Dust reduction for your large format printer

Dust reduction is an often overlooked part of large format printer maintenance. Keeping your machine as clean as possible will ensure that prints remain perfect every time.

The automatic cutting of certain medias, such as canvas, can result in dust and debris collecting inside any large format printer and lead to premature printhead failure.

One remedy was to manually cut the canvas and backlit film prints off the roll with scissors or a blade instead of using the machine’s inbuilt rotary cutter blade, another is to allow the printer to moisten the paper cutting area with ink to prevent dust being created, but ink is valuable stuff!

This was because large format printers used to house the cutter in the print head. This would cut down on the complexity of the machines.

A little known fact about the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO series of printers is that, rather than wasting ink, they have a separate carriage assembly for the cutter, this keeps cutting dust away from the print head while placing the actual cut closer to the paper exit point. No manual intervention, no wasted ink.

This design also benefits the drop placement accuracy of the head and no ink needs to be used to wet the cutting area, resulting in increased reliability, lower ink use and higher print quality.

Modern rotary cutters are significantly more effective than the various methods of yesteryear, and therefore can be relied upon to cut a range of materials with a minimum of wear and tear.

Too much dust in a machine can cause a variety of problems, including poor colour accuracy and blurry prints.

It’s important to use an anti-static brush or compressed air to regularly remove dirt. Many machines come with a cleaning device and a space to store it between uses.

Keep an eye on exposed areas such as fans, or any other areas which are open to the elements. Keep these clean in order to have the best air flow through the large format printer, or you can run into power problems.

Get in touch with us at Design Supply for more advice and to find the perfect printer for your specific application.