Falcon Outdoor Pinch Roller streaks

[Graphics2u]

Anyone ever have trouble on Falcon Outdoor printers when there appears to be light and dark streaks in the feed direction of the prints?? They are definately caused by the pinch rollers. Usually looks darker between the rollers and lighter where the roller press the material down. It's like they change the material in someway that the ink flows differently where the rollers are. This has improved since changing to Ultra inks because the heater temps are supposed to be lower but I'm still getting it once in a while, especially on banners and where you are using more solid colors than bitmaps.

Any Ideas on how to eliminate these streaks?

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

Graphics2U........does your machine have adjustable tensions on the pinch rollers, if so maybe loosin them up a bit.

 

[Graphics2u]

Graphics2U........does your machine have adjustable tensions on the pinch rollers, if so maybe loosin them up a bit.

No they are spring loaded and I have removed one of the springs from each one as recomended by mutoh which helped but still a problem once in a while.

 

[Flame]

Wrong. They aren't caused by the pinch rollers, they are caused by the heaters.

Use that heat/ foil tape and lay it over the heaters (internally) or have a tech do it for you.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

I put foil tape over the gaps between heater plates. That worked real well. I think the gaps allowed the heat to be higher in some places than others. Areas with less heat will be brighter because the ink does not go as deep into the vinyl. I remove half of the springs as well.

 

[gabagoo]

Just out of curiosity on this issue. I get those lines too the odd time. If you need heat to print and you get these lines, then if you turn the heat down and thats OK, why are we using heat? I have to assume these machines are tested before we the unsuspecting consumers purchase them. I have read over my owners manual and I have never found a section that tells me what material works best or better yet what material the manufacturer used to R&D these machines. Seems a little strange that we as the users have to deal with problems like this without a clear cut reason for why it is happeneing at all. I suppose 5 years from now we will all wonder how we ever had the patience to work with these medieval monsters.

 

[Derf]

as Flame said, it is the heaters, foil tape and temp control is what you have to work with..

 

[The Big Squeegee]

The heat does 2 things.
1. it dries the ink fast so it don't have a chance to run together.

2. It opens up the pores of the vinyl to allow the ink to penetrate deeper into the surface. There is a point where the heat does not open the pores any more and the ink starts to dry too fast for it to get a bite on the vinyl.
I like to keep it as cool as possible and that is different for each vinyl. I never did come up with a good fits all rule so you are on your own on that one. Generally I would turn the heat up and then adjust it down until the lines disappear

 

[bob]

As everyone else has noted it's primarily heat but also infeed tension. You need a modest level of tension on the media supply. This bit of tension keeps the media from buckling which is the culprit in as many cases of banding in the feed direction as heat might be. The buckling you're preventing is micro but that's sufficient to cause this sort of banding.

That being the case, your problem may well be the pressure rollers, but not in the way you might think. It's not that they're malfunctioning, it's that they're not pulling against anything.

 

[Sign-Man Signs]

Hate to disagree wit you all but the stripes are caused by a dirty wiper. Clean with cleaning fluid, wipe dry with soft rag, end of problem. Mutoh rep showed me this little trick and I don't have that problem any more. Never had any problems with my heat setting or rollers.

 

[bob]

Hate to disagree wit you all but the stripes are caused by a dirty wiper. Clean with cleaning fluid, wipe dry with soft rag, end of problem. Mutoh rep showed me this little trick and I don't have that problem any more. Never had any problems with my heat setting or rollers.

Wrong but thanks for playing...

The banding/streaking in question is in the feed direction, not in the direction of head movement. The wiper is not a player in this situation. It could be covered with boogers and growing hair and it wouldn't be generating streaking in this direction.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

The streaking we are talking about happens right out of the box so the wippers cannot posibly be the problem.

 

[Flame]

Hate to disagree wit you all but the stripes are caused by a dirty wiper. Clean with cleaning fluid, wipe dry with soft rag, end of problem. Mutoh rep showed me this little trick and I don't have that problem any more. Never had any problems with my heat setting or rollers.

lol. Yeah, sorry man. The stripes are in the OTHER direction. Wipers have nothing to do with it.

I'm on my second Mutoh, and have had to have the foil put in before (as per my dealer). It's just a Mutoh thing. Just like how their lines get frayed...

 

[Graphics2u]

Heater Settings

Derf & Flame Master - Thanks for the help. I know that the heaters do have alot to do with these types of streaks. And I had alot more problems when I used The Plus inks. However since changing to Ultra The heater settings don't need to be as high and that realy took care of most of that problem. I am attaching a PDF file I came accross accidently on mutoh's FTP site. It tells you approximate heaeter settings for plus inks and ultra inks on different materials. Would have been nice if this would have been included in the conversion kit! As you will see the heater settings are quite different with Ultra. In fact the fixer isn't much more than room temp.

But my problem now does seem to be directly connected to the Rollers because I can wedge spacers between the rollers on the back of the printer where the springs are and almost elimnate it, and the streaks are exacty the width of the rollers. The only problem with this fix is everytime you change media or lift the pinch rollers the spacers fall out and you have to do it again each time. Also it can be dangerous because there is very little clearence between the rollers and the printheads!!!

Just seems to me there should be an answer to this problem without having to fool with stupid little fixes like this.

I'm not too familiar with alot of other printers but Im wondering if all of them have rollers clear accross the width of the printer like the Mutoh Falcon does?

 

[Sign-Man Signs]

Wrong but thanks for playing...

The banding/streaking in question is in the feed direction, not in the direction of head movement. The wiper is not a player in this situation. It could be covered with boogers and growing hair and it wouldn't be generating streaking in this direction.

I stand corrected. But then again. I don't have a problems with any kind of streaks. It was great fun playing....wish I had won something.

 

[pasigndesign]

I turn the heater off for banners and it seems to work great

 

[MacDaddy]

Heaters..........................

 

[randya]

2 possibilities

1. Contamination/dirty rollers - most often times picked up from the media, usually plasticizer - be sure and use a clean cloth and turn the cloth often, dont just move the contaminiation around.

2. Humidity and particularly coated media

 

[Compilla]

2 possibilities

1. Contamination/dirty rollers - most often times picked up from the media, usually plasticizer - be sure and use a clean cloth and turn the cloth often, dont just move the contaminiation around.

2. Humidity and particularly coated media

Agreed,

But I think it is heater related...

I would put foil tape over the gaps between the fixer heater plates. That works real well.