HPL260 - High Ink Level going 'blobby'

[MikeyG]

Hi all
I'm printing onto a translucent SAV, which I'm contour cutting and applying to a lightbox.
I usually print onto this material using the 'High Ink Level' option from within Onyx RIP. This gives a sort of 'double density' of ink, which makes the colours less washed out when viewed on a lightbox.

However, lately, this setting has been giving me a sort of border of even higher density ink around the outside edges of the image - about 5mm wide. Plus, when dry, the ink looks kinda, well, 'blobby'. Not flat, but sort of uneven.

(I've added a picture, to give some indication of what I mean...!)

Do any of you know if this is a drying/curing temperature issue? And what I can do to stop it, please?

Thanks!

 

[P Wagner]

You are over saturating the media with ink, and the ink is coalescing. Where did the media profile come from, and did it originally have the 'high ink' checkbox enabled, or did you enable it? If the answer is that you enabled high ink, then the pass counts and heater temperature settings are all no longer valid.

The best answer is to build a new media profile using the high ink setting. You can do this using the measurement instrument embedded in the printer itself, or better yet, use an external measurement device.

Short of that, the less attractive alternatives would be to use the same media profile and some combination of the following - increase the pass count, introduce an Inter-pass Delay, adjust temperature settings upwards. The goal is to craft an environment that will get the ink to dry and cure before it exits the printer.