op over the mechanism and then when you go to lower the pinch rollers the lever can't go all the way down anymore. It goes down far enough to tell the machine that the pinch rollers are down but not far enough that they actually are down all the way. This allows the index head to push the rollers freely which is not good. It's hard to explain so I hope you understood what I am getting at there.
The pinch rollers should not move during the initialization. I have only seen pinch rollers move like that two times. In one case there is a bright blue rubber piece that sits between the pinch roller mechanism and the Y bar. This rubber piece provided friction so that the pinch roller doesn't move when the index head comes out to set the pressure. If the rubber falls of, there is no more friction and it slides when it shouldn't. You can't see it just looking at the pinch roller you have to look inside from the back of the machine. The other time I have seen this is when the print feed lock mechanism is broken. Do you know when you load the machine with material and pull from the front the machine will provide tension on the roll so you can load nice and straight? That mechanism is poorly designed and a lot of people end up using it wrong. The lever will pop over the mechanism and then when you go to lower the pinch rollers the lever can't go all the way down anymore. It goes down far enough to tell the machine that the pinch rollers are down but not far enough that they actually are down all the way. This allows the index head to push the rollers freely which is not good. It's hard to explain so I hope you understood what I am getting at there.
The time it takes for a print to start depends on the file size and the computer specs. If you have a slower computer it will take longer. The machine should start right up once the RIP processes the whole file. It's the processing that is probably taking the most time. Bi-directional printing is setup in the profile. Some profiles are made for uni-directional and some for bi-directional. You just have to pick the right one. Some profiles will allow you to print with both and you can find that setting in the printer settings tab next to the profile tab. Flexi is fine to use but it is notoriously bad with Mimakis. I would recommend Rasterlink which comes with new machines or one of the other big names like Caldera or Onyx. Rasterlink is based on Wasatch so that RIP should work well although I have never used it.
The pinch rollers should not move during the initialization. I have only seen pinch rollers move like that two times. In one case there is a bright blue rubber piece that sits between the pinch roller mechanism and the Y bar. This rubber piece provided friction so that the pinch roller doesn't move when the index head comes out to set the pressure. If the rubber falls of, there is no more friction and it slides when it shouldn't. You can't see it just looking at the pinch roller you have to look inside from the back of the machine. The other time I have seen this is when the print feed lock mechanism is broken. Do you know when you load the machine with material and pull from the front the machine will provide tension on the roll so you can load nice and straight? That mechanism is poorly designed and a lot of people end up using it wrong. The lever will pop over the mechanism and then when you go to lower the pinch rollers the lever can't go all the way down anymore. It goes down far enough to tell the machine that the pinch rollers are down but not far enough that they actually are down all the way. This allows the index head to push the rollers freely which is not good. It's hard to explain so I hope you understood what I am getting at there.
The time it takes for a print to start depends on the file size and the computer specs. If you have a slower computer it will take longer. The machine should start right up once the RIP processes the whole file. It's the processing that is probably taking the most time. Bi-directional printing is setup in the profile. Some profiles are made for uni-directional and some for bi-directional. You just have to pick the right one. Some profiles will allow you to print with both and you can find that setting in the printer settings tab next to the profile tab. Flexi is fine to use but it is notoriously bad with Mimakis. I would recommend Rasterlink which comes with new machines or one of the other big names like Caldera or Onyx. Rasterlink is based on Wasatch so that RIP should work well although I have never used it.
The pinch rollers should not move during the initialization. I have only seen pinch rollers move like that two times. In one case there is a bright blue rubber piece that sits between the pinch roller mechanism and the Y bar. This rubber piece provided friction so that the pinch roller doesn't move when the index head comes out to set the pressure. If the rubber falls of, there is no more friction and it slides when it shouldn't. You can't see it just looking at the pinch roller you have to look inside from the back of the machine. The other time I have seen this is when the print feed lock mechanism is broken. Do you know when you load the machine with material and pull from the front the machine will provide tension on the roll so you can load nice and straight? That mechanism is poorly designed and a lot of people end up using it wrong. The lever will pop over the mechanism and then when you go to lower the pinch rollers the lever can't go all the way down anymore. It goes down far enough to tell the machine that the pinch rollers are down but not far enough that they actually are down all the way. This allows the index head to push the rollers freely which is not good. It's hard to explain so I hope you understood what I am getting at there.
The time it takes for a print to start depends on the file size and the computer specs. If you have a slower computer it will take longer. The machine should start right up once the RIP processes the whole file. It's the processing that is probably taking the most time. Bi-directional printing is setup in the profile. Some profiles are made for uni-directional and some for bi-directional. You just have to pick the right one. Some profiles will allow you to print with both and you can find that setting in the printer settings tab next to the profile tab. Flexi is fine to use but it is notoriously bad with Mimakis. I would recommend Rasterlink which comes with new machines or one of the other big names like Caldera or Onyx. Rasterlink is based on Wasatch so that RIP should work well although I have never used it.
The pinch rollers should not move during the initialization. I have only seen pinch rollers move like that two times. In one case there is a bright blue rubber piece that sits between the pinch roller mechanism and the Y bar. This rubber piece provided friction so that the pinch roller doesn't move when the index head comes out to set the pressure. If the rubber falls of, there is no more friction and it slides when it shouldn't. You can't see it just looking at the pinch roller you have to look inside from the back of the machine. The other time I have seen this is when the print feed lock mechanism is broken. Do you know when you load the machine with material and pull from the front the machine will provide tension on the roll so you can load nice and straight? That mechanism is poorly designed and a lot of people end up using it wrong. The lever will pop over the mechanism and then when you go to lower the pinch rollers the lever can't go all the way down anymore. It goes down far enough to tell the machine that the pinch rollers are down but not far enough that they actually are down all the way. This allows the index head to push the rollers freely which is not good. It's hard to explain so I hope you understood what I am getting at there.
The time it takes for a print to start depends on the file size and the computer specs. If you have a slower computer it will take longer. The machine should start right up once the RIP processes the whole file. It's the processing that is probably taking the most time. Bi-directional printing is setup in the profile. Some profiles are made for uni-directional and some for bi-directional. You just have to pick the right one. Some profiles will allow you to print with both and you can find that setting in the printer settings tab next to the profile tab. Flexi is fine to use but it is notoriously bad with Mimakis. I would recommend Rasterlink which comes with new machines or one of the other big names like Caldera or Onyx. Rasterlink is based on Wasatch so that RIP should work well although I have never used it.
Hi VanderJ, Once again thank you for replying. You've been amazing help so far
I've read what you've written a few times over and I'm still not overly clear. If anything it sounds like maybe the first description you've written may be correct as I don't think that the print feed lock mechanism is broken. After reading what you wrote I went back to the machine to watch what happens. Here are the steps I take. I turn on the Mimaki, load the media into the machine and feed the media through whilst the pinch rollers are up. Then I slide each pinch roller to the centre of the grid rollers. Lock down the pinch rollers. (At the point the pinch rollers are secure. Locked down tightly as I test moving them with my hands. Doesn't move)
I press enter on the Mimaki selecting Roll, MMM pinch roller pressure. Initialisation of the media then begins. At this point the index head comes out to set the pressure on the pinch rollers. While it comes out it seems to deliberately press onto the purple tabs (second photo) of the pinch roller which enables the roller to easier slide over. I didn't know this before as I wasn't paying attention. So once the initialisation is over I manually pressed onto the purple tab with my hands and then move the pinch rollers back to where I want them. So clearly the index head is pushing the purple tabs for some reason. If the grey tab is pinch pressure what is the purpose of the purple one?
I'm not sure if me manually over the pinch rollers after the machine has set it is a good idea or not. I've yet to want to print anything till I understand what the machine is trying to do.
Thanks for the suggestion with RasterLink, Caldera and Onyx. I might just look into those. Thing I hate about using Versaworks with my Roland is that I mainly work with bitmap images. Whenever I want to set cut lines I have to use Illustrator to do this. With Flexi on the Mimaki I can just make the image transparent. Choose where I want to cut out then contour cut it. Seems so much quicker rather than using 2 seperate softwares. Is this the norm for Versaworks or is there a quicker way that I missed out.
Sorry for the different topics, I guess buying two different branded machines in such a short amount of time means that I have more problems than before haha
