Need Help Roland VS 640 - Printing lighter all of a sudden

[bmortvedt]

Printing has been normal until yesterday when we noticed the colors of a job we print daily for a local manufacturer were all lighter.

I can't say there was an event that may have contributed but there may have been some build up to this result. We've been having issues where the first print of the day would be missing a color and we'd have to stop and restart and the print would continue without issue for the rest of the day. Same issue if the machine rested for a few hours and started again we might have the issue again. Not always though.

I'm attaching images of what our test prints show. The right test is what we have since the issue began and you'd say it looks normal until you place it next to the test on the left. We achieved the left test after placing cleaning solution in the cap station and performing a few powerful cleans.

Eventually, we printed a small image and the color came out correct. We went to print the manufacturer job we first had the issue with and that came out with the wrong color. The color appears lighter than normal or less dense. Similar to the test prints I've included.

All colors are printing lighter and we're looking for advice to fix. Thanks!

 

[Solventinkjet]

It may just be the lighting but those don't look like the same vinyl. Were they both printed on the same roll? Maybe it''s a material issue. The fact that it's happening in the test print rules out profile issues. Have you switched ink brands recently?

 

[bmortvedt]

It may just be the lighting but those don't look like the same vinyl. Were they both printed on the same roll? Maybe it''s a material issue. The fact that it's happening in the test print rules out profile issues. Have you switched ink brands recently?

I thought they were the same material. However, the right side, the lighter print we're having the issue is on the 3M IJ180c. The other left side print is 3M series 50 white cut vinyl. My coworker printed on the 50 series to save material.

We did find that we are seeing different results on other materials.

The inks are not Roland - we know - but we haven't had any issues.

This morning we test printed on 4 different materials. Briteline Gloss, 3M 50 series, a remnant roll of IJ180c, and the new roll of IJ180c. We did a test print, a powerful clean, a test print again. Nothing dropped out. We printed a logo to test since that is the color we need to have right for the manufacturer. We printed on the Briteline and looked good (not light), printed on the 50 series: good, printed on the old roll of 180c and was good, and finally, the new roll of 180c printed out lighter.

Have there been issues with the 3M material causing print issues? Seems like it shouldn't happen.

Thank you!

 

[bmortvedt]

The group image shows the 50 series, 180 #3 is the remnant roll, and 180 #2 is the new roll of IJ180c we received last week.

You might see in the 180 #2 that the black has white showing through and, if you can notice in the group photo, the yellow is a bit lighter.

Any help or suggestions are welcome.

Brian