Need Help 2 Mutohs doing the Same....3 weeks!!

[sgns4u]

I have 2 Mutoh 1324X both are doing the same.
Ink is landing where the wheels are stopped each pass.
(not on the rollers they are clean.) but ink is landing where the wheels were once under the print head.

They didn't do this at first. Both of these Mutohs have printed beautiful on calendared for several months. They both started this at the same time. I know there has to be a common denominator!
We have checked:
Electricity
Internet
Static
and so much more!

The heat is 50/50/50
And it’s worse with the head high.
It’s 2.75 mil vinyl

Things I print perfectly on: Reflective Orajet, Printable HTV Siser high 5 & cast wrapping films Britline & Avery.

However Substance 2750 or 2755 (Polymeric Calendared) and Orajet 3640 (Monomeric Calendared) I can NOT print on. Without marks

New Print Head - 3 months old. New Cables too
We made sure that one of the mutoh's got programed with the New print head number. We did that yesterday. No change at all. Still prints the marks on calendared.


Encoder Strip and disc, T fence, Print head, Maintenance Station, and wiper are all clean.
Perfect Nozzle checks.
I have the static cords and magnets on them.

Thanks!!
Sherry & David Bowling

 

[chrisphilipps]

If you run the job in uni-directional mode does it still do it? To me it looks like static causing the ink to drift while it is printing. If the head isn't in the printer level and you switch to a uni-directional print mode it might improve the print quality. The head height changing the pattern also points to an issue with either the levelness of the head or the head height being too high, even in low head height.

 

[pjfmeister]

probably to simple of a fix...but have you cleaned the pinch rollers. also cheap and quick to just replace them...

 

[sgns4u]

probably to simple of a fix...but have you cleaned the pinch rollers. also cheap and quick to just replace them...

They have been cleaned. & cleaned good. I'm been retracing my steps being down 3 weeks now

 

[Solventinkjet]

I think I've emailed with you about this issue. It's one of those weird issues I see pop up once in a while with these machines and it seems to be hard to troubleshoot. My bet is on static or environment. Whenever the same thing happens to two different machines, it has to have a common cause. So that's either going to be environment, ink, or material. I believe you said it happens on multiple materials so that rules that out. That leaves ink and environment. At the end of the day, if the rollers are clean, the only way I can explain the issue is that ink is spraying for some reason and it's settling in the slight indent the pinch rollers make. Why it's spraying and why that isn't showing up in the test print is what we need to figure out.

 

[Saturn]

If they were cleaned with solvent cleaning fluid that could have backfired. They shouldn't be cleaned with anything harsher than isopropyl alcohol on a swab. Even then, it can take a few feet of material for them to get back to a "dry" state where old ink isn't coming off them. Your situation seems a little more unique than that, but those are definitely wheel marks.

There was another post on here about someone that had cleaned their wheels with normal head cleaner and had to toss them because it degraded/softened them so badly...

 

[sgns4u]

I have tried 5 different calendar films (all that I've had great success printing on) Now CAN'T print on any calendar.

I can print PERFECTLY on Cast - Reflective - Printable HTV - Poster Paper

I don't understand how my printer(S) know I'm printing on calendar

 

[Saturn]

Try 0/40/45 or even just 0/40/0 as a test on a few feet of material to see what you get.

Like I mentioned before, if you cleaned them with anything other than alcohol, there might be residual chemicals interacting in strange ways with the material too. In they photo they look nice and clean and as they should, but it just doesn't seem like a head or static thing... I hope you figure it out!

 

[sgns4u]

Try 0/40/45 or even just 0/40/0 as a test on a few feet of material to see what you get.

Like I mentioned before, if you cleaned them with anything other than alcohol, there might be residual chemicals interacting in strange ways with the material too. In they photo they look nice and clean and as they should, but it just doesn't seem like a head or static thing... I hope you figure it out!

Wheels have been cleaned twice with water and swabs. Cleaned them twice. I know it looks like goo wheel marks but when I print red the marks are red, when I print green the marks are green.

The half inch of vinyl that comes out from under the rollers before it goes under the print head is perfectly clean and white.

I'll do this heat adjust right know and let you know.

Thank you kindly for speaking with me.

 

[sgns4u]

I think I've emailed with you about this issue. It's one of those weird issues I see pop up once in a while with these machines and it seems to be hard to troubleshoot. My bet is on static or environment. Whenever the same thing happens to two different machines, it has to have a common cause. So that's either going to be environment, ink, or material. I believe you said it happens on multiple materials so that rules that out. That leaves ink and environment. At the end of the day, if the rollers are clean, the only way I can explain the issue is

Try 0/40/45 or even just 0/40/0 as a test on a few feet of material to see what you get.

Like I mentioned before, if you cleaned them with anything other than alcohol, there might be residual chemicals interacting in strange ways with the material too. In they photo they look nice and clean and as they should, but it just doesn't seem like a head or static thing... I hope you figure it out!

I tried the heat and it didn't work.

I ran through about 12 ICC profiles from flexi - some better so worse, Non I'b be happy selling.

 

[sgns4u]

I think I've emailed with you about this issue. It's one of those weird issues I see pop up once in a while with these machines and it seems to be hard to troubleshoot. My bet is on static or environment. Whenever the same thing happens to two different machines, it has to have a common cause. So that's either going to be environment, ink, or material. I believe you said it happens on multiple materials so that rules that out. That leaves ink and environment. At the end of the day, if the rollers are clean, the only way I can explain the issue is that ink is spraying for some reason and it's settling in the slight indent the pinch rollers make. Why it's spraying and why that isn't showing up in the test print is what we need to figure out.

Do you have any ideas?

 

[jcskikus]

I tried the bidirectional / unidirectional suggestion as per Chris at GRS and got a decent result. Although my 1324 needs a new head, blues, reds, and yellows are printing fine. My black is about 15% out of the printhead. Attached are pics of bidirectional and unidirectional. It seemed to clean up the problem 95%. I am hoping once the printhead and dampers are changed out in a couple of weeks, this will clear up more. It's the original 7 year old printhead. This banding started when I moved it out of the office it was in for 6 years to my garage/office which is quite warmer (75-80 degrees).

 

[Solventinkjet]

Do you have any ideas?

It's tough because the symptoms seem to contradict each other but I would get a few new pinch rollers and see if the problem goes away in that spot. That way you can rule them out or, if they do fix the issue, you know what to do next. Other than that my gut says the head or some electrical issue but it's weird it wouldn't happen on cast. Maybe the head is spraying a little bit and getting in the places the pinch rollers push down but it doesn't happen on cast because it's more dimensionally stable so it doesn't indent as much as calendared.

 

[Neil]

I had this symptom recently with my Mimaki. It was confirmed that it was the ink overspraying.
For me, it was just the cyan. I swapped it for new batch and the problem went away.
To confirm it at first, I injected ink from the new batch up into the 2 dampers (Opened the carts first) and it printed fine until the old ink came back through
It looks like it's just the black on yours?

I think the ink was a bit too viscous, resulting in a fine mist overspray which gets attracted to the roller tracks and settles there.

 

[Joe House]

The pinch wheels will leave a static charge on the vinyl (different vinyls will react to static differently) and any overspray can get attracted or repelled by the charge depending on the polarity of the static charge.
Higher humidity in the shop generally dissipates static faster than a dryer shop. Printing slower generates static more slowly. Lower head height and healthy heads generate less overspray or at least less time for the overspray to drift. And as Neil said this could be a bad batch of ink or old ink. I hope this info helps you find a solution.

Good Luck