When a fluid drips out of the dispensing tip at the end of the dispense cycle, it usually means one of three things: there is air in your fluid, the vacuum feature isn’t set properly or you have a faulty solenoid valve.

Generally speaking, as long as you’re using dry, filtered air to supply the dispenser, the solenoid valve should work fine. In fact, there are very few instances of a faulty solenoid valve causing this. That leaves us with the vacuum feature and air in the fluid.

When a watery fluid is being dispensed, the vacuum feature prevents dripping in-between dispense cycles. When setting the vacuum feature for a particular fluid, slowly increase the vacuum until the fluid completely stops dripping from the dispensing tip. If you notice that bubbles are being sucked back into the syringe reservoir, then you have too much vacuum; simply back off the vacuum a bit and you should be fine.

We typically find, however, that dripping is caused from air in the material or by an air bubble trapped in the hub of the dispensing tip. If you are dispensing a watery fluid and using a small-gauge dispensing tip, it can be difficult for an air bubble to purge itself out of the dispensing tip. In this case, we recommend filling the hub of the tip with your fluid first, then attaching it to the bottom of the syringe reservoir. For thicker pastes with air pockets, the best way to eliminate dripping is by centrifuging the material inside the syringe to remove most of the air pockets.