My Jv3-160 is banding! Help!

[Daigleb]

I've been through a bunch of other threads, trying many "solutions" with no results.

Our printer is about 4+ years old and has only had minor problems since.

Basically no matter what profile, media, or file we try to use we get crazy banding. Almost like "ink starvation" if i understand what that is. But we checked all the dampers and they seem ok. We also did a test draw and that also looks fine.

But when we do a media comp, it does not print solid gray bars. I will upload a pic of that.

We have used the recomended heat settings and have tried raising and lowering them with no difference except for the obvious vinyl buckeling.

This problem started about a month ago when we noticed it in burgundy type colors, but printing unidirectional fixed it. Now we went to print a wrap overnight on 3m Ij180c, and i came in this afternoon to laminate it. The whole wrap had terrible banding! I have to install this by monday afternoon or im toast!

I will upload some pictures and any help would be MUCH appreciated!
Thanks,
Blake.

 

[iSign]

solid colors show banding worse then photos...

how much do you print? every other day? & never saw this before?
what type of files have you been printing last week & the week before?
If i were you I would print small samples of some of the files that have printed successfully in the last 2 weeks... just to see for sure if something has changed since then... or possibly not...

I'm asking because even though I don't claim to know much, I do have the same printer & I get worse banding on solid colors... so I wonder if you are suspecting that something has just happened... or could it be that the printer is more or less in the same condition it was in a month ago, and you just never noticed that large solid colors would have looked like this last month too?

...I guess I'm wondering if you are due for new print heads & have been postponing it because the type of work you've been doing has allowed you to overlook this situation...

how many times have you replaced print heads in 4 years?

I did some wraps & there was large solid colors, I just told the guy take it or leave it.. I had suggested adding a subtle texture to make that solid color less troublesome, but he said no... I told him there would be "tool marks" from the machine passing back & forth every 64th of a inch.. so he was happy with it in the end. I did notice the right side of each print was slightly darker then the left side, so I flipped every other panel to accommodate that...

 

[iSign]

oh, forgot to add...

if being ready to wrap Monday is as critical as you make it sound, I would be soliciting bids for a printer to rush out some prints tonight or in the morning...

losing all your profit sucks... but being "toast" can be even worse for business in the long run...

 

[artbot]

that does look like starvation. first determine which color it is. print large sections of c m y and k separately. see if some are banded and some very solid. do the test blocks in unidirectional only to eliminate lawn mower based artifacts.

after that there's lots of experience on this board on diagnosing where and why the issue is happening.

 

[Daigleb]

iSign: We have printed this same identicle wrap about a year ago with no banding what so-ever. We pretty much print on this machine most of the day mon-friday. We have had the yellow and magenta printheads replaced in the past year along with one of the dampers. We tried printing a sign that we printed 2 months ago (it was still upfront customer never came for it)and it looked fine then. We used our same profile and it now printed with banding.

artbot: We did print a sample of cmyk in bidirectional and the banding showed in all colors.. I wanna say black looked a tad bit worse then the rest..

 

[artbot]

what's the temperature in the print area.

also do a test print and when you see the print really lightening up hit "remote" pause the printer for a minute. mark exactly the paused point on your media. let the pumps do there normal phase that they do during pause and then unpause. let it print about six inches.

see if pausing the printer changes quality of the print. and get back to us.

 

[Daigleb]

Artbot: We tried the pausing of the print and resuming but the quality does not change. Temp of the room is about 72.. humidity im not sure about (in florida so probably high!)

We bit the bullet and have a tech comming in today to check it out. I will sure update yall if he figures out whats wrong.

 

[Freese]

What happens when you try to adjust the media comp?

 

[signswi]

Weird that a test draw would "look fine" but the media comp bars would not be solid. They should look normal if your black head doesn't have any clogged nozzles.

How are you profiling? When was the last time you checked the ink limits on the profile you're using with that media and/or relinearized?

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I just went through with that same problem with my JV3 160sp for the pass month, after talking with a tech this is what they had me do.

It turned out to be the clear encoder strip and the sensor.

And this is how they told me to do it

First turn your front power switch off, then the one on the back of the machine,then unplug it and make sure all the power is out of the machine by pressing your on/off button on the front of your printer.

Now remove the plastic cover from your print heads, remove the up/down lever that lowers your head height adjustment.
Now you will see 2 screws that hold the sensor that rides along your clear encorder stip, loosen them 2 screws and carefully remove the sensor, take a lint free paper towel and fold it a couple of times and dip it in 60% to 80% alcohol and clean the sensor, just run the paper towel with alcohol between the the U of the sensor, then wait about 5 minutes and reinstall it carefully not scraching your encoder strip and make sure the sensor is leveled.

Then put your lever back on, then the cover and power up your printer, should be printing back to normal. Also make sure you clean any ink that might be on your clear encoder strip with alcohol.

Hope this works for you as it do for me.

 

[Freese]

I just went through with that same problem with my JV3 160sp for the pass month, after talking with a tech this is what they had me do.

It turned out to be the clear encoder strip and the sensor.

And this is how they told me to do it

First turn your front power switch off, then the one on the back of the machine,then unplug it and make sure all the power is out of the machine by pressing your on/off button on the front of your printer.

Now remove the plastic cover from your print heads, remove the up/down lever that lowers your head height adjustment.
Now you will see 2 screws that hold the sensor that rides along your clear encorder stip, loosen them 2 screws and carefully remove the sensor, take a lint free paper towel and fold it a couple of times and dip it in 60% to 80% alcohol and clean the sensor, just run the paper towel with alcohol between the the U of the sensor, then wait about 5 minutes and reinstall it carefully not scraching your encoder strip and make sure the sensor is leveled.

Then put your lever back on, then the cover and power up your printer, should be printing back to normal. Also make sure you clean any ink that might be on your clear encoder strip with alcohol.

Hope this works for you as it do for me.

Yes, the encoder strip can cause problems. Be careful with the alcohol you use, too strong and it will damage it.

Good tip.

 

[signswi]

Interesting, I wouldn't have guessed encoder strip for that particular issue. Still think the OP should carefully check the black head if the media comp strips aren't printing well.

 

[Freese]

Interesting, I wouldn't have guessed encoder strip for that particular issue. Still think the OP should carefully check the black head if the media comp strips aren't printing well.

I wouldn't put that in front of the head issue, but sometimes the encoder strip is overlooked.

 

[missinglink]

Replace your damps and pumps. If it's an ink starving issue, the damps on that head are probably clogged.

 

[Daigleb]

Well we had a tech come in, and come to find out there is a little deflection in the black and cyan printheads and they need to be replaced. yikes! Also our vacuum suction is going out along with our heater!

We've decided to work with it until we can save up enough for a new jv33.

Thanks for all the support and advice!

p.s. We cleaned the encoder sensor and it actually did help some of the banding, but theres still the banding from the 2 shotty print heads.

 

[Freese]

Well we had a tech come in, and come to find out there is a little deflection in the black and cyan printheads and they need to be replaced. yikes! Also our vacuum suction is going out along with our heater!

We've decided to work with it until we can save up enough for a new jv33.

Thanks for all the support and advice!

p.s. We cleaned the encoder sensor and it actually did help some of the banding, but theres still the banding from the 2 shotty print heads.

Good to hear you found the culprit.

Which capping station do you have, the one with the removable screens or the newer one thats more of a one-piece design.

 

[haribo578]

had the same problems meself just about to give that sensor a clean and see what happens!!!!

 

[Rooster]

Use a higher number of passes to get rid of the banding. If I have something that bands on 8 pass I'll use 16 pass instead and the banding goes away. It will lay down a smoother dot pattern if you have missing or deflected nozzles as well.