Help with Print Issue Banding and Bad Calibration Printing

[theprintlabtx]

I am having banding issues on my Roland XC-540 and I am trying to do a feed calibration but the calibration boxes are printing so badly I can't make a good adjustment. We are waiting on new heads to come in, but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for the mean time.

Thanks in advance.

 

[P Wagner]

It would be more helpful if you could post a nozzle test print.

There looks to be chromatic banding in the blue area. One way to test that is to print it uni-directional and assess.

The feed calibration plot uses only the K printhead, and any nozzle issues (outs or deflections) will be very noticeable in this plot.

 

[theprintlabtx]

Here is the nozzle test. The photo of the print was in uni-directional, and it's not a gradient. It should be just a solid blue.

 

[P Wagner]

The black head has a number of misdirected nozzles (deflected), but the other colors are all looking good, for the most part.

The print sample does in the first post has a lot of ink coalescing in all colors, indicating that the media is not taking the ink well. This could be caused by heater settings too low, media that is not intended to receive ink (I didn't see where you mention what this media product is), or profile related issues (less likely).

Are you getting these results across various media products (I would test on a matte calendared digital vinyl to compare)? Also, are you using Roland OEM ink or 3rd-party ink?

 

[theprintlabtx]

I have been dealing with overspray from cyan and black so running on high speed has seemed to help that. But with this print it seemed to cause other issues. I dialed it back to standard and the banding went away with minamal overspray. So I guess it will be OK for now. Thanks for your replies.

 

[Vinyldog]

what would it suggest if switching to Uni-directional printing would have cured the problem? I have a SP540V doing exactly the same thing. Wondering if a blown fuse on the heater could be to blame?

 

[CS-SignSupply]

Also note the wave in the light cyan nozzle test. Could be electrical issue or failing head. The wave could cause what looks like overspray.