Need Help Roland XR-640 - Help with overspray issues

[White Haus]

Our 8 year old XR-640 recently started printing pretty lousy and given the fact that we had a few nozzles out we thought a head replacement would solve the issue. No more crisp lines and were experiencing more banding than we had in the past.

After having a tech replace head A, there is no visible improvement in print quality. The head actually had a dent in the bottom which I found was really strange as we've never had a catastrophic head strike that I can remember.

I've attached some pictures of the current test print (before and after a choke clean - not all nozzles were firing right away after head was installed) as well as a close up of the overspray and streaking.

I've also attached a picture of a label that we've printed thousands of times before for comparison. New current version on top, old good version below.

Overspray seems to only be happening with black - if you run other colors it isn't really present but overall print quality is just crap.

We're running Nazdar inks (CMYKLcLmLk) but have done so for 5+ years without any issues.

Our shop is climate controlled and kept at around 22 C and around 50% humidity - we do have ducts right above the printer (15' up) and I'm starting to wonder if somehow the cold dry air blowing above is somehow responsible, although the printer has always been in this position.

I've tried cleaning encoder strip although I'm not sure how good of a job I did. No visible change to print quality.

Any ideas? Our tech is stumped and I'm prepared to replace head B but neither one of us are convinced it will help.

We've been down for almost 2 weeks and at this point if we can't get it back up and running I'll be looking into Epson printers.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/advice/consideration.

 

[garyroy]

Before a head replacement I would do some static control.

Static in Wide Format Printing - StopStatic

Wide Format Printing Defects caused by static. SOLUTIONS: The solution is the StaticElastic™. The StaticElastic™ removes static from flexible and rigid materials before they enter the print head area. A Wide...

stopstatic.com

I'm sure you also did a manual cleaning of the cap tops and around the print heads. That's basic over spray control 101.
If not, do it asap, that clears up our similar issues all the time.

If I couldn't solve it, I'd call a remote help technician. Jim Hancock is back on line, I spoke with him the other day.
He's in South Florida, I'm in N. Georgia. He charges me by the hour on the phone line, and has helped solve my problems. Very convenient.
561-441-6658-Jim Hancock.
Being down for 2 weeks is a killer. If you think Epson's a solution, go for it, but they have their problems too.
That XR-640 should run another 5 years no problem, they are pretty much bullet proof. It's a beast machine.

 

[White Haus]

Before a head replacement I would do some static control.

Static in Wide Format Printing - StopStatic

Wide Format Printing Defects caused by static. SOLUTIONS: The solution is the StaticElastic™. The StaticElastic™ removes static from flexible and rigid materials before they enter the print head area. A Wide...

stopstatic.com

I'm sure you also did a manual cleaning of the cap tops and around the print heads. That's basic over spray control 101.
If not, do it asap, that clears up our similar issues all the time.

If I couldn't solve it, I'd call a remote help technician. Jim Hancock is back on line, I spoke with him the other day.
He's in South Florida, I'm in N. Georgia. He charges me by the hour on the phone line, and has helped solve my problems. Very convenient.
561-441-6658-Jim Hancock.
Being down for 2 weeks is a killer. If you think Epson's a solution, go for it, but they have their problems too.
That XR-640 should run another 5 years no problem, they are pretty much bullet proof. It's a beast machine.

Thanks Gary. I did indeed do several manual cleans and print head/cap top/wiper assembly is spotless. Tech even said it's one of the cleanest printers he's seen.

We do actually have some of those stop static elastic things and I put it on the printer and will report back.

There is obviously some kind of static being generated but it's just odd that it would appear now after being in the same environment for a long time.

The other thing I'm going to try is moving the printer away from the ducts and see if it makes any difference.

Tech is supposed to come back tomorrow so hopefully he can find a solution.

 

[mikebamboo]

On the label example you shared it sort of looks like the difference between a low and high head height print. I've had similar results (blurry/overspray) after I've forgotten to lower the head height after printing a banner and then printing on a vinyl sticker afterwards. Just checking to see if maybe the head height has been changed?

 

[White Haus]

On the label example you shared it sort of looks like the difference between a low and high head height print. I've had similar results (blurry/overspray) after I've forgotten to lower the head height after printing a banner and then printing on a vinyl sticker afterwards. Just checking to see if maybe the head height has been changed?

It does indeed look like head height is set to high, but it's not. Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[Solventinkjet]

It looks like the black is over spraying and the black nozzle check is deflecting so that's probably the answer. The tech can try to clean and recover those deflecting nozzles but if they can't, you'll probably need a new head if you can't live with the over spray.

 

[White Haus]

It looks like the black is over spraying and the black nozzle check is deflecting so that's probably the answer. The tech can try to clean and recover those deflecting nozzles but if they can't, you'll probably need a new head if you can't live with the over spray.

Ended up replacing Head B as well, back in business with 2 perfect nozzle tests and good quality again. Not a cheap fix but worth it to get us back up and running!

Although I did get some really good pricing on an Epson S60600L.......oh well that will have to wait.