Muddy, orange peel, spotty prints?

[Kemble]

Trying to print a large solid and am having problems.

It appears to have very random area's of darker print that looks all orange peelish, like a bad rash, no particular pattern at all.

I'm not sure if it's the printer, the inks, the material, the color profile, or what.

Some advice/help needed.

Material: Avery 1005EZRS
Mutoh 48" ValueJet with OEM Inks
Color Profile is the Stock profile (Avery 1005EZ 720x720 Graphics2) that was preloaded with Flexi 8.6

Also, what do you guys do to prevent dust particles from getting into your large solid prints? I've kept my work area extremely clean but can't seam to print much without getting tiny fragments of dust or hair in the print. I've even gone as far as wiping the material with a lint free cloth while it's printing but still doesn't seam to work.

Thanks

 

[Mike Paul]

Looks like very heavy ink coverage. Are your dryers on?

 

[Kemble]

Yup, 48 preheat, 40 platten, 48 dryer, the default of the Avery 1005EZ RS color profile that was preloaded with Flexi 8.6 installation.

The color is just Dark Blue from the default color palette in Flexi.

 

[Gino]

Yeah, it looks like the ink is puddling up and not drying fast enough. Possibly you're using a profile for something other than what you're printing.

 

[Mike Paul]

Make sure your not overriding the profile heat settings in Flexi. If you are the setting on the printer will be used.

When printing, check the heat settings on the printers panel and make sure it the same or even bump it up.

 

[Kemble]

I went through the panel display and the heater settings for all 3 heaters are set to off. This tells me it's using the values set by Flexi's color profile, (48 preheat, 40 platen, 48 dryer). The printer does warm up and the heaters get pretty warm to the touch before the printing starts.

Should I bump everything to 50?


I thought maybe it was because of the color I picked. I checked the color and it was RGB color (duh). Switched it to CMYK thinking my troubles would be solved but all it did was make the print darker (which I knew it would), unfortunately I still get the modeling look. =( The color itself doesn't have to be an exact PMS color, just a good looking "dark blue" which was why I didn't bother switching it to CMYK in the first place.

 

[Kemble]

Would turning everything to 50, 50, 50 help?

 

[Donny7833]

Can't hurt to try, or maybe slow the speed down to give the ink a little more time to set. If your running Bi, try Uni.

 

[Mike Paul]

There nothing wrong with using RGB colors; In fact it's preferred.

 

[Kemble]

Nothing wrong with using RGB colors.

Oh really? ok, thought every thing should be converted to CMYK first.

 

[Kemble]

Can't hurt to try, or maybe slow the speed down to give the ink a little more time to set. If your running Bi, try Uni.

Hrmmm, the profile wont let me change from bi to uni, should I set it to uni on the printer then? That would over ride it right?

 

[Kemble]

Set the heaters to 50, 50, 50 and set the print to uni mode at the printer. It did run in uni mode however the modeling is still there ;( However the modeling is everywhere now, not just in random places, the modeling is in the entire print area now =(

 

[mark in tx]

Oh really? ok, thought every thing should be converted to CMYK first.

Converting to CMYK is the job of the RIP, you'll get a better gamut of color if you send RGB files, to put it the shortest non-technical way possible.

Sounds crazy, but try downloading the profile from Avery, install it, and try printing it.

If that does not work, then look into custom profiling. It will save you money over the long run.