Need Help Roland TrueVIS SG-300 Grainy Prints

[93Works]

Hey guys how's it going? I bought a SG-300 a few weeks ago and now that I'm printing noticed that some colors are coming out grainy. Its worse on the color green and gray but present in most colors. I was given a couple of steps, by my dealer, to try and fix this but in the end made no difference. I recalibrated Bi-Directional printing, it was off by a little bit, but that didn't help(i also tried printing uni-directional and it made no difference) and I raised the print heat up to 110F (dryer is at 114F.) In the end I went back to my dealer and was told that the printer will always print grainy, that there's no printer that prints like solid paint. The thing is, its very noticeable so I have my doubts and I'm hoping this machine prints better quality that it currently is.

A little info that might help: I output as PDF 1.7 (acrobat 8) with no compression and 400DPI rasterization, anything vector stays vector. I work with Pantone coated swatches in CMYK/8 US SWOP v2 and sometimes RGB/8 sRGB IEC61966-2.1 depending on the content I'm provided with. The materials I've printed on are Orajet 3640 and Roland ESM-GCVP and their appropriate profiles. The material doesn't make a difference, I've even tried switching the profiles around. I've tried Max Impact and overprinting, overprinting helped a little but it wastes more ink and and changes the shade of the colors. Any tips/advice please?

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

Clearly your alignments are off. Bias, Vertical, Horizontal, and service level bi-directionals need redone

 

[93Works]

Clearly your alignments are off. Bias, Vertical, Horizontal, and service level bi-directionals need redone

That's not good at all, the machine is only 3 weeks old. Thank you for the info, are there any test print other than the one I currently have, that can prove individually that each alignment is off? Because my dealer already waived it off as operating under normal thresholds. Or can I contact Roland and have a new technician adjust everything under warranty?

 

[player]

Get a different technician. You will have to get into service mode to do it yourself, but after buying it, get them to do it for sure.

 

[93Works]

Get a different technician. You will have to get into service mode to do it yourself, but after buying it, get them to do it for sure.

I'll give Roland a call tomorrow, hopefully there's a technician close by. Do you believe this is covered by warranty or will I have a hefty bill to deal with after everything is set up?

 

[player]

I'll give Roland a call tomorrow, hopefully there's a technician close by. Do you believe this is covered by warranty or will I have a hefty bill to deal with after everything is set up?

Warranty for sure. Or return the defective unit for a full refund.

 

[93Works]

Warranty for sure. Or return the defective unit for a full refund.

I also noticed on the very first weekly manual cleaning that that there are little chunks of ink around the right print head where the cap tops touch. Is that normal? I've done manual cleanings about 6 times and there's always at least a little strip.

These are the state of the right print head before every manual cleaning. The left head has never had any sort of chunks or debris.

I took a picture of both left and right just right now, and as always the right print head it bad. This is after cleaning it earlier today.
I almost looks as if the ink turns gooey and is dragged along when the cap top is released off of the print head, like stepping on gum.

I was told this was also normal and just needed to get a swab with cleaning solution and place it over the gunk. Seeing as the manual say to not do that, I didn't take the advice and hoped the cap top would deal with it.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

The heads look fine. That's just the area where the captop is attaching to the head. The wiper should clean that off, but it looks ok.
Where are you located?

 

[ewded]

I had the exact same problem when I bought my SG540, tech came ~10 times and calibrated the hell out of it without ANY improvement. In addition mine had banding too on some colors. So I returned my machine and bought a mimaki cjv150 which is perfect for my needs. (Oh, and cutting was also off on the SG)

 

[CanuckSigns]

If your tech is telling you those prints are acceptable, you need to find a new tech ASAP!! We had a VG640 for about a year, the printer is perfectly capable of printing solid colours that look like coloured vinyl, so don't let the tech tell you otherwise, if you can't get anywhere with your tech contact Roland directly.

As for the goop on the heads, we had the same issue on ours, I called the ink-cicles cause the would hang like icicles off the print head and eventually pick up a hair and drag it across the print.

I was told it's perfectly normal, but it was happening so often I refuse to believe it, I would do a manual clean, run a job and after an hour I would have a ruined print from this.

This is one of the many reasons we don't run a Roland any more.

 

[93Works]

The heads look fine. That's just the area where the captop is attaching to the head. The wiper should clean that off, but it looks ok.
Where are you located?

I had the exact same problem when I bought my SG540, tech came ~10 times and calibrated the hell out of it without ANY improvement. In addition mine had banding too on some colors. So I returned my machine and bought a mimaki cjv150 which is perfect for my needs. (Oh, and cutting was also off on the SG)

If your tech is telling you those prints are acceptable, you need to find a new tech ASAP!! We had a VG640 for about a year, the printer is perfectly capable of printing solid colours that look like coloured vinyl, so don't let the tech tell you otherwise, if you can't get anywhere with your tech contact Roland directly.

As for the goop on the heads, we had the same issue on ours, I called the ink-cicles cause the would hang like icicles off the print head and eventually pick up a hair and drag it across the print.

I was told it's perfectly normal, but it was happening so often I refuse to believe it, I would do a manual clean, run a job and after an hour I would have a ruined print from this.

This is one of the many reasons we don't run a Roland any more.

C5, should I set the periodic cleaning to a lower timer? Its currently set to 160 minutes. I'm located in Jurupa Valley, California.

I haven't noticed any banding although the contour cutting is just a little off on stickers sometimes, it does get pretty bad on HTV though. I really hope there's no need to exchange the machine, I really wouldn't like to waste money having to move things around.

I'm going to do that Canuck, this isn't the first time I have problems with equipment bought from them. Last time it was a heat press that took about 10 or so months to fix. As for the goop, it hasn't affected my printing just yet, but I do fear its going to affect the life span of the print head, especially because sometimes I find the goop getting closer to the center.

This is some pretty disheartening news guys, I hope I get lucky and the tech manages to fix it, but it looks like there might be a long road ahead of me with a bunch of tech visits. I will keep updating this until it's 100% dealt with. Thank you all so much for the info and help!

 

[player]

C5, should I set the periodic cleaning to a lower timer? Its currently set to 160 minutes. I'm located in Jurupa Valley, California.

I haven't noticed any banding although the contour cutting is just a little off on stickers sometimes, it does get pretty bad on HTV though. I really hope there's no need to exchange the machine, I really wouldn't like to waste money having to move things around.

I'm going to do that Canuck, this isn't the first time I have problems with equipment bought from them. Last time it was a heat press that took about 10 or so months to fix. As for the goop, it hasn't affected my printing just yet, but I do fear its going to affect the life span of the print head, especially because sometimes I find the goop getting closer to the center.

This is some pretty disheartening news guys, I hope I get lucky and the tech manages to fix it, but it looks like there might be a long road ahead of me with a bunch of tech visits. I will keep updating this until it's 100% dealt with. Thank you all so much for the info and help!

You would rather put up with this crap machine for the next 5+ years than spend a day swapping out that dud for a good one? All the warning signs are there. Cut your losses and get a unit that works out of the box.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

Periodic cleaning has nothing to do with how often the printer runs cleanings. It only applies if you are printing a single file that takes longer than the 160 minutes. You can set it to "job" and then it will do a cleaning after every individual job you print, but that will use a ton of extra ink. As long as you are doing your maintenance and cleaning the sides of the heads with the foam swab and cleaning solution once a week or so, it should be fine.

 

[93Works]

You would rather put up with this crap machine for the next 5+ years than spend a day swapping out that dud for a good one? All the warning signs are there. Cut your losses and get a unit that works out of the box.

The thing is that it would be a very big loss, at least to me. I'd have to pay a 10% restocking fee, take the loss on the install fees, and pay to have the machine shipped back. Plus whatever jobs lost and down time I have to deal with. I'll will seriously look into it though, if the technician can't fix it 100% on the first try. Also, I only plan on having this machine for about 10 months before I upgrade to a 54 inch printer.

Periodic cleaning has nothing to do with how often the printer runs cleanings. It only applies if you are printing a single file that takes longer than the 160 minutes. You can set it to "job" and then it will do a cleaning after every individual job you print, but that will use a ton of extra ink. As long as you are doing your maintenance and cleaning the sides of the heads with the foam swab and cleaning solution once a week or so, it should be fine.

Ah okay, yeah I do the manual cleaning about 3-4 days apart since I'm printing a bunch.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

You're by LA, so is Midwest your dealer and Tech or who did you use?

 

[93Works]

You're by LA, so is Midwest your dealer and Tech or who did you use?

I went through McLogan I've been with them every since I started pretty much

 

[player]

The thing is that it would be a very big loss, at least to me. I'd have to pay a 10% restocking fee, take the loss on the install fees, and pay to have the machine shipped back. Plus whatever jobs lost and down time I have to deal with. I'll will seriously look into it though, if the technician can't fix it 100% on the first try. Also, I only plan on having this machine for about 10 months before I upgrade to a 54 inch printer.


Ah okay, yeah I do the manual cleaning about 3-4 days apart since I'm printing a bunch.

Screw the 10% restocking fee. They cannot sell you a broken printer as 100% working, then say you owe use 10% restocking fee. You should get all fees, charges and money back from this dud. Period. Take them to small claims court. Be sure to meticulously document the issues, and start recording all conversations. (If it is a 1 party consent state. If not tell them you are recording. Everything needs to be documented.) They will jerk you around until your warranty is up, then they will say now pay us travel at $100 per hour there and back and $150 per hour minimum 3 hours. And they still won't get it working. Seriously.

 

[player]

The next printer I buy I will not pay 1 red cent until it is in my shop tested thoroughly and working 100%. I will put the money in escrow until they fulfill the contract.

These guys are taking tens of thousands of dollars and acting like shifty used car salesmen.

 

[93Works]

The next printer I buy I will not pay 1 red cent until it is in my shop tested thoroughly and working 100%. I will put the money in escrow until they fulfill the contract.

These guys are taking tens of thousands of dollars and acting like shift used car salesmen.

Hopefully I don't need to go as far that, I believe if I seriously talk to them or a technician writes off the machine as defect, they'll refund my money. We'll see on Monday. Any clue as to who I should contact though? The only phone number Roland seems to have is a sales number, do I just call that? Or can anybody recommend a trustworthy technician in the SoCal Jurupa area or close proximity that will work under warranty please?

 

[player]

Hopefully I don't need to go as far that, I believe if I seriously talk to them or a technician writes off the machine as defect, they'll refund my money. We'll see on Monday. Any clue as to who I should contact though? The only phone number Roland seems to have is a sales number, do I just call that? Or can anybody recommend a trustworthy technician in the SoCal Jurupa area or close proximity that will work under warranty please?

If you don't play hardball they will string you along forever. You should get a replacement machine ASAP or a refund of all your money. No more techs coming in. Plus compensation for your lost time and business.