HELP: VP540 Random Color Dropouts

[grafixemporium]

Why do problems always happen in the middle of the night... on a weekend... when you're trying to meet a deadline??

We have a fleet of shuttle buses to wrap with a butt ton of purple in the design (not our design so don't blame me). I started running panels today and kept running into this band of color dropping out. Through trial and error I determined the band is random. It's not always in the same spot in the file. It looks almost exactly how a print looks when you pause to change an empty ink cartridge in the middle of a print.

I'm getting a band roughly every 16 inches or so. Sometimes it runs all the way across the print, sometimes it doesn't. The panel I'm testing with is 52" wide by about 72" long. It's pretty much solid purple with a logo/phone number in the center. It only seems to be happening in areas of the print that are nothing but purple. I got 2 bands at the top of this particular print. When it was printing the logo, phone number, etc it looked fine. Once it got to the bottom of the panel that was solid purple again, I got another band.

I canceled the job... cleaned the heads again... double checked the test print... all nozzles firing perfectly. Using OEM inks.

I'm stressed. Supposed to start the first shuttle Monday morning and I have no prints ready! Any ideas??

 

[adamfilip]

what media are you printing onto?
what is the humidity in the room?

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Looks like ink starvation.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

Not a Roland owner but try cleaning your encoder strip.
You shouldn't get any banding when you change out an empty cartridge, or is that only on Rolands.

 

[InkjetAuction]

A couple of thoughts here...

First of all... What media, RIP and profile are you using?

I get calls on this at least weekly... random light horizontal bands in dark solids. I tend to see it more on the VP-540, 540i series.

It's not your heads, encoder strip or anything else mechanical. This problem is like an ink starvation and will probably be solved with a different profile. (Probably not dampers... but this can be tested by running a fill print test. This is a service menu task)

My last experience with this problem was recent. My customer was printing on IJ180 with a similar solid... running VersaWorks the Roland PCV3 profile. He was experiencing similar light horizontal bands. We got the same result using Standard, Standard+ WPass, HQ, or HQ+WPass print quality.

Had him switch to to the Roland PWV profile, and found that the light bands went away.

Sounds weird... but true.

~E

 

[adamfilip]

if its ink starvation, wouldn't that be a pump/mechanical issue?

 

[InkjetAuction]

Testing Dampers

Most likely not a pump issue (wrong side of the equation)... but could be a damper or ink line issue. Perhaps a small leak or valve problem or fouled filter.

Running a simple fill pattern test can test for issues related to ink starvation. If you have issues... with dampers or ink line vacuum leaks, it will show up here. Basically, the fill pattern test is a hardware test that dumps out ink in a 1" x media width stripes as 100% of each of the colors (CMYK) as fast as it can. You'll never dump out this much ink during normal printing. If you have ink flow issues, it will show up here.

What I was saying about the original problem is that it looks like ink starvation... but it's probably not. But could be. I'd try the profile first. Way cheaper to fix

~E

 

[grafixemporium]

E... thanks for all the info. It's at least comforting to know it's fixable!

I'm printing on 180cv3 with what I'm sure is probably the wrong profile. We started using the versaworks "semi gloss gray glue" profile on cv3 a long time ago and had good success with it. I'm a creature of habit... even if the habits are wrong. We are using the RIPC version of the profile.

No idea what the humidity in the room is... but not much different than it is any other day of the week for the last 4 years.

I don't know how to run a fill print test. Is there info on that somewhere?

I just downloaded the "roland versacamm vp300/vp540 noripc ecomax" profile for 180c from 3M's website. I'll try that first. Is there a RIPC profile?

 

[grafixemporium]

I ran a fill pattern test and it looks fine to me (pic attached). Should I run it multiple times or would it show right up if there was an issue?

I'm about to run a panel in the 180c profile I downloaded. Will update when finished.

 

[grafixemporium]

No luck with the RIPC PWV profile. I'm going to try the non-RIPC version now just for shits and giggles. I think I got at least 10 new gray hairs this weekend. I sure hate making that call to the client to tell them we're having technical difficulties.

 

[grafixemporium]

Non-RIPC PWV profile started off looking good... albeit a heckuva lot slower than RIPC. About halfway through the panel I got a band right under the word "park". UGHH! I guess I'm throwing in the towel until I can call a tech out in the morning.

 

[grafixemporium]

In case anyone is out there reading...

We are still dead in the water. There are no Roland techs available until Friday unless you guys know someone I don't.

Here's what I've done so far...

Rebuilt files and exported to TIF and PDF
Reproduced issue with different profiles on different media
Cleaned heads
Replaced caps and tubes
Cleaned the scraper
Replaced wipers

Still have the same exact problem.

I have run a CMYK fill test that was 50" wide x 60" long and didn't see the slightest issue in any of the colors. All the nozzle test prints look fine.

At this point, I can only reproduce the issue while printing various purples.

I bought enough dampers to do the cyan and magenta channels, but haven't done that yet. I've never replaced dampers before and I'm a little nervous about it. Besides, all logic is telling me this isn't an ink flow issue. I'm worried it's electrical.

Just Cleaned the Encoder Strip. About to run a test print...

 

[tampaprinting]

did you try to recreate the same design and save in a different program? just a quick thought.

 

[LarryB]

Maybe your cyan head is going out. Whenever I ended up replacing heads the prints would look fine at startup then start printing bad a little further in the print. Also make sure your ink cartridges are not empty. Sometimes we have gotten incorrect ink levels which have created problems.

Have you called Shawn Mason at GSG? He is pretty good at troubleshooting.

 

[grafixemporium]

SUCCESS!

I spent the evening on the phone with Jimmy Ellis at GSG. What a guy!

It looks like a dirty encoder strip was the culprit (ChicagoGraphics wins). The last thing I did tonight before throwing in the towel was remove the top panels of the printer to find a lot of dust and a bit of overspray on and around the encoder strip. Dust can apparently do crazy things to a printer! A thorough (gentle) cleaning with 70% isopropyl alcohol and it looks as good as new. I'm three panels into the first purple shuttle bus and everything looks perfect.

Tomorrow I'm calling to see about getting financed on a second Roland. We simply cannot afford to be down for 3 days ever again!

 

[sfr table hockey]

SUCCESS!

I spent the evening on the phone with Jimmy Ellis at GSG. What a guy!

It looks like a dirty encoder strip was the culprit (ChicagoGraphics wins). The last thing I did tonight before throwing in the towel was remove the top panels of the printer to find a lot of dust and a bit of overspray on and around the encoder strip. Dust can apparently do crazy things to a printer! A thorough (gentle) cleaning with 70% isopropyl alcohol and it looks as good as new. I'm three panels into the first purple shuttle bus and everything looks perfect.

Tomorrow I'm calling to see about getting financed on a second Roland. We simply cannot afford to be down for 3 days ever again!

I sure hope that was the fix for your issue although I would not have thought a dirty encoder stip could cause that. I have the same thing happening on one of my waterbased CJ's and have replaced the heads, damper, ink carts and so far no luck. I will try the strip next. Do let us know if this issue comes back (hope not) and thanks for the update to the possible issue. I know may others have posted about a dropout band like yours and have never found the issue. If that was it..... it will be a big deal for a lot of guys.

Thanks

 

[sar bossier]

Tomorrow I'm calling to see about getting financed on a second Roland. We simply cannot afford to be down for 3 days ever again![/QUOTE]

May I suggest you look SERIOUSLY into the HP L25500 Printer, for wraps - from everything I have seen/read/researched, it is BAR NONE in quality for printing wraps, with ZERO dry time - Just saying, if you're gonna buy a new printer, go for one like this? Just my opinion

 

[grafixemporium]

Just a quick update for anyone who might have similar issues.

A thorough cleaning of the encoder strip did clear the problem up for a while. As it turns out, dust and overspray don't play well with electronic components. If you've never taken apart your printer, I suggest you give it a try. All of the electronics in our vp540 were covered in a blue haze of dusty ink. I used a small electronics vacuum to clean out as much crap as I could.

After the cleaning, the printer ran great for about a month when the exact same problem came back. I pulled the printer apart and cleaned the encoder strip thoroughly again... problem solved.

We are currently running prints for bus #8 in a fleet of shuttles we are wrapping and the problem just started happening again. We got through the first 7 without a single issue. Now it's the same exact thing. A completely random band that looks like a dropout that runs from the left side to about 8 to 10" from the right side. It never goes all the way to the right edge of the media. The band only shows itself in colors that are cyan/magenta heavy.

I printed a Sprinter the other day that was mostly orange and yellow... no problems at all. As soon as we started running prints for the blue shuttle bus, boom.

I'm sure another thorough cleaning will clear the problem up again. At least temporarily.

I talked with several techs. One thinks the encoder strip needs to be replaced. Another thinks the encoder reader needs to be replaced. I don't really know what to do next.... except buy a new printer. I still haven't pulled the trigger on that yet. I'm just not impulsive enough

 

[JoshLoring]

Dang! Been sick and not on here much! That's such an encoder strip problem on the Roland! (that you know now lol)

Also- one tip for you that COULD cause this. If you print overnight and come back to an empty ink cartridge, don't immediately change the cartridge. Roland has a problem where the heater goes off after ink haven't been changed immediately. Simply.. Remove the cartridge- it triggers the heater back on- allow it to heat before putting in the new cartridge- it will restart without causing that line. Otherwise- it starts with a cold plate and doesn't cure right.

 

[grafixemporium]

NEW UPDATE:

So, I ran into some other problems and had GSG come out and replace a head. He went through the printer and showed me some things to look for.

The VP540 has an encoder disk on the left end. It looks just like the encoder strip material, but it's in a disk shape. This is what controls the feed. If that encoder gets dusty, dirty or overspray on it, you could run into random feed issues that can result in some of the symptoms I was having. It may look like starvation but it's not.