Oce' 480GT Banding on Roll to Roll

[MaxiKyle]

Hey Guys,

We have an Arizona 480GT with IJC258 ink set.
While printing using the roll function, we are having some major issues with banding.
Seems to be way better and not very noticeable when printing the same image on the flatbed.
Head tests are all perfect before and after I stop the print when I notice it happening.
I thought it might be a lamp issue(which it still may be,) so I replaced them with brand new ones, but it didn't seem to help any.
Printing in Unidirectional does seem to help a decent amount but it is still there if you are looking for it and is definitely not a long term solution.
I've tried a bunch of different materials too, Gloss Vinyls(IJ180,IJ40) and Matte Vinyls(IJ3555 and DPM-PWS) both seem to be similar with paper stock seemingly printing pretty normally.
Also the banding pattern seems to be pretty random, no every second line is glossy or anything like that. Might go a foot with no banding then go a foot with a ton of banding.

Has anyone encountered something like this before?
Any insight would be great!

PS. Sorry about picture quality and the banding may not look like much from the angles I shot them at, but when you look straight-on at them it is pretty obvious.

 

[API]

Taking a guess. If it seems better uni-directional and a random banding problem bi-directional, my first guess would be shutter sticking. When you replaced the bulbs, did you notice one shutter moving more freely than the other? Had a shutter sticking open on ours the other day. Just before it stuck open, I was having a similar problem. You could also play with the tension settings. Might be something there. Last guess might be that you need an alignment on the roll to roll. Good luck and hope this helps.

 

[MaxiKyle]

Thanks for the ideas.

I've definitely mucked around with an array of tension strengths. Doesn't seem to matter too much.

I just removed the two lamp housings and just rotated the wheel that is responsible for opening/closing the shutters.
Pretty hard to tell, but they both seem fairly smooth with no stickiness.

I'll get the tech to bring me an extra lamp housing(good luck) to just try rotating one out until I hopefully attain the result I want and can pinpoint a bad housing/shutter.

If that doesn't work, I'll definitely get him to do the alignment.