700W owners: White alignment problems?

[Alpha Star]

Are there any HP 700W owners that have this same problem?

Our white ink never quite lines up with CMYK when printing white underflood or overflood. It’s perfect when printing spot.

And it’s not off in a predictable or consistent way. Generally, the middle of the print is fine, but the edges are way off and random. Often, the white ink is too high on one side and low on the other. Just random.

We’ve tried everything we can think of. Auto alignment, manual, every possible print setting (tensions, temp, different stock, etc).

I don’t mind trying more things, but I’m just about out of theories. Can anyone suggest some new things to test?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Are you choking or expanding your white layer?

Typically, you should choke by 1 or 2 pixels for under and expand the same for over.

 

[Saturn]

Trapping. Same on the 80600, so you're not alone.

For a raster image where the white is underneath, if you're buidling the spot layer in Photoshop, you can use Filter>Other>Minimum or Maximum to pull white in a pixel or two.

 

[Alpha Star]

We are using choke where we can, but we’re printing pretty intricate details, so we often don’t have a couple of pixels to play with.

I forgot to mention there is a predominant tendency for the white to move left as the print advances, compared to CMYK. Can’t quite figure that one out.

 

[cornholio]

I was called to a customer printing sandwich on a 800W. I was told to replace the feed roller and all the roller bearings...(what a shitty job)
It didn't change a thing.
I finally found out, that the vinyl was deformed by the drying heat.(not the curing)
By reducing the drying temperature and airflow, I was able to minimize the deformation in the print zone.

 

[Alpha Star]

I was called to a customer printing sandwich on a 800W. I was told to replace the feed roller and all the roller bearings...(what a shitty job)
It didn't change a thing.
I finally found out, that the vinyl was deformed by the drying heat.(not the curing)
By reducing the drying temperature and airflow, I was able to minimize the deformation in the print zone.

I had a feeling it was something like this! We’re already at minimum, so bad news for me!

 

[balstestrat]

Make sure your encoder strip is clean all the way.

 

[Alpha Star]

Thanks guys… I cleaned the encoder strip as well as I could, and tried the print zone temperature at 37 and 45, with low and high airflow. These were great ideas, but no change. Any other ideas? I am still trying different tensions and vacuum settings, but no effect yet.

 

[balstestrat]

How about some pictures about the issues.

 

[cornholio]

Try a different vinyl.

 

[ikarasu]

Dumb question but have you done an alignment?

I know it doesn't ask to do one when you put your heads back in, but things could go off.

We find that every few weeks of putting them in / taking them out, we have the same problem and running a new alignment fixes it.

 

[Alpha Star]

We tried an alignment, and it fixes the issue at the leading edge, but then it still deviates in all directions as the print continues.

Tried a few different stocks, with no change.

I’ll take pics as soon as I try a few more things. I want to make sure I truly isolate this issue.

Next thing I want to try is different print modes. I think there may be some that don’t have the problem, but I need to test more!

 

[Splash0321]

I had the same problem and tried all of the aforementioned fixes. Had no real success aside from choking @ 4. It only worked on some prints, others that needed more detail just never looked acceptable to us.

The white ink system on the 700w nearly had me committed to a psych ward.

 

[cornholio]

There is a upgrade called "feed axis spring".
We normally install it together with the enhancement kit.
Is it installed on your machine?

 

[Alpha Star]

There is a upgrade called "feed axis spring".
We normally install it together with the enhancement kit.
Is it installed on your machine?

Wow! I asked my vendor, and the tech agrees with you. It is NOT installed. They’re asking HP now. Thank you so much!

 

[balstestrat]

I do not see how the spring will help you if you have consistency in the middle but difference on the sides.
If the spring was the issue you should have change all the way left to right.
Or at least if your description is correct, it will not make any difference. But I have yet to see the pics.

 

[Alpha Star]

Okay, here’s a quick video:

 

[Alpha Star]

Just an update. I have tried hundreds of combinations of different tensions, vaccuum, materials, etc. I have a service call in for that upgrade, but to date there is not even an expected install date. Not sure what to do as we need to be able to align white ink (and cutting) to the CMYK. Until then, we're dead in the water, and it's pretty expensive just to own this printer.

 

[Splash0321]

Just an update. I have tried hundreds of combinations of different tensions, vaccuum, materials, etc. I have a service call in for that upgrade, but to date there is not even an expected install date. Not sure what to do as we need to be able to align white ink (and cutting) to the CMYK. Until then, we're dead in the water, and it's pretty expensive just to own this printer.

Yeah, most of the time it felt like I owned a $22k massive paper weight.

 

[Alpha Star]

There is a upgrade called "feed axis spring".
We normally install it together with the enhancement kit.
Is it installed on your machine?

Update: The feed axis spring was just installed today, and I’m told the enhancement kit was never installed either. The tech says he will order it, but no word on when it can be installed. I’m really surprised that these things aren’t installed on all new machines! What does the enhancement kit have?