Need Help White Ink Printing Weird JFX200-2513EX

[Adam Vreeke]

I have been running a JFX200-2513 for about 7 years now with Rasterlink 6. We use A LOT of white ink here and do a fair amount of backlit work. When I print white on the base model when printing CMYK and White, there is a gradual gradient buildup of white when laying down. We liked this machine because of that and it helped reduce the lawnmowing effect that you get with some machines.

Since we had great success with the baseline machine and we are getting more work, we added in a JFX200-2513EX right next to the normal machine (just had it setup about 2 days ago). This is where my problems started. When printing white ink, it does not have that gradual gradient buildup of white when laying down. it puts it down in strips and has the lawnmowing effect, as well as very weird finished pattern on it.

I have played with different icc profiles, played with all the MAPS2 patterns and smoothing levels, halftone level options in quality tab of RL and nothing seems to fix it. I looked at some online videos of white printing and saw they had the gradient printing. I have a feeling there is an easy solution to this that I am just missing. I have attached some pictures for reference.

We also had to switch up to Rasterlink 7 instead of 6 so I can run both machines. Now when I print to the old machine via RL7 it will print the white with the same old white gradient, so I know I have a machine setting to deal with.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Solventinkjet]

You may have done this but just to put it out there, make sure you adjusted the MAPS2 settings specifically for the white. They separate the settings for the color, white, and clear in the menus so if you just did the color settings, it wouldn't affect the white.

Also, make sure your lamp positions are set to 190mm if your white layer is on top of the color. If the color is on top of the white, change them to 65mm. If they're in the wrong position, it can cure weird.

 

[Adam Vreeke]

You may have done this but just to put it out there, make sure you adjusted the MAPS2 settings specifically for the white. They separate the settings for the color, white, and clear in the menus so if you just did the color settings, it wouldn't affect the white.

Also, make sure your lamp positions are set to 190mm if your white layer is on top of the color. If the color is on top of the white, change them to 65mm. If they're in the wrong position, it can cure weird.

Lamps are in the correct position.

For the MAPS2, that was my main problem I think. I did not see a white option. I only saw COLOR, SPOT, and CLEAR. I did not change the clear at all, would this possibly also change the white?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Lamps are in the correct position.

For the MAPS2, that was my main problem I think. I did not see a white option. I only saw COLOR, SPOT, and CLEAR. I did not change the clear at all, would this possibly also change the white?

The spot option is what adjusts the white. If you don't have clear, you don't need to worry about the clear option. Does your nozzle check print 100% of the nozzles?

 

[Adam Vreeke]

Ok, I was changing the spot, and didn't see a difference. Is there a Pattern that is recommended? Yes nozzle check is perfect

 

[Solventinkjet]

Ok, I was changing the spot, and didn't see a difference. Is there a Pattern that is recommended? Yes nozzle check is perfect

I don't have a ton of experience with it to be honest. Usually the auto setting works for most. I would definitely contact your dealer and see what they say. To me it seems like the head might not be firing properly and might need adjustment. I've seen heads do weird things when the firmware isn't up to date as well. But if you're seeing that it's only printing full passes instead of the gradient like it should be when using the MAPS2 settings, it could just be those settings need to be tweaked for sure.

 

[Adam Vreeke]

I found the solution to this, in case any one stumbles on this in the future. On my old machine I was running Rasterlink 6 with older ICC profiles. The profiles had different defaults to them, and I was able to get the white to print with a gradient by increasing the pass count. I guess with 2 CMYK heads in the EX, Mimaki halved the default pass counts on the ICC profile. The white gradient did not print any different at the 300 x 450 level between the 6 pass and 12 pass level. The change only happened at 600 x 600 + level with a 16 pass instead of the 8 pass.