XC-540 printing fuzzy square with a good test print/nozzle check

[davinciimports]

Any experience this before?
Any thoughts?

 

[lgroth]

Is it doing it on all colors, or just one? If it's all check and make sure head height isn't set on high. Every once in a while after running thicker material I forget to lower it, start printing something else...

 

[davinciimports]

The blue square seems to print good and all of our other orders are printing fine.
Seems to just be this one particular print with red.​

 

[lgroth]

Check the magenta head and see if there is anything on it, a piece of fuzz stuck to it can give you a great test print but really leave prints looking bad... Also could just be oversaturated for the media, some color make-ups do that on certain media... Try a sample of that color on 16 pass and see if it helps.

 

[P Wagner]

What you are seeing is the ink coalescing (commonly called bleeding) between the red and black. This means that the ink dots are not setting and are instead merging and flowing into each other, in a similar fashion as drops of rain on the roof of a car as it begins to rain. Eventually, as more drops fall, the drops merge together, gain volume, and move off of the surface in a rivulet.
The same thing is happening in the area where the red ink (really Y+M ink) and the black ink (probably K+CMY inks) are merging and bleeding together before the dots are set. To control this, you need to do one (or more) of the following:

a) Increase the temperature of the media in the print zone (increases the evaporation rate of the carrier).
b) Reduce the amount of primary ink channels (CMYK).
c) Slow down the carriage speed.
d) Slow down the media feed speed.

Depending on the RIP that you are using, you should be able to perform A,C,D without re-profiling, but B would require a new media profile be built.

 

[davinciimports]

Thanks. Trying out the ideas. Very appreciated.

 

[davinciimports]

Looks like we need to try B tomorrow. No fuzz on the heads either. Not sure what a "16 pass" is.

My artist wanted me to mention that this is also a re-order that did not have this issue the last 3 times it was printed.

Thanks guys for the help.

 

[Karen-Kang]

Looks like we need to try B tomorrow. No fuzz on the heads either. Not sure what a "16 pass" is.

My artist wanted me to mention that this is also a re-order that did not have this issue the last 3 times it was printed.

Thanks guys for the help.

It it the clog in printhead inside, head filter,head filter net.
solution:replace new head or replace the head filter or filter net.

 

[Ragnabrok]

Black is bleeding into the red, but black or red alone seem to have no issues. Seems like a profile/media issue. Try a different profile, or a different roll of vinyl.

 

[davinciimports]

Tried everything except for changing the head. I sent a sample to my customer and they are okay with the print being a little fuzzy.
Our team here does not think it would be the head since dozens of other orders are printing perfectly.
Even a black circle with red text prints perfect. We did try remaking the artwork and had the same fuzzy result.

I added a test print image because it was not a perfect test print today but I didn't think it looked that bad.

Does anybody else think I should have a tech install a new K head?

(forgot to mention that I did try new media and a profile. The only thing I have not tried was the 16 pass because I do not know what that is)

 

[Solventinkjet]

Has the humidity spiked in your area recently? I would take a reading of the humidity in your shop to see if it is within range of the printer specs. If the humidity is too high, it makes the ink take much longer to dry which results in the ink pooling and mixing. A perfect environment will allow an ink dot to almost completely dry an instant after it lands on the vinyl. If the humidity doesn't allow it to dry fast enough, you get the issue you're having right now. Normally I wouldn't suspect humidity right away but the advice in this thread that you have already tried is spot on. Also, the fact that you have printed these same jobs before without issue could indicate that the weather is affecting your printing environment because nothing else has changed.

 

[wunder]

Clean your Encoder Stripe + Encoder Reader (Sensor)
After thats realign BIDI Calibration and all will works.

 

[stevesign]

I agree with Castek Resources we had the same issue with a 100/100/100/100% cmyk Black, and a 100/100 Magenta and Yellow.

Slow down the head speed, increase the temperature, and make the Black 100% K that will fix the issue.

 

[davinciimports]

After paying a tech we discovered all we needed to do was increase the Scan Interval to 1.5 seconds.
This option is under the Sub Menu ---> Scan Interval

We did try slowing the print speed which did not help but the tech said the Scan Interval will keep the head at the ends of the printer for a short period of time to give the ink a little more time to dry before applying more ink.

So the recommendation was actually correct to slow down the print speed but by using this menu option instead of just using High Quality or Uni-direction or our slow print method.

Thank you to everyone for the suggestions and I hope this may help other people.