JV33 Odd Banding/Striping

[the east coast kid]

Please look at the photos people..!!!
This is a brand new JV & the tech was here for 8 hrs and still no resolving of this issue.
I am printing on Avery supercast EZ RS but it also hapens on 3m 180c v3.
es3 inks Orcal 3651 720 x 720 profile 16 pass bi directional.
current heat settings are 95 95 122

Thanks

 

[thewood]

The banding in the purple especially looks like too much heat. But your heat settings look low to me. This could also be due to ink starvation, but I wouldn't expect that from a new printer operating at 720x720 16 pass. Have you tried other profiles?

 

[MikePro]

head wash yet? might be an ink supply issue.

 

[k.a.s.]

I dont have the answer, but my heat settings have always been 50 40 50 on my JV33


Kevin

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Ditch the profile. Find a 540x1080 6-pass profile and try it both bidirectional and unidirectional. This is the optimal resolution for this print head, you will get better results. 720x720 profiles introduce a lot of banding.

Not sure what RIP you're on but a good canned profile is Avery's MPI2900 540x1080 6-pass, we've tried to write a better profile for cast wrap vinyl and as of yet have not been able to top this one. We're on Onyx so the same may not be true for this profile written for another RIP however.

 

[the east coast kid]

Thanks for the info so far.
I am using Flexi 10.5 rip
Also should I have to Media comp and drop position correct for every job I run?

 

[Letterbox Mike]

The JV33 is fairly susceptible to changes in media compensation, it's wise to check it periodically throughout a print run to make sure it's still good and adjust it on the fly if necessary. Drop pos. doesn't need to run as often, you're supposed to do it when the material thickness changes, but we keep ours dialed in for thin vinyl and only adjust it if we put in something really thick like wallpaper and the prints look blurry.

Neither of those has anything to do with your problem though. Unless you're having a major electrical/data problem with your head, I'll almost 100% guarantee you that switching to a good 540x1080 6-pass profile will solve your issue. The Epson DX5 head does not play nicely with 720x720 profiles most of the time, and a cast film like the wrap films you're printing are usually the worst at bringing the issue to light.

 

[the east coast kid]

I cant seem to find the profile you mentioned on Averys site.
Can you give me help in this regard?

 

[Letterbox Mike]

It appears you have to register on the Avery site to access the profiles now, I don't think it used to be that way.

http://avery-ap.color-base.com/

You might also try calling your dealer on the printer and asking if they can help you out with some better profiles, their tech support people should have access to many of them.

 

[SightLine]

Yep - 720x720 is wretched on a JV33. Flexi only installs 2 canned profiles for a JV33 and they both are pretty awful.

Arlon also has some profiles for Flexi 8 which you can probably import and use.

http://www.arlon.com/SupportandTools/ColorProfiles.aspx

 

[the east coast kid]

Just a reminder im useing es3 inks
It seems all the profiles out there for this printer are for the full solvent ink set.
I cant be the only one running thr es3 inks.

 

[SightLine]

I dont know of many using ES3 inks. Best thing I can suggest is to get ahold of an X-Rite Eye One (i1) pronto. It is natively supported by FlexiSign and you can create your own custom profiles right in Production Manager. The plus side is your own custom profiles will almost always be much better than any canned profiles anyways.

Heck I'd even be willing to "rent" you ours for a week but the lamp is starting to go on mine. I need to get a new one or send it off to X-Rite to get a new lamp installed. Maybe someone else nearby might loan you theirs...

I can honestly say I've never seen any canned profiles for ES3 inks - even Mimaki themselves do not show any for Rasterlink. lol

 

[Rooster]

I run 720x720 16 pass bi-directional all the time and never have banding issues.

It's been printing great for three years and I haven't so much as changed a wiper blade. Although I do create all my own profiles in house.

Did the tech that installed the printer prime the dampers when he installed it? It looks like a classic case of ink starvation. Does it do the same thing with other profiles?

 

[the east coast kid]

I dont know a dam thing about creating profiles.
The tech bled all the air out of the dampers and filled them to the top.
The lilic print is pre bleeding dampers the blue sky print is after all that.

You can imagne my frustration, I replaced a mutho falcon 48 that was pretty trouble free for like 7 yrs with this JV33 & have had nothing but trouble for my $18.500
I was truly expecting great things from a 7yr newer and far more costly printer.
Should I lower my expectations?

 

[SightLine]

No- just give yourself a bit to get it worked out. JV33's are workhorses that print beautifully. I understand your frustration though. Profiling is actually pretty easy in Flexi - it walks you through the steps and it takes about an hour - it's very worth doing and having an Eye-One. With one you will never ever be at the mercy of using pre-made profiles and your profiles will always be better since they are optimised for your specific enviorment (average temp, humidity, etc make a big difference). It would be a great asset no matter what printer you have.

I've attached a profile - had to rename it to PDF. Rename the file to .icc if you want to try it. Keep in mind though - this profile is for a machine running dual CMYK - if you are running CMYKLcLm then this will not work at all. Also keep in mind - I run Triangle JVV full solvent inks so the colors are not going to be right either. But if you are at least running dual CMYK (MMCCYYKK) then it might give you somewhat better results. To install this profile, rename the file to .icc (do not try to open it with Acrobat reader it is not really a pdf). Then copy the file to the Program Files>SAi>SAi Production Suite>ICCProfile>MimakiJV33 folder.This particular profile is for 540x1080, 12 pass, variable dot, SO diffusion.

Change can be painful but once you get it going good you will not be dissapointed. Whoever sold you the machine should have made sure you were printing good and shown you things like setting Dot Position Correction, and regular maintenance. And if they sold you on going with ES3 inks then they should have made sure you knew that finding profiles for that ink set might not be easy.

 

[the east coast kid]

Thanks..! I am runing dual cmyk.
I will look into the Eye One & thanks for the reassurance that this printer is a good choice.
My suppiler did show me how to do the basics but did not mention the issues with the es3 inks and profiles.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

It's a very very good machine. If you don't plan on building your own profiles, you may want to consider switching over to SS21 inks as there are far more profiles available vs. ES3. Again, your problem is almost guaranteed to be profile related, and frankly it doesn't sound like your technician knows much about operating the printer either, a good tech should immediately have pointed you in the direction of the proper profiles when you're seeing a problem like you're showing.

 

[the east coast kid]

INSIGNA I would like to thank you for taking time out of your day to respond with such positive and usefull information.
I hope to be of some use to you in the future. FAT CHANCE..... lol
All the best.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

haha, we're all here to help. I h ope you get your problem sorted out. We replaced our older JV3 with a JV33 and had the same problem you are having. The JV3 printed beautifully at 720x720, we figured the 33 would be the same but it didn't obviously. Took some trial and error and finally our technician to tell us the problem was the profile/resolution.