with windex and put the head and capping station back where it was.

if you do this with the power on it will simply suck the windex down the drain tubes.

[Big Daddy D]

Thanks for the help.  I am willing to try whatever I can at this point

[Frog]

Has anyone had any luck cleaning and salvaging heads for a brother gt 541 dtg printer?  According to the folks at brother, I need to buy 4 new printheads, and I really can't afford to part with 5k right now.

Thanks,

Derek

If you have the DTG market (and it sounds like you do), that still sounds like the otherwise newish machine would pay for itself pretty quickly. Of course, if you're cash poor, I understand, and I also understand "who doesn't want to save $5k?" A bottle of windex is a helluva lot cheaper!

[CSPGarrett]

Windex sometimes work, it is better to get a solution such as Last Resort from Firebird or head over to dtgprinterparts.com and get their super nozzle cleaner.  Both are similar chemicals if not the same (difference chemists) but it should clean them out if left to sit for 1-2 days.  Work a shot and its only about $20-25 for solution on a 250 mil bottle.