Need Help Roland VG-640 / Ink Starvation?

[lolfailure]

So this issue has cropped up lately with pretty much every large print that has a solid color background, small test prints look fine but when we move to full size we start seeing large faded bands every foot or so. Head test looks fine, cleaning has been done, feed calibration has been done, tried with different heat settings, different materials and profiles, faster speed, slower speed, pretty much every solution for banding or ink starvation I could find on google we have tried short of actually disassembling anything. I've seen some people suggest reverse flushing the lines but we're a little wary about taking anything apart since none of us have experience doing that and the potential for making things worse seems pretty high.

So as a last resort I come here to ask if anyone has any tips? Do we just need to contact our Roland tech at this point?

 

[CanuckSigns]

We have had the same issue on every roland we have ever owned, my solution was to ditch them.

 

[lolfailure]

We have had the same issue on every roland we have ever owned, my solution was to ditch them.

We had that conversation here earlier this week but unfortunately the shop owners just purchased this machine new about a year ago so we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future. :/

 

[CanuckSigns]

does it do this when you print on matte finish vinyls? I have found the matte finish helps hide some of this stuff.

 

[Mainframe]

Well, sometimes, there is a trick to this, do a manual clean, even if you just did one, use a lot of fluid and clean the sides of the heads real good, then go to the cap tops, again, a lot of fluid, and rub the cap tops (all 4 sides) a lot with a really wet swab, the ink dries on the cap top and the heads don't get a good suction to fill before printing, another thing I do is just make sure the base plate that holds the cap tops is free, I just move it back and forth a little, when you clean this machine, the cap tops are everything, the ink dries quickly so you gotta watch for build up on the cap tops, I have had to do a "banding" clean (it's what I call it) 3 times in the last 3 years of owning this machine, the banding doesn't stop or go away until I clean the heck out of the cap tops, I also have heard of a guy putting drops in the lip of the cap tops when he is finished.

Get your head in there and go around those caps like 3 or 4 times, even if you don't see anything, I think the dried ink is the culprit, but I really can't prove it, all I know is this system works for me.


Good luck

 

[Alistair1]

Are these bands of lighter colour perpendicular or parallel to the printhead travel?

 

[lolfailure]

does it do this when you print on matte finish vinyls? I have found the matte finish helps hide some of this stuff.

The matte material hides some of the smaller grainy looking banding but the big dry spots unfortunately still show up.

Well, sometimes, there is a trick to this, do a manual clean, even if you just did one, use a lot of fluid and clean the sides of the heads real good, then go to the cap tops, again, a lot of fluid, and rub the cap tops (all 4 sides) a lot with a really wet swab, the ink dries on the cap top and the heads don't get a good suction to fill before printing, another thing I do is just make sure the base plate that holds the cap tops is free, I just move it back and forth a little, when you clean this machine, the cap tops are everything, the ink dries quickly so you gotta watch for build up on the cap tops, I have had to do a "banding" clean (it's what I call it) 3 times in the last 3 years of owning this machine, the banding doesn't stop or go away until I clean the heck out of the cap tops, I also have heard of a guy putting drops in the lip of the cap tops when he is finished.

Get your head in there and go around those caps like 3 or 4 times, even if you don't see anything, I think the dried ink is the culprit, but I really can't prove it, all I know is this system works for me.


Good luck

Definitely seems logical to me, I will try this today.

Are these bands of lighter colour perpendicular or parallel to the printhead travel?

Parallel.

 

[Scott at Roland]

So this issue has cropped up lately with pretty much every large print that has a solid color background, small test prints look fine but when we move to full size we start seeing large faded bands every foot or so. Head test looks fine, cleaning has been done, feed calibration has been done, tried with different heat settings, different materials and profiles, faster speed, slower speed, pretty much every solution for banding or ink starvation I could find on google we have tried short of actually disassembling anything. I've seen some people suggest reverse flushing the lines but we're a little wary about taking anything apart since none of us have experience doing that and the potential for making things worse seems pretty high.

So as a last resort I come here to ask if anyone has any tips? Do we just need to contact our Roland tech at this point?

View attachment 142786 View attachment 142787 View attachment 142788

Hey there - can you please let me know what your head height setting is? If you are printing in high head height, you may want to try lowering the heads. This will require you to use the media clamps for best results. I've seen this help in some cases, but if it doesn't, please pm me and I will get you routed to the service guys here.

 

[lolfailure]

Hey there - can you please let me know what your head height setting is? If you are printing in high head height, you may want to try lowering the heads. This will require you to use the media clamps for best results. I've seen this help in some cases, but if it doesn't, please pm me and I will get you routed to the service guys here.

In my experience having the head too high just results in a static-y appearance on the print and not the large light bands we're seeing here but in any case we do have it set to low height. It doesn't appear that I can even change it, the Head Height menu gives Low as the only option.

 

[Andy D]

Have you tried adjusting your ink limits in your print profiles? As heads get older they tend to need a higher ink limit to avoid ink starvation.

 

[Andy D]

Also, I'm not sure if it's adjustable on newer printers, but I used to have to set the voltage on a head
when I replaced it and as it got older and inner mechanisms started to wear out, I would increase the voltage.
It has always been my experience that wide horizontal lines where a color drops out and then comes back is either (as stated above) ink limits
or head voltage are too low.

 

[lolfailure]

Well, sometimes, there is a trick to this, do a manual clean, even if you just did one, use a lot of fluid and clean the sides of the heads real good, then go to the cap tops, again, a lot of fluid, and rub the cap tops (all 4 sides) a lot with a really wet swab, the ink dries on the cap top and the heads don't get a good suction to fill before printing, another thing I do is just make sure the base plate that holds the cap tops is free, I just move it back and forth a little, when you clean this machine, the cap tops are everything, the ink dries quickly so you gotta watch for build up on the cap tops, I have had to do a "banding" clean (it's what I call it) 3 times in the last 3 years of owning this machine, the banding doesn't stop or go away until I clean the heck out of the cap tops, I also have heard of a guy putting drops in the lip of the cap tops when he is finished.

Get your head in there and go around those caps like 3 or 4 times, even if you don't see anything, I think the dried ink is the culprit, but I really can't prove it, all I know is this system works for me.


Good luck

Unfortunately this didn't seem to have any effect.

Have you tried adjusting your ink limits in your print profiles? As heads get older they tend to need a higher ink limit to avoid ink starvation.

Will this change the colors? I'm using the profiles downloaded from the Roland site, I'm not sure how to go about editing them. The most perplexing part is that this is a job that has been printed before with no problems, but now this new print needs to match the previous ones.

Also, I'm not sure if it's adjustable on newer printers, but I used to have to set the voltage on a head
when I replaced it and as it got older and inner mechanisms started to wear out, I would increase the voltage.
It has always been my experience that wide horizontal lines where a color drops out and then comes back is either (as stated above) ink limits
or head voltage are too low.

I'm not sure how to do this either but our machine is only about 1 yr old, it doesn't seem like anything should be worn out before the warranty even ends.

 

[Andy D]

Unfortunately this didn't seem to have any effect.
Will this change the colors? I'm using the profiles downloaded from the Roland site, I'm not sure how to go about editing them. The most perplexing part is that this is a job that has been printed before with no problems, but now this new print needs to match the previous ones.
I'm not sure how to do this either but our machine is only about 1 yr old, it doesn't seem like anything should be worn out before the warranty even ends.

1st, in Onyx, find the where the profile you're using is, have onyx copy it and name it something else, there's no reason to change the original profile.
I have found the generic pre-made profiles tend to have the ink levels too high.
I think they do that because they have no idea if it will be used on a new printer or an old printer, so they play it safe and set the ink limit higher for an older printer... the
down side is you will use more ink than needed and what you print is much more likely to stick together if ink touches ink.

I guess the opposite could be true too, if you're putting too much ink down and you have something restricting flow like a kink in the line, it will starve the head....
Either way, Ink limits are very easy to test and adjust & even if it's not your issue, it's the minimum anyone using pre-made icc profiles should do, just youtube it.

Edit to add: excluding extremes, it shouldn't affect color.

 

[lolfailure]

1st, in Onyx, find the where the profile you're using is, have onyx copy it and name it something else, there's no reason to change the original profile.
I have found the generic pre-made profiles tend to have the ink levels too high.
I think they do that because they have no idea if it will be used on a new printer or an old printer, so they play it safe and set the ink limit higher for an older printer... the
down side is you will use more ink than needed and what you print is much more likely to stick together if ink touches ink.

I guess the opposite could be true too, if you're putting too much ink down and you have something restricting flow like a kink in the line, it will starve the head....
Either way, Ink limits are very easy to test and adjust & even if it's not your issue, it's the minimum anyone using pre-made icc profiles should do, just youtube it.

Edit to add: excluding extremes, it shouldn't affect color.

Ah, sorry, we aren't using Onyx, we have Versaworks Dual. My understanding is that you cannot edit the .ICC with versaworks, it uses .RML files that contain the ICC profiles and I don't know where to begin editing that. I tried looking on youtube but I'm not really sure what I'm looking for, we don't have a measurement device for creating profiles.

 

[Andy D]

Ah, sorry, we aren't using Onyx, we have Versaworks Dual. My understanding is that you cannot edit the .ICC with versaworks, it uses .RML files that contain the ICC profiles and I don't know where to begin editing that. I tried looking on youtube but I'm not really sure what I'm looking for, we don't have a measurement device for creating profiles.

You can test and adjust the ink limit in Versaworks (not sure about Dual) Just:
left click media / media explorer / right click on the profile you're using/ copy media / name it something/ select it / click on top right icon (see below)
You don't need a measurement device, it's all by eye. I think you set "Calibration Settings" and then "total Ink Limit" but I could be wrong.

 

[Andy D]

Just curious, below is the ink restriction I set, from what they had set that was close to 100%
What is yours set at?

 

[lolfailure]

Just curious, below is the ink restriction I set, from what they had set that was close to 100%
What is yours set at?

The default for our profile was set to 200% overall, 100% each channel. I turned it down to 100% and it doesn't appear to have changed anything, the test prints looked mostly the same and my job still has the same banding. Should I try lower than 100%? :/

 

[Joe House]

We had that conversation here earlier this week but unfortunately the shop owners just purchased this machine new about a year ago so we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future. :/

This should be under warranty, no? Why not call your dealer and get them on this?

 

[lolfailure]

This should be under warranty, no? Why not call your dealer and get them on this?

It is and we already have, unfortunately there is only one tech for our area and he is fully booked for the next week. In the meantime jobs are piling up so I am here trying to make something work so we don't lose clients over it.

 

[Andy D]

The default for our profile was set to 200% overall, 100% each channel. I turned it down to 100% and it doesn't appear to have changed anything, the test prints looked mostly the same and my job still has the same banding. Should I try lower than 100%? :/

There was a good video that walks you through it but I can't find it.
Going from memory (I'm used to Onyx & only did this in versaworks once)
1. Pick the quality you want to test:

Hit the icon above my arrow above.
print calibration chart test:
find the spot where the color doesn't get any darker, I always go one darker to be safe.

Print the total Ink test, from what I remember this is with all the colors together and you want to pick the place in the chart
where the ink doesn't start to get blotchy and the edges soft: