Help with banding!

[CanuckSigns]

I'm having a problem with my Roland SP 540V, whenever i print on glossy media i get horrible vertical banding as seen in the pics. when i change to uni-directional mode it dissapears completely.

So far I have had a tech out twice (machine is still under warranty) and both times the problem has disappeared and come back a few days later. last time the tech was out, he replaced the optic eye that reads the encoder strip.

I'm going to call the tech out again but i wanted to have some ideas as to what might be causing this so I can make sure he checks them. Heaters are set to 40 and 41 but this problem seems to happen regardless of heater settings.

Thanks

 

[J Hill Designs]

which banding is vertical? the way the head moves, or perpendicular to it?

 

[CanuckSigns]

perpendicular

 

[HaroldDesign]

Is it only that particular glossy media?

 

[CanuckSigns]

no i seems to happen on any glossy media, glossy photo paper, Orajet 3651 etc.

 

[HaroldDesign]

I have to assume that it does this on matte material also, but doesn't really show as much. If not, and it's always and only gloss, I would think it has something to do with the feed. I don't run a Roland, but however you adjust feed for different materials may be part of it.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Would the feed adjustment cause vertical banding though?

I have to assume that it does this on matte material also, but doesn't really show as much. If not, and it's always and only gloss, I would think it has something to do with the feed. I don't run a Roland, but however you adjust feed for different materials may be part of it.

 

[HaroldDesign]

Oops - missed that point. I was starting with simple ideas, and it sounds more like ink starvation or bad lateral carriage movement. I don't know!

 

[SSG_SIGNS]

That isn't where the rollers sit on the material is it? My JV3 rollers sometimes will leave a mark if the vinyl sits in the machine for too long without movement

 

[J Hill Designs]

Yeah I was thinking that, or media buckling

 

[paul luszcz]

Most Roland owners are familiar with this. It's called the lawnmower effect and can be minimized in a number of ways.

The first is to calibrate the bidirectional feed. It's on the printer menu and will run a test print with dozens of bars. You match the best pair for each print head/color. This doesn't really vary by media, but is exaggerated by gloss media.

To minimize this effect after calibrating, when using gloss media, run the print at higher resolution. This will decrease the size of the print path from 1/4" to 1/8". The effect is less noticeable at this resolution.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Is this just accepted by Roland owners? I can't imagine running everything we print on gloss ( about 75% of our work) on High Quality setting, it's far too slow for production purposes.

Most Roland owners are familiar with this. It's called the lawnmower effect and can be minimized in a number of ways.

The first is to calibrate the bidirectional feed. It's on the printer menu and will run a test print with dozens of bars. You match the best pair for each print head/color. This doesn't really vary by media, but is exaggerated by gloss media.

To minimize this effect after calibrating, when using gloss media, run the print at higher resolution. This will decrease the size of the print path from 1/4" to 1/8". The effect is less noticeable at this resolution.

 

[paul luszcz]

Yes, it's accepted as part of high speed, low quality printing, which has it's place in some shops.

If you want good quality and don't want to run it at 8 pass, run it on unidirectional. Our Roland printer (a Pro Series II with two sets of 6 colors ink) may be faster than yours so we have no trouble running everything unidirectionally.

 

[CanuckSigns]

I Don't think we were printing on "high speed low quality" it was "standard" speed in versaworks. I wouldn't consider 65 minutes to print a 4'x8' panel "high speed" LOL

 

[paul luszcz]

Hey, don't blame me for telling you what I know about the printer. You bought a pretty slow printer. In order to speed it up, you have to print in both directions at low resolution with a printer that is famous for printing poorly when doing so.

That just is what it is. Once you calibrate the bidirectional alignment, you can improve the quality by increasing the resolution or printing in unidirectional mode, both of which slow the printer down. Or you can accept the lower quality.

 

[BROOKS]

what are your printer settings as well?
try to set it to max density us.

that saved me from this problem

 

[ashleighfiddler]

Also try cleaning the encoder strip with an alcohol pad. I used to have a bunch of various banding issues with my SP540V, and that seemed to keep some of them in check. If the strip is dusty or a little dirty, the optical eye will misinterpret it which can cause banding and inconsistant printing. Hope that helps.

 

[Tony Rome]

Most Roland owners are familiar with this. It's called the lawnmower effect and can be minimized in a number of ways.

The first is to calibrate the bidirectional feed. It's on the printer menu and will run a test print with dozens of bars. You match the best pair for each print head/color. This doesn't really vary by media, but is exaggerated by gloss media.

To minimize this effect after calibrating, when using gloss media, run the print at higher resolution. This will decrease the size of the print path from 1/4" to 1/8". The effect is less noticeable at this resolution.

Can't tell you how many times I posted asking about this to no avail.
Attaching pictures, being told it was the media, the profile, etc...
THANK YOU SO MUCH, this was driving me nuts!

 

[Andy D]

Like others said, I don't run a Roland, but I have run many other brands, and anytime I have
an issue like that, it's one of two things:
1st It's ink starvation to the heads, so a clogged line, pump going bad, etc. If it's this, you should only be losing one color.

2nd Some is out of kilter with the supply or take up, if your supply gets stuck, or your take up is pulling too hard. If this is it, you should be losing all colors uniformly.
A work around is to keep the supply slack, unwind the roll a few feet every time the printer is about to pull against the roll
and turn on and off the take-up manually, just enough to keep the media off the ground but not to where it's pulling.

Hope this helps...

Edited to say duhh, just saw where you said perpendicular... Air in the ink lines causes that for me, you could have a lose fitting allowing air to be pulled in.

 

[iraney]

Check to see if the ink cartridge is fully punctured I get those lines if the rubber part has been pushed back inside the cartridge it happens also see if a cartridge feels low even though it says full it does look like ink starvation.