Your printer is a major part of your business. Whether you need a small, home-office-ready printer for documents and marketing media, or a huge, industrial label printer for your thousands of products, you need one that won’t let you down.
Reliability is key with any machinery, but none are completely indestructible. If there is an issue, you want to be able to get it back up and running as quickly as possible, before it ruins your sales figures.
Today we’re going to talk about the maintenance that a printer needs, how to spot issues before they become too severe, and why you should choose us for your printer servicing and maintenance.
Understanding your Printer
I know that heading reads like the title of an instruction manual, but it’s still important to know the ins and outs of your printer if you want to get the most out of it. Even simple label printers are advanced pieces of tech, which means there is a lot that can go wrong.
For example, the most important component of any printer is its print head. This is the part that physically does the printing, applying ink (in an Inkjet printer) or a heated pad (for a thermal printer). As you can imagine, this part is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and any faults or inconsistencies will be immediately obvious in your prints.
If your stickers, labels, or documents are streaky, faded, or are missing parts, this is a clear sign that there is an issue with your print head. In Inkjet printers this is trickier to spot, as similar problems can be caused by poor quality ink or cartridges, which is why many people make the mistake of replacing them long before they need to, when in fact it’s the print head that’s the problem causer.
Common Faults with your Printer’s Engine
Another major part is the engine of your printer. regardless of its size, this is the literal heart of the machine. And just like our own hearts, pushing them too hard leads to health problems. If you’re heavily reliant on your printer, and it’s chugging away for hours every day, even the most reliable engine will start to falter after a while. Signs of this are:
- The printer is louder than usual
- It’s making a rattling or buzzing sound that isn’t normal
- It isn’t printing as quickly
- Prints are starting to drop in quality
- There are more jams
If you ignore these warning signs, the printer motor will become more worn out, potentially damaging other parts such as the print head. By spotting it early, you can give it a well-earned rest or organise a service to get it working well again.
With printers, it is possible to diagnose a lot of issues yourself, especially with YouTube videos and online guides for nearly every make and model. But this isn’t a good idea.
Identifying Issues with a Printer and Preventative Maintenance
If you think you have an issue with your printer, and you might have found the cause, you have two options. You can either pay a professional to come and take a look at it, or try and make a repair yourself.
As we said, printers are complicated machines, even the ones that only have one purpose, such as a receipt or sticker printer. Trying to fix it yourself, even backed up by a guide, can cause a lot more harm than good.
If you take your machine apart to try and fix, or even just identify, a fault, you’re only delaying the inevitable. In almost every case you’ll need a replacement part or peripheral, which companies like ours provide. So you’ll end up with a dismantled machine, one that might have still worked to some degree, and a lot of wasted time when you could’ve just called in an engineer.
However, there are a few things you can do to help your machine work at its best. By keeping the major components free from dust, you’ll keep the engine working well, and there won’t be as many imperfections in your prints. It also helps to clear any jams as thoroughly as possible, as some bits of paper or plastic can remain out of sight.
But by far the best thing you can do is set up a regular service agreement for a printer.
Regular Servicing for Printers
With one of our regular service agreements in place, you won’t have to worry about your printer letting you down. On a regular basis, a timeframe set in stone, a Label Line engineer will visit your place of work. They’ll dismantle your printer, identifying any parts that are starting to wear out, or aren’t working properly. After that they’ll keep each component a thorough clean and oil to keep them working well, and work with you to arrange replacement spare parts that can be fitted at a later date.
We have a warehouse packed with parts for all brands of printer, even the more obscure ones, so it’s almost guaranteed that we’ll have what you need already, no need to order anything in!
If your printer does develop a fault, we’ll act fast to get it sorted. This is still the case for more niche or advanced industrial printers – there’s none we can’t help you with.
To find out more, or schedule a service agreement for your printer, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you!