• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Need Help Lines in prints

CPetersen

New Member
Hi all,

I have recently aquired a Roland SP-540V printer. It needed a carrier cable replacement which I did.
I also replaced dampers, serge mist (filter) and did general good cleaning of everything.
However my issue is I keep getting these lines/stripes when printing, in particular when doing solid colours.
As can be seen on the attachment using the fill test. Only in the black colour they are not appearing (it can be a little hard to see in the yellow in the picture, but they are there).
Heads have been soaked for 48 hours (twice) and I think I can't get them much better than the test print in the picture. Notice yellow is without flaws in the testprint, but it still has the stripes.
I have gone through all calibration settings, and they are imo. all good. I have also tried many step wise changes of the feed correction, with little success too.

I still need to replace the cap tops, when they arrive. But I don't think they will change that.
Also I have tried other media and stripes are still there.
Anyone have an idea or succesfully got rid of this issue?

Any feedback much appreciated, thanks.
 

Attachments

  • sp540v_filltest_and_nozzles.jpg
    sp540v_filltest_and_nozzles.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 965

balstestrat

Problem Solver
You can see on the right that black is the only one with good nozzles.
Rest of the colours are missing some and few deflected nozzles as well. What printmode did you use for this CMYK block? Or is it a internal test? How do some printer images or test look like?
It could be feed issue but I'm not so sure about that. Feed anyway should be pretty close to 0 and then you can do down from that -0.5 for example. Are you sure you are not for example changing the feed in the printer but then RIP overrides it?

sp540v_filltest_and_nozzles.jpg
 

CPetersen

New Member
The CMYK block is an internal test from service mode, called "Fill Test". It prints it in high quality, as the stripes/lines are closer when done in HQ, if standard mode there is twice the distance between the "wrong lines" and 4 times in high speed.
Images will have similar lines, but less visible when it is not solid colours.
I have versaworks set to use printer settings when changing the feed and I tried in 0.1 - 0.2 steps from -0.8 to +0.8.. There is some changes, but nothing that prevents the lines from coming there.

I will try to take a better picture of the nozzle test. The yellow does seem fine, but the light in the picture makes it seem faded.
EDIT: just saw the squares in your photo. I didn't spot the one in the yellow test pattern, so you are correct :/
 

CPetersen

New Member
Attached a freshly printed photo. Only in the completely black outline surrounding the the little guy, there is no (visible) lines.
EDIT: It was printed in standard mode, hence the spacing between the incorrect lines is bigger than in the fill test (HQ mode) above.
 

Attachments

  • jack.jpg
    jack.jpg
    793.7 KB · Views: 582
Last edited:

nreklam

New Member
Hi all,

I have recently aquired a Roland SP-540V printer. It needed a carrier cable replacement which I did.
I also replaced dampers, serge mist (filter) and did general good cleaning of everything.
However my issue is I keep getting these lines/stripes when printing, in particular when doing solid colours.
As can be seen on the attachment using the fill test. Only in the black colour they are not appearing (it can be a little hard to see in the yellow in the picture, but they are there).
Heads have been soaked for 48 hours (twice) and I think I can't get them much better than the test print in the picture. Notice yellow is without flaws in the testprint, but it still has the stripes.
I have gone through all calibration settings, and they are imo. all good. I have also tried many step wise changes of the feed correction, with little success too.

I still need to replace the cap tops, when they arrive. But I don't think they will change that.
Also I have tried other media and stripes are still there.
Anyone have an idea or succesfully got rid of this issue?

Any feedback much appreciated, thanks.
 

walton611

New Member
I was having this similar problem with my xc540 but the black was good, only lines in the colors. But I use flexi and found the problem was in the rip.. weird how it's in the test print off the printer. Ink not making its way completely Maybe?
 

Jester

Slow is Fast
Attached a freshly printed photo. Only in the completely black outline surrounding the the little guy, there is no (visible) lines.
EDIT: It was printed in standard mode, hence the spacing between the incorrect lines is bigger than in the fill test (HQ mode) above.

I see that the incorrect lines in the various colors in your "Jack" image are all aligned with each other, so it seems unlikely to me that this is due to the bad nozzles in the printheads. Perhaps Jim Hancock can shed some light on this issue.
 

balstestrat

Problem Solver
Attached a freshly printed photo. Only in the completely black outline surrounding the the little guy, there is no (visible) lines.
EDIT: It was printed in standard mode, hence the spacing between the incorrect lines is bigger than in the fill test (HQ mode) above.
Yeah okay, it's not the nozzles, you can also see the lines in the black and like said they all line up so it's more towards feeding or something else.

Is your roll loose in the back so it's not pulling from the roll? What is your heat settings? Can you print the feed calibration from the printer and take a picture from that? Try to Select the best value and put that to the RIP and make it override the printer.
What media is it?

You should be able to get rid of that white line by going down with the feed even if it wouldn't be the root cause.
 

Jim Hancock

Old School Technician
Agree it is most likely a media feed calibration. As balstestrat suggested, get it right in the printer menu, and transfer that value to the RIP.
 

CPetersen

New Member
Thanks for the replies and suggestions.
I'll have to retry the feed calibration setting.

The roll is loose. Heat setting is 37 degress celsius. Attached a feed calibration test print (setting is 0.00 %).
The media is Metamark MD100 matte selfadhesive vinyl (for the jack picture generic vinyl2 was used in vw).
I also tried HP bond paper with similar results.
 

Attachments

  • calibration_testpattern.jpg
    calibration_testpattern.jpg
    284.9 KB · Views: 529

CPetersen

New Member
Today I went through the feed calibration setting again, trying from +2.0% to -2.0%.
It does change the appearence, in that when around -0.8% you can clearly see overlaps and around +0.9% you can see a white line.
About 0.0% is best and I even tried moving in 0.05% steps both directions from there, but the odd lines/stripes remain.
So I am back to square one and out of ideas.. Except replace cap tops when they arrive (I hardly think that will change anything) and new heads.
I would hate replacing the heads only to find the issue is still there. And I went through all the vertical/horizontal/bias/bi-directional patterns and setups and all is very good.
Could it be scratches on the heads, even if there is not a one through fail on the nozzle test? Looking at the heads there is no obvious visible scratch...
 

rydods

Member for quite some time.
This looks very familiar to the issue I've had with my Roland RF. Technician diagnosed that it was a bad print head. He snapped a photo of the head close up and it must have struck something at one point.
 

Jester1167

Premium Subscriber
With the pictures posted, it looks like your magenta print head is causing this. With the missing and deflected nozzle in the same position, there is no magenta being printed in a stripe. The yellow test print has a tiny bit of magenta and you can almost see it. the red and blue both have a lot of magenta ink and it really shows up. Black is so saturated that you can't see it.

Print a 100% block of each color. 100C, 100M, 100Y, and 100K and it will show where your problems are. The more passes the less pronounced it should be.
 

CPetersen

New Member
Take a look if something touch the media, tray to cut an 1 m. I see that with media contamination.
It's been tried and also other media, with similar results.

He snapped a photo of the head close up and it must have struck something at one point.
I am starting to worry its something like that, but I cannot see any visible damage on the heads.

With the pictures posted, it looks like your magenta print head is causing this. With the missing and deflected nozzle in the same position, there is no magenta being printed in a stripe. The yellow test print has a tiny bit of magenta and you can almost see it. the red and blue both have a lot of magenta ink and it really shows up. Black is so saturated that you can't see it.

Print a 100% block of each color. 100C, 100M, 100Y, and 100K and it will show where your problems are. The more passes the less pronounced it should be.
In the first post I included a fill test of CMYK and it can be seen in the 3 of them (except the black). Also I have printed 100's (well almost) of CMYK blocks when trying all the feed calibration steps. There is lines in all, except black.
 

Cosmin

New Member
Take o look to the penknife holder pls. And move the printcariadge to the left side of the printer (mentenance position) and make o picture for as. Its important to see the surface of the printhead.
 
Top