Mimaki JV33-160 Banding.....again!

[Cmiller01]

We have a JV33-160 that is less than a year old. It is set up as a 6 color machine. We are having an issue in the last 2 weeks with banding in our blues and teals. Normally just reds are the issue but now our darker colors are as well. I have attached photos of the problem, albeit they aren't the best ones. I have tried less heat, more heat, media comp ( which does nothing for it). 16 pass seems to get rid of most of it, but makes for slow going and wont match the remaining panels I already printed. Test draw looks great with only a line or two out in the light magenta and cyan. I have soaked it and cleaned it, as well as several strong cleanings. I was just printing this file fine a few weeks ago. Temp is about 65 degrees, and humidity went up a bit today because of the rainy weather, its bouncing around 60% .

I also notice that the banding is alot worse on the left ( ink) side of the machine and not as noticeable on the capping station side. This is true with our wallpaper material and our vinyl material. Im beginning to think its the heater bed. Any suggestions?

The banding is more like a thick band of dark, then lighter color, then dark again. Not like media comp banding at all. HELP!!

 

[DougWestwood]

Capping station misaligned?

Hi There,

I have run several Mimakis. This looks like media comp, but you have tried that.

Next, I would suggest that the capping station, which is on a swinging carriage, might not be seating cleanly when returned to printing position. Make sure your little black plastic carriage is sitting level as it runs, and that the bottom of the carriage doesn't have any ink build-up.

If not that, then I'd check the parallel-ness of the printer rails. Have seen prints stripe more at one end than the other, and that was the problem. Don't know why that would happen NOW, and not a couple weeks ago, when the file was printing fine.

Odd one! Please reply back if you find a solution.
- Doug/Vancouver