UCJV300 Random blurry prints

[justjust89]

Hi Members

Been pulling my hair out with this machine again, hoping one of you kind souls from the community can assist.

So recently I have been experiencing very random behaviour when printing, we generally print small stickers tiled, not just one large print.

Across the print at random some artwork will print blurry but others on the sheet are fine with no problems? the quality seems to drop in and out at random across a sheet of printing?

Also experiencing random drops of black ink or black smears

Have done all the usual cleans, nozzle wash etc

Any advice or expertise would be very much appreciated

 

[Solventinkjet]

The media is probably rippling. Make sure your vacuum is set to the highest setting and your pinch rollers are spaced as evenly as possible. Also, make sure all the pinch rollers are within the valid area marched by the little triangles. If they aren't over the grit part of the roller, they will cause buckling as well.

 

[justjust89]

The media is probably rippling. Make sure your vacuum is set to the highest setting and your pinch rollers are spaced as evenly as possible. Also, make sure all the pinch rollers are within the valid area marched by the little triangles. If they aren't over the grit part of the roller, they will cause buckling as well.

Thank you for the speedy response. The vacuum is always on the highest setting, and pinch rollers are evenly aligned and spaced to the correct grit roller positions. Please see attached images for reference, currently printing on 1200 x 1200 setting but also happens on 1200 x 600, print head is set to medium height. I noticed this only recently in the last week. I did change over to a 90micron vinyl, which I was previously using a 75micron

 

[justjust89]

It's almost like a ghosting effect on the images, some places can be worse than others

 

[Solventinkjet]

It looks like you're getting head strikes once in a while. That mostly points to buckling as well. Your new media might just not work well in this machine. I'd try printing on the old media and see if it still prints well to confirm. You might need to print in high head height or attach the leading edge of the media to the take up to help pull the media flat on the platen.

 

[justjust89]

Thanks again for the fast assistance, I appreciate the advice and will give this a go, schoolboy error here, I guess it should have been the first process of elimination
I'll come back here and update once I've run some tests on the old media

Many thanks

 

[Solventinkjet]

Thanks again for the fast assistance, I appreciate the advice and will give this a go, schoolboy error here, I guess it should have been the first process of elimination
I'll come back here and update once I've run some tests on the old media

Many thanks

No problem! It could be a printer issue but I like to stick with the simplest solutions first. And it doesn't look like an encoder issue to me although these symptoms somewhat match an encoder issue.

 

[justjust89]

OK fingers crossed, I did wonder if it was the encoder, I cleaned gently I have noticed some small kind of smears on the encoder in a couple of areas which do not seem to clean even after wiping so potentially could be encoder if media change does not solve?

 

[Solventinkjet]

It's definitely a possibility. Encoder issues tend to show up in the same spot every time and tend to have a stairstep pattern associated with them but they can also act unpredictably as well.

 

[justjust89]

Looking at the encoder on further inspection, I think this may be the issue but we will still test the other media to find out. If it does happen to be the encoder is there anyone who knows of a UK supplier for a replacement, and any advice on the steps to changing this part