:ANAPURNA XL² XL² OPERATOR MANUAL version 1.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Safety Instructions ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Printer Overview and Features ................................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Front view, parts & locations ........................................................
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 1. Safety Instructions. IMPORTANT Be sure to follow all instructions and warnings in this manual when using the equipment. WARNING Do NOT look directly into the UV light when printing, and don’t expose your skin directly to the UV light. If you need to look at the direction of the light, wear protective glasses or look through the front cover glas. WARNING UV ink contains chemicals, when handling the ink, wear protective gloves to protect your skin, and protective glasses.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 2. Printer Overview and Features. System Dimensions: ANAPURNA XL² Max. media width: 2.5m (printable width: 2.48m) 2.1.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 2.2.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL COVER “OPEN” SENSOR This engine is equipped with a “safety sensor” on the Front and Rear cover. Carrige movement and printing can only be done with covers closed. . 1. When carriage is waiting: (Purge or Home) When a cover is “open”, you will see the “door open error” on the screen, and the carriage will not move to Home or Purge if requested. 2.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 2.3. Head Carriage view, parts 2.4.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 3. Head technology.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 4. :Anapurna UV Curable Ink. 4.1. General information - The :Anapurna UV curable ink is specially developed for best performance on the :Anapurna engine. - Sharp printing, vibrant colors on a wide range of media - Ensures dry and instant ready prints with excellent outdoor durability - Use of light inks • Enhance apparent output resolution by using Light Cyan and Light Magenta • Results in smooth highlights - Ink usage: ± 10ml/m², all colors together (6) 4.2.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 5. Ink Circuit. Circuit. 5.1. Main ink tanks - The main ink tanks are located on the right side of the engine. - 1.6 liter per color - Low level detection at 0.3lm, enough to finish the currently printing job. Audible & visual alarm on the Signal tower. - Ink can be refilled in while printing - White ink tank has a continuous working stirring rod inside. - Tanks: WARNING ONLY refill with the 1liter bottle, when the low level alarm goes off.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 5.3. Sub Ink Tank and head base temperatures - Temperature setting “Sub Ink Tank” Color: 40°C White Ink: 40°C when in use (up to max 45°C) 25°C when not in use - Temperature setting “Headbase plate” : 40°C - Read out: - How to make changes: At this stage, you also need to Press the “AT” button, to close the procedure.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 5.4. The 2-Way valves - Normal printing: - The color valves are positioned in the “I” direction. The ink can flow to the head. - Purging the heads: - In case of clogged nozzles, or misfiring nozzles; Push the “Purge” button at very short intervals, this will cause ink flowing through the heads, this will un-clog the missing nozzles.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 5.5. Negative pressure setting - Ink supply by means of negative pressure: By means of negative pressure, the ink is kept in the print heads. A too high setting will cause missing nozzles, or no ink firing at all. When the pressure is too low, the ink will leak out of the heads. The Neg. Pressure should be set to -.0.36 During the day, the negative pressure indication can raise a little bit when the engine becomes hot.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 5.6. Waste Tank - When the waste tank is full, the blue lamp will flash on the Signal tower, together with a beep-alarm. - The waste tank is located under the conveyor belt, on the Purge-side of the engine. Open the tap underneath to empty the tank. - Make sure the UV-ink is kept separately from solvent ink, do not mix them in a waste container.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 6. UV Curing System. System. 6.1. General information - 2 UV sources positioned in front of and behind head base plate - High speed on-the-fly curing - Curing power: 120 W/cm - 2 fixed settings: Full and half strength - Air cooled lamp-house - Quick and easy replacement of the UV-bulbs (Always change both the lamps !!) - Use of an automated shutter system 6.2.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 6.3. Uni- and Bi-directional printing - For Bi-directional printing, both UV lamps need to be used. (curing is done on the fly in both printing directions) - For Uni-directional printing, only the right UV lamp will be used. (curing is only done when the shuttle is moving from right to left) Depending on the heat-resistance/thickness of your media, you can set the UV lamp power to “Half” or “Full” power. By default, “Full” power should be used whenever possible.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 7. Printing Table. Table. 7.1. General information - Woven Conveyor belt - Transport is done by a step-motor - On the table are 4 vacuum-zones with a variable strength. The table is evenly divided in 4 compartments. The 2 most right compartments are driven by ring blower number 1; The 2 most left compartments are driven by ring blower number 2. The ring blower switch can be switched on in that order.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 7.2. Belt Tension control The belt tension is of key importance to get a reliable media transport; After some usage, the belt loose its tension, and the user has to correct the tension to bring it again to the initial tension. At least once a month, the user has to check and correct the tension.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 7.3. Maintenance - Always make sure, when printing “borderless”, that the belt is masked, so printing on the belt is reduced to a minimum. When you have printed onto the Conveyor belt and the ink is cured, it can not be removed anymore, and ink can be build up under the conveyor belt and result in a loss of vacuum.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 7.4. Replacement of Conveyor belt - Vacuum can become insufficient when the belt is completely printed. The Conveyor belt therefore is a Spare Part, and can be ordered as such.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 8. Maintenance. Maintenance. 8.1. General information - At the end of the day, and when you stop printing, the shuttle needs to be placed in the “Purge position”. For overnight or longer standstill times, an absorbing cloth or paper has to be placed onto the “Grid” underneath the shuttle and this grid must be pulled to the front.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 8.2. Daily Maintenance – Nozzle check/purge - Check the state of the “Purge” and “Home” station Grid that no cured ink is build up that can get in contact with the heads. - Perform a nozzle check and make sure all nozzles are firing. - Move the head to the HOME position - In the Control program, push “Test”, and select “Jet Test”. - Place a white copy (A4-size) paper on the printing table, if no media is present.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL Little purge: - Close all heads that are OK (switch them to the “S” position) - Push the “Purge” button frequently, at very short intervals. - Open all heads again (switch them back to the “I” position) - Clean the heads with a fiber-free cloth. (*) - Check on “weeping” (**) (*)Clean the heads with a fiber-free cloth, by wiping from back to front on each head separately.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL CLEANING failing heads: heads: - Set the valves of the failing heads to the “S” position. - Set the Solution valve to “S”. - Push the “Solution-Purge” button on the back of the carriage. (Keep pushing in a sequence of 2 seconds push and 4 seconds release until you see a CLEAR “Solution-Curtain” under the heads, then stop pushing) Solution Valve - Leave the heads leaking in this condition for at least 5 minutes. - Set all the valves back to “I”. - Give a little purge.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 8.3. Weekly Maintenance The weekly maintenance combines different small handlings, and a storage procedure: - Check the state of the “Purge” and “Home” station Grid, and remove eventually cured ink off the grid and out of the underneath tray. The grid itself can be taken out of the tray to have easy access to the tray. The tray at home position does not have a drain pipe, so liquid ink in the tray has to be removed with an absorbing paper or cloth.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 8.4. Long Stand Still This procedure must be carried out: - If the engine’s “Stand Still Time” is 1 week or longer… - If the vacuum pressure is going to be closed down… SHUTDOWN -- preparing the engine: - Move the carriage to the Purge position. - Flush cleaning solution through the heads: - First flush the 4 right heads (Lc, Lm, W1, W2) and close them, and in the second stage, flush the remaining 4 left heads (K, C, M, Y).
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL - Switch OFF the main power, by using the main-switch (big round turn switch at the rear of the engine). - Turn off the compressed air. - THE ENGINE IS NOW READY FOR A LONG STAND STILL STARTUP -- preparing the engine to print again: - Remove the capping plate. Verify that the headbase plate is turned higher than anything that is laying down onto the conveyor belt. - Turn the compressed air back on.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 8.5. Bleeding air out of the ink filters When suddenly an increase of the under pressure is needed to hold the ink properly in the nozzles without pooling, there is a big chance that an air-bubble is sitting into the ink tank; This can be caused by a previous low ink level in the main ink tank, by having poured ink into the main tank that contained a lot of air or just an accumulation over time of small air bubbles in the ink.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 9. Media Setup. Setup. 9.1. Roll to Roll 9.1.1. Auto Feed System The Auto feed system has two tension bars, holding a constant tension. Those tension bars prevent distortion and waves on the media. The Rear roll bar will unwind the media, with a constant tension and height controlling. These are acquired from the “signal sensors”. The Front roll bar will wind the printed media, holding a constant tension to reduce distortion. Wind direction can be reversed.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 9.1.2. Take-up control system (1) In Manual Mode, motor rotates CW (2) In Manual Mode, motor rotates CCW (1)+(2) You can RESET by pushing buttons for 1 sec (3) - In Auto Mode: select motor direction (CW or CCW) - In Manual Mode: select motor (Back or Front) (4) Select Mode (Manual or Auto) Take-Up Motor Box 9.1.3. Roll Alignment When the roll media is loaded, measure the distance from the right side (A) to the point where you want to start printing.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 9.2. Rigid Media 9.2.1. Rigid Support tables - One table for use on the front, and one table for use on the back are delivered with the machine. (Standard table; full engine width, and 1.20m long) 9.2.2. Rigid Alignment 9.2.2.1. Media Register Pins and side guiders: When turning the upper “Media Set” button to position 1, the left side pin – indicated as ‘1’ in the below picture, goes down. This is the side alignment pin of your first rigid (rigid A).
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL With the lower “Media Set” button, you drop all the 6 top alignment pins (pins indicated under number 3 in the above picture). These are the front pins to which you put the front edge of your media. After placement of the media onto the belt, you have to switch the vacuum on, and move all the pins back upwards. While Media Set pins are lowered, the blue light will lighten up on the tower, and neither carriage movement nor printing is possible.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL Remark: The engine has also a parameter ‘Mark Center Offset’ for this which is default set on value ‘5000’ means 2.5 cm besides the image edge.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 10. 10. Head Base – Height Control. Control. 10.1. Automatic “Head Base Height” Setup This is done in the “Head Gap Control”, which can be found in the Setup Parameter window. Check or change the following Parameters to set the Head Base Height: Gap: Enter the value that you want the “Head Base” to be above the media surface. (Recommended value: 1.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL Check Distance: This parameter indicates the measure position offset where you have your media onto the belt and where the “Set Gap” must be executed. If your media is not completely flat, this must be the HIGHEST point on your media. Remark: Since the gap sensor is however located in the middle of the shuttle, the value that has to be put in the textbox is the measured offset onto the table + 400mm (400 = half a shuttle width).
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11. 11. :Anapurna Control Program Program. ogram. 11.1.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL (***) The ‘JOG’ function allows to fill in a number of mm that the media has to move in forward direction (positive number) or backwards direction (negative number).
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL Only a few values can be changed by the user and will be discussed here; Most parameters are protected because they are only intented to be set by the technician during installation. After changing a value: use the “Save as” or “Save” button and create a new .datfile, or overwrite the old. Changes on Parameters, marked with an “ ” like ‘speed’ and ‘weep mode’, require a “Parameter Download” in the TEST menu before they become active.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.2.1. Bi-Dir Alignment: Due to the fact that the shuttle is firing ink drops while it is moving, the ink drops don’t fall down in a straight vertical line to the media. We want however that a drop that is placed in the computer image file near each other, also comes on paper near each other when these drops are printed within a different moving direction (different pass). A straight line has to stay straight.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL A deviated Bi-Dir alignment will show as un-sharp text and blurry images.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL One has to take into account that the units of both fields is not the same ! Making a change of one unit in the general field, counts for a shift of around 8 µm. Making a change of one unit in the color fine tuning fields, count for a shift of 80 µm. It is very unlikely to have figures in this color fine tuning field bigger then 2. How to check the Bi-Dir Alignment: Use a small image( 15cmx15cm), with text and a smooth background.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.2.2. Step Size: The Step Size is also known as “Media Feed”. You can visually see on a printed image if you have to adjust the Step Size. (A) Dark lines in the print, as a result of overlapping passes. Increase the Step Size value from: e.g.: 11770 to 11800 (B) White lines in the print, as a result of a gap between the passes. Decrease the Step Size value from: e.g.: 11770 to 11755 After the changing, use “Save” to store the new value in the ‘.dat’ file.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.2.3. Carriage Speed: The engine has got 3 pre-defined Carriage speeds: 750, 1135 and 1625. Intermediate speeds are not possible; These speeds were selected on the physical characteristics of the inkjet heads. We consider 1135 as the default speed for color printing and 750 as the default speed for white ink printing (remember: the white ink is jetted with another kind of head with other characteristics).
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.2.5. UV Options: See chapter “6.2. Curing setup and sequences”, for detailed info. 11.2.6. Head Gap Control: See chapter “10.1. Automatic “Head Base Height” Setup”, for detailed info. 11.2.7. Units: With this setting you change the units between mm and inches. 11.2.8. Weep: This option allows the user to disable the weeping of (color) ink when the shuttle is set in purge position.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.2.9. White weep: This option allows the user to disable the weeping of white ink when the shuttle is set in purge position. Agfa’s advise is to leave the option permanently ON; ON The only application of this choice is to disable the weeping when white ink is not loaded into both white ink heads, but both white heads are filled with cleaning solution. solution.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.3. Test Menu 11.3.1. Jet Test: See chapter “8.2. Daily Maintenance – Nozzle check/purge” 11.3.2. Nozzle Test: This allows you to test 1 nozzle of a particular head. The requested nozzle is printed in a straight line.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.3.3. H-Orientation Test: This test is used to align all the heads, in reference to the Black head, both horizontal and perpendicular. When the engine is installed, or a print head has been exchanged, this test is carried out by a technician. 11.3.4. Parameter Download: After you’ve changed a parameter in the Setup file, which was marked with an “ ”, use this feature to validate those new values. 11.3.5.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 11.3.8. Head LineUp test: This test is used to align the slant of the heads, and should not be used by a user. When the engine is installed, or a print head has been exchanged, this test is carried out by a technician. 12. 12. Printing Printing an image. image. 12.1. Preparing an image First you need to install and configure the Wasatch RIP. (Read the Wasatch Manual on how to) Configure the “output” folder in Wasatch to “c:\rtl” on the Anapurna PC.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 12.3. Printing the image 1) In the :Anapurna Control Program, OPEN the image file (.rtl) that is sent over from the RIP. 2) Check the Image Size, and set the Print Mode to the correct # passes. (check Status Message: e.g.: 8 pass Ready) 3) Set the Top- and Left- Margin according your desired placement. (See chapter 9.1.3 and 9.2.2.2) 4) Choose between Uni- or Bi-directional printing. 5) Switch on the UV lamps. (See chapter 6.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 12.4. Cancel a print While printing, press “S” and “Y”, the print is then cancelled. 12.5. Purge function on the printing While printing, press “S” and “N”, at ‘Purge Request?’ select “Y”, the carriage will move to the Purge position. After the Purge intervention, press the “OK” button to continue printing.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 13. 13. Tips & Tricks. Tricks. 13.1. Printing on heat sensitive media: When printing on heat sensitive media, media can come upwards (head strikes) but also expands in width when it is heated up by passing UV-lamps. This can not only cause head strikes, but due to the expansion during print, the different print passes will not align properly with earlier printed passes. This will mostly be visible as lighter zones (spots) at the edges of your media (in both directions).
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL 13.2. Media corners lift a bit up (rigid media): - Place another piece of rigid media (same height or lower) in front of the loaded rigid. This will ensure a stronger vacuum on the front corners.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL Some examples: Media width = 152 cm (cover 2 compartments completely since 152 > 63.5+63.
:ANAPURNA XL² OPERATOR MANUAL Media width = 50 cm (covers no compartment completely) MEDIA Rear roller Table V4 V3 V2 V1 Front roller Valve Position: V4=off V3=off V2=0° V1=90° Media width = 230 cm (covers 2 compartment completely) MEDIA Rear roller Table V4 V3 V2 V1 Front roller Valve Position: V4=90° V3=20° V2=20° V1=90° Media width = 250 cm (covers 4 compartment completely) MEDIA Rear roller Table V4 V3 V2 V1 Front roller Valve Position: V4=30° V3=30° V2=30° AB]] ] ] ] ] ] ]
