sc 500 printing dark

[garleness]

First let me say thanks to all the members with old posts on cj-500 to sc-500 machines. I recently revived one from the dead. It had been sitting for over 6months with ink in it. Roland dealer said it would cost 5 to 8 k to get it rolling again! I fixed it for $150 with all of the great advice on this site. Great for a Noobie

However I still have some slight banding (test patterns have 1 or 2 blanks but I had nothing before im assuming I have to recheck alignment but wanted to run some ink and check functions first) and when I print pictures that are high quality they seem to be extremely dark I am using flex imaging 8, I set colour choice to us web coated (swop)v2

I do have a link to roland profiles but have not downloaded them or installed them, I did see mention of colour choice software but also read to just use flexi because it was better?

Also the vinyl I'm using is white semigloss with grey glue, no brand name on it and it came with the printer. Is there any way to tell what type of vinyl it is. might even be wrap vinyl, I cant ask the previous owner because she has past

I also seen that I have a check in the use embedded icc profile area.

any and all help is greatly appreciated

 

[sfr table hockey]

The biggest thing is what ink you plan to be using. I would suggest using Rolands EcoSol Max inks, not because of the profiles from Roland but because I have some made profiles with that ink. Their ink does not dry up in the heads near as easily as other 3rd party inks might and in the long run may save a pile of issues.

I thought using the Roland profiles would be the way to go but for things like photo's where you can't just change a color number in flexi to match what you want, you need a good profile to get good color. Also the media white point will determine if you can use one profile for a few different media and get good results. Also some media needs a lot higher temp on the heaters than others or you will get a grainy look.

Make sure your heads are alligned within that half line like they say in the service manual or better yet bang on and you will get better results yet.

I assume you have a service manual but if not let me know and also what ink you are using. PM (private message) me with your email and if using Roland ink I can send a couple profiles that may work better for you.

 

[Fantazia]

SC-500 is my "quick" printer. After 10 years of working and a complete service (heads, pump, capping, etc) I still use this machine every day next to VS-640. Why? It is easy to set-up, ideal for cutting, good for basic printings (banners etc) even slow. But, I stil use Roland inks, no problem with them. With ColorChoice and its profiles works good for me.