Thanks - it’s hard to beat 99 pounds ($129US) each! I have wasted at least that much and more in my time. I’ll send them a note and see if they can do this kind of thing. Thanks for the link. -J
Thanks for the input. We half-tried the alcohol but the job wasn’t monitored and the alcohol dried up while it was soaking (bad but maybe not catastrophic). We re-hydrated with more alcohol, reinstalled the heads and I’ve been doing head cleaning and pattern checks. I haven’t run a weight test (aka load cell calibration) yet but it’s on my list of things to do. I just found a video on line for it; thank you YouTube! -J
I’ve been running an Alaris30 since 2010, and only had to replace one head this calendar year. Since I only run VeroWhitePlus, I can’t speak to the Durus materials, but my practice has been to more blot with a denatured ethanol dampened cloth, with about a 30 second soak against the heads.
When the one head failed abruptly following a crash, I tried to resuscitate it by flushing it with alcohol, after removing it from the machine. This was not successful, and actually demonstrated a negative result. Consider trying the the ‘solvent’ they sell for long term storage. It’s actually a base like the support, without the curing agents.
Hard to make out from the images exactly, but I was told the print head will need replacing if:
Up to 5-7 nozzles blocked in one place MAX.
Up to 12 nozzles blocked in total across one head.
You can fit the print head yourself.
The printer overlaps the print pattern to compensate for some blocked nozzles, but if more are blocked than detailed above this will have an effect on the parts.
Hi EB. Well, I’m not sure this is going to be the standard answer, but… a few weeks after I posted this, my boss got on the phone with our 3D printer support/ reseller company - the people between Stratasys and us. I don’t recall the phone call being particularly loud or anything but a few weeks later, a new head arrived and we didn’t pay for it…! A few weeks after that, I was at a training event with our support people and I told them that I had wanted to say thank you but I didn’t want to get into a mess or overstep my station. They said that it didn’t come from them, and it would have come from Stratasys?!?! I don’t know that this will ever happen again but you could try. I think they (both groups) sold the Durus material without stressing that it needs an intense (and different than Vero) cleaning regime. When we got the new one, I wanted a proper tech to show me how to install it and when he did, he took the old one back! Too bad - we had plans for trying to clean it.
Unfortunately, as soon as it was clearly not working well, it just got worse and worse. I tried like crazy to clean it with alcohol and Print Head Wizard but it just kept getting more and more clogged. I did do the thing where you jack up the power to the piezo-electric gates. They were at their max and just about nothing was coming out. We sold our old Durus material on eBay and are promising ourselves not to buy/ use any more. Vero is not bad stuff. A little more brittle but at least it works!!
Good luck getting your heads clean! Let us all know if you figure out a way around replacing them. -Juliana
The brittleness of the Rigur (RGD450) is halfway between the Durus and the Vero white, black, grey and clear but if you use the Vero blue which is cheaper than the other Vero colors for some reason, it’s brittleness is between the Rigur and the other Vero colors while slightly less rigid.
If you tune your UV lamp at the lowest intensity that will not give you a sticky top surface after printing, your parts will also be less brittle than if the intensity is higher.
