The company claims the cleaners work on 90% of industrial print heads and extend the life of printheads by up to three times, saving owners thousands of pounds in replacements.
The new models can also be operated remotely using an app on any Android smartphone. An iOS app has yet to be developed.
According to the manufacturer Print Head Doctor 11, released last week, features more intuitive controls than previous models, re-designed recovery cycles with more flexible control, the Android app, custom cleaning cycles, a self-diagnostics graph and remote control of all machine functions.
It will show real-time diagnostics with software also developed by the company.
Print Head Doctor 12, due to be released in the next few weeks, is equipped with an automatic pressure control with a digital pressure readout and a fluid temperature control. It creates higher flow and higher pressure, enabling it to clean more than one printhead at once with better efficiency, the company said.
Still in testing is Print Head Doctor 13, which in addition can automatically switch the fluid flow direction in all four of its outputs. Without changing a printhead set-up, this machine can do all the variety of cleaning cycles in a fully autonomous mode, according to the company. It is designed for advanced users looking to recover large volumes of printheads with minimal operator intervention.
Digital Sign Technologies chief executive, Vladimir Galentovsky, who is also designer of the Print Head Doctors, said: “Industrial printers use printheads that cost thousands of dollars, they are very expensive to replace if you don’t need to. Our machines are designed to extend the life of the heads.
“Our machine provides all you need to clean quickly using pressure, vacuum, ultrasound and compressed air. We create custom cycles around proper chemistry and alternate and combine the factors.”
The company recommends printer operators clean inkjet printheads every three to six months. If this is done, the life of the head can be extended by up to three times, Galentovsky said.
“They can last easily five years. We say 90% of printheads using solvent-based inks can be cleaned. UV curable ink is harder because it deposits a solid polymer inside the head. We can clean between 65% and 70%.”
The company, based in Ontario, Canada, sells a range of other products including ink cartridges, chip chargers and ink.
“We’ve been printing for years, that’s why we know this industry,” Galentovsky said. The company designed its own wide-format printer in 2007 but found costs were too high to bring it to market.
Galentovsky himself has been a printer for more than 15 years and said he owned the first 3m-wide Vutek printer in Russia. He developed the first Print Head Doctor in 2011.
Print Head Doctor 11 retails for US$1,900 (£1,219) and $2,500 including adaptors and fluids. One Print Head Doctor can be used on several machines, using different adaptors and fluids.
Galentovsky said that products are shipped by Fedex to the UK within two days.
The company has posted a series of videos of previous models in action on various print heads on YouTube.
