Room temperature, and ink

[joycessigns]

I’ve been stressing out over my prints coming out with banding or lines. Two particular colours have been giving me grief, a pantone red and a purple. I was ready to buy a new printer thinking my old 2009 versa camm 30 inch has had its days. Well, I got another job with that Pantone red and had to figure something out quick because this is a major customer. I thought the room temperature might be having an effect because it was winter and sure enough I put some heat on to the ink cartridges, and my prints came out perfect. My supply company, for some reason is sending me year old ink which might be contributing to the problem, but I found the solution. I’ll be complaining about the next order if it’s old. One picture is regular quality and the other is print it at high quality.

 

[cornholio]

I have seen it happen with 3rd party ink at a customer. There it was Cyan.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Room temperature affects how the ink jets from the head. So it can definitely affect the way the print looks. Generally printers want to be in about 60 to 80 degree rooms when printing. Also, if the ink is expired, the pigments separate from the solvent and you end up printing deluded ink which will cause it to jet improperly as well.

 

[Gino]

Is that why they tell you to shake the cartridges every so often before putting them in the machine ?? I would think if you don't use your printer often enough, that would have a say in the outcome.

 

[Joe House]

The Roland specs haven't changed much for their solvent printers: 68 to 89.6 °F (20 to 32 °C), humidity: 35 to 80 % RH. If you're operating outside that, you can expect problems.
Their solvent inks are good for 2 years from the date on the cartridge (their "born on" date) assuming everyone is storing the in properly (5 - 30c or 41 - 86f). So, by the time Roland manufactures the ink and warehouses it in Japan and then in the Americas and then it gets to your distributor and finally to you, it's not unusual for it to be 6 months or more into it's 2 year life. If it's only a year old, then you've still got a year and should be able to use up the ink in a year.

Is that why they tell you to shake the cartridges every so often before putting them in the machine ??

That is right, but mostly for color consistency. The ink won't separate enough to really clog things up, but if the pigment load in your ink decreases because of settling, you could print a job today and it won't match the job you printed a month or two ago. But at least your head won't be plugged up.

 

[gnubler]

Humidity can be a factor too. I used to run various printers when I live in the Southwest and constantly had issues. RH in the print room was 16%, so we brought in a large humidifier and it helped.