Head Alignment Help for Roland VG-540

[graphicsphere]

Hi All Printer Techs,
I have a Roland VG-540 that I recently started having bidirectional issues with. If I print in unidirectional Mode the printed image looks perfect. I started doing head alignment test prints and noticed something different was off. My Bias/Vertical test print is showing space between the black lines (See attached). In the Service Manual it doesn't show space between the black lines (See attached). I have attached a current Bias/Vertical test print and a copy of the Service Manual Bias/Vertical test print to show the difference. I'm not sure if it's because there was a firmware update recently thru Roland's Connect Hub or if some setting was changed somewhere.

I also tried to adjust the Horizontal and M Gap head alignment and that didn't help because the test prints are really blurry and hard to see which settings to change.

My Test print looks good (See attached) so just wanted to see if there is somebody that has had this same bidirectional problem and what steps I should take to adjust?

 

[Roland Certified Tech]

There is nothing wrong with your biased vertical adjustment. Can you please print the service level nozzle test print and post a picture of the microdot test close-up. It looks like your printer is inked dual CMYK is that correct?

 

[graphicsphere]

The VG-540 is setup with 7-Colors.

Here’s a closeup of both nozzle tests.

Like I said unidirectional mode prints perfect but bidirectional mode is really blurry and looks horrible.

 

[Roland Certified Tech]

Again, if you’re not having issues with printing in unidirectional and you go to print in bidirectional it is definitely a head alignment Issue, could be the horizontal.
bidirectional or M gap setting needs to be zeroed out first in user mode and then go to service mode and adjust. Then you can come back to user mode if needed. Of course, be aware that the M-gap/bidirectional setting is media dependent on media, head height, etc.. You can actually build presets for each media type that you put in the printer. This is all on the user manual.
and, if you are doing the m-gal in user mode, make sure you do the simple setting as well as the detail setting. And you need to keep it in the proper head height that you’re going to print iwith and the heat settings.

 

[graphicsphere]

Yeah that makes sense. I just wasn’t sure why the printer all the sudden started to print so horrible. I made lots of changes to the Head Alignment Settings so I think I should try loading the original parameters back into the printer since I saved everything when it was working perfectly. I’ll post back if that fixes the bidirectional alignment.

 

[cornholio]

First Service Mode adjustments, then user mode. Your carriage seems to be a little out of bias as well. In addition, there seem to be quite some nozzles missing and misfiring at the front edges of some heads and in LC.