The Emotional Body Pillow (EBP) design is almost done - Ping side i finished last month, but it needed a ‘party’ side, so who better for that than a sleepy Snarkybear surrounded by empty beer cans (while Boo taps happily away playing some game on the PS2). Just need to add some details (beer cans, text to the warning on Ping’s back, etc) and i will put these on sale tomorrow in the MegaGear store - planning on offering a few different sizes. More info tomorrow. :)
Answering @SpaceCobraJoe in twitter: Was the “not in the plan” A) Scheduled preventive maintenance, B) Emergency maintenance, C) It done falled off.
It was what i call ‘eventual maintenance’ - the capping station is technically a wear part, one that you can expect to replace every 3 years. The ink used in Direct to Garment printers is a lot thicker and muckier than what the printer was originally designed for, so the capping station takes a lot of abuse and harbors a lot of buildup. The assembly itself costs about $400 bucks and isn’t too hard to replace (four screws and the whole assembly comes out).
I’ve said before that owning a DTG printer is a little like owning a temperamental old muscle care - works great and can be impressive, but you are constantly working on it to keep it working smoothly. I opted to try to clean out the unit rather than just replacing it. It was a major pain, but i didn’t find any real wear or busted components while i mucked it out (and i was able to actually put it back together again and it worked) so i think i won’t actually have to replace it.
There were massive blobs of rubbery solidified ink filling gaps and coating most everything, but the thing that gunked up the works was a clog in a connector between the drain hoses leading to the capping piece (the assembly that gooses up to the print head itself). Basically, i had to take the entire thing apart just get at that stupid little adapter - but it’s nice to have the whole thing clean and working again.
So, i lost most of a day to that, which sucks - i’m really behind in getting orders printed and finished and out the door. I appreciate your patience as i catch up here.
reretlet
