LEJ-640 FT UV Flatbed problems. Ending my silence

[Brian27]

I've been putting off writing this for a couple months now due to the fact that Roland will definitely read it and probably provide even crappier customer service than they have been, but at this point I'm realizing it doesn't get much worse so to hell with it. This will however be the ultra condensed short version just to see if anyone out there can help me where Roland has failed spectacularly.

There are a number of issues with this printer, but the main one is that it produces really bad vertical banding and bizarre horizontal lines every 5" or so. It's most noticeable with solid colors but it's always there regardless of what is printed. There have been 3 Denco techs and 2 Roland techs fly out to try and figure it out. One of which was the lead product manager for the FT series. None have been able to figure out the problem or improve the result in any way. They've replaced some of the heads, dampers, caps as well as the belt pulleys because they thought it was related to some sort of vibration in the belt.

I personally have tried literally everything since I got the printer in August and have gone well beyond what any normal person would do to try and help find the problem including hundreds of hours of test prints and thousands in wasted ink/media. Since the last Roland tech came out on the 22nd of November and couldn't fix it, they essentially ignored all communications from myself and Denco until they finally came up with a "solution" a month later that supposedly worked for another customer with a brand new 640 who had the same issue. This was merely unplugging one of the uv lamps which is something I already tried moths ago and doesn't work. Plus it requires you to always be in service mode. The banding and defects are still present, they're just masked because the print becomes more glossy because it isn't cured properly.

I detailed all of this in an email to them the same day along with pictures. They then, finally, decided it was time for replacement. They said last week they we're going to send me samples from the printer they'd be replacing it with (their demo) and if I approved them they would move forward. However, yesterday they sent a Denco tech out here to run some test prints to send to Roland. Turns out these tests are simply the same test I ran two weeks ago with the lamp unplugged. Do they not believe it doesnt work? Do they think I'm just an idiot? Does it really matter how my FT prints with their rigged solution? I don't get it.

At this point I fear this printer simply isn't capable of printing without banding. They say this issue is isolated to mine, and one other guy's, but if that was the case, then why not simply replace the printer without making me jump through 4 months of ridiculous hoops for a brand new $80,000 printer? If it's just mine, then why do they need samples of their ghetto rigged solution unless theirs produces the same defects?

I'm at a loss at this point. I would have preferred if they'd just fixed this one considering the ordeal it's going to be setting up a new one and getting rid of this one but I honestly don't think they have a clue as to what is causing it or if can even be fixed at all.

What are your guys' thoughts, ideas, input?

 

[ImpactSignCo]

We have been running our 640FT since September and haven't seen even close to the issues you have attached. All of our prints, solid colors and all, turn out really smooth. Occasionally we get a little banding here and there, but after cleaning the heads and lamps, it goes away. Sounds like you have done everything you can do.

 

[Brian27]

We have been running our 640FT since September and haven't seen even close to the issues you have attached. All of our prints, solid colors and all, turn out really smooth. Occasionally we get a little banding here and there, but after cleaning the heads and lamps, it goes away. Sounds like you have done everything you can do.

While I'm happy to hear yours is working well and you don't have any of the issues I do, it's even more infuriating that it's capable of functioning properly yet Roland has been giving me the run around for months now. Over the last four months I've sent them countless impossibly long and detailed emails showing the tests I've run and the problems produced yet somehow every time they come out the come empty handy (with no parts) for 1-2 days thinking they will magically fix the problem by adjusting a couple bolts and using different settings in Versaworks. All of which I've already exhaustively done.

It just blows my mind that out of 5 techs to come out and all of the bizarre issues they've witnessed first hand, the thought of replacing the main board never even crossed Roland's mind even though it takes literally minutes to install and rule out as a possible problem.

Are you using Versaworks or some other rip software?

 

[ImpactSignCo]

While I'm happy to hear yours is working well and you don't have any of the issues I do, it's even more infuriating that it's capable of functioning properly yet Roland has been giving me the run around for months now. Over the last four months I've sent them countless impossibly long and detailed emails showing the tests I've run and the problems produced yet somehow every time they come out the come empty handy (with no parts) for 1-2 days thinking they will magically fix the problem by adjusting a couple bolts and using different settings in Versaworks. All of which I've already exhaustively done.

It just blows my mind that out of 5 techs to come out and all of the bizarre issues they've witnessed first hand, the thought of replacing the main board never even crossed Roland's mind even though it takes literally minutes to install and rule out as a possible problem.

Are you using Versaworks or some other rip software?

I haven't dealt with much in the way of actual Roland techs who only work for Roland, but our Roland dealers/techs have been very good through the years. We have the flatbed and an XR-640, before that the XC-540 with good results with all machines, and our techs are a big part of that success. It's disappointing to hear that yours might just be a lemon... Wouldn't be the first time I've read that on this forum.
We use Versaworks, but I don't make too many adjustments with Versaworks and we use the Version 2 Generic Profiles.
For what it's worth, I copied the URL for this thread and sent it to our techs here in Portland. Maybe they can get in touch with you if you need it.

 

[Brian27]

I haven't dealt with much in the way of actual Roland techs who only work for Roland, but our Roland dealers/techs have been very good through the years. We have the flatbed and an XR-640, before that the XC-540 with good results with all machines, and our techs are a big part of that success. It's disappointing to hear that yours might just be a lemon... Wouldn't be the first time I've read that on this forum.
We use Versaworks, but I don't make too many adjustments with Versaworks and we use the Version 2 Generic Profiles.
For what it's worth, I copied the URL for this thread and sent it to our techs here in Portland. Maybe they can get in touch with you if you need it.

It's not even that it's a lemon really. We're in manufacturing, not printing, and sometimes you just make something that simply will not work for whatever reason and it's easier to just start over. My problem is their complete lack of respect for their customers time. I honestly can't imagine what we would do if our livelihood was dependent on this printer. We'd just be totally screwed.

Luckily I found a mode that produces the proper results every time. Standard White > CMYK, but without an actual white layer. It prints the way you'd expect, but it takes 7 times longer and when you're 2x or 3x overprinting things, it takes 6 hours to print an 8' sheet.

They know this, and I think they have been using the fact that I've found a stupidly slow way to make it work against me throughout this process and that's what pisses me off. I think I'd just thrown my hands up and played the idiot, it'd have been dealt with a lot differently.

 

[ImpactSignCo]

It's not even that it's a lemon really. We're in manufacturing, not printing, and sometimes you just make something that simply will not work for whatever reason and it's easier to just start over. My problem is their complete lack of respect for their customers time. I honestly can't imagine what we would do if our livelihood was dependent on this printer. We'd just be totally screwed.

Luckily I found a mode that produces the proper results every time. Standard White > CMYK, but without an actual white layer. It prints the way you'd expect, but it takes 7 times longer and when you're 2x or 3x overprinting things, it takes 6 hours to print an 8' sheet.

They know this, and I think they have been using the fact that I've found a stupidly slow way to make it work against me throughout this process and that's what pisses me off. I think I'd just thrown my hands up and played the idiot, it'd have been dealt with a lot differently.

Yea that slows it way down because Verswaorks is assuming you're putting a layer of white down first, then printing over the top of that.
Just throwing the obvious out there, have you tried the regular CMYK, and just slowing the heads down? UV lamps, print heads and wipers are all clean?

 

[Brian27]

Yea that slows it way down because Verswaorks is assuming you're putting a layer of white down first, then printing over the top of that.
Just throwing the obvious out there, have you tried the regular CMYK, and just slowing the heads down? UV lamps, print heads and wipers are all clean?

Yeah. The slower the heads the worse the banding is. You'll notice that in all of the white modes, the head speed is 1000 mm/s which is it's max. You might think that the high amount of passes in those white modes might be what fixes the problem, but if you print in artistic mode, the banding is still there. So, it's either entirely fixed by the 1000 mm/s head speed or a combination of the speed and high pass count.

Unfortunately Versaworks doesn't let you increase head speeds over their default values so it's impossible to test that theory on any other mode because Standard for example is capped at 760 mm/s. I've been able to rewrite some of the .rml file code to allow Versaworks to show 1000 mm/s head speed in Versaworks, but when you send it to the printer it throws a data error.

Even if I was able to show that the 1000 head speed fixes the problem, the question is still why is it there to begin with and why does the increased head speed fix it?

Everything is still pristine. It's only a few months old after all with minimal use. All the tests prints are and always have been perfect. Well, except for the clear head which mysteriously lost half it's nozzles after Rolands last visit which has yet to be addressed at all. But that's a whole other issue. Haha

Speaking of clear. Does yours blow through white ink like no tomorrow? I have all my spent in cartridges stacked up and I have gone through as many whites and clears as I have CMY, even though I rarely use white and have only printed 2-3 small clear jobs.

 

[ImpactSignCo]

Yeah. The slower the heads the worse the banding is. You'll notice that in all of the white modes, the head speed is 1000 mm/s which is it's max. You might think that the high amount of passes in those white modes might be what fixes the problem, but if you print in artistic mode, the banding is still there. So, it's either entirely fixed by the 1000 mm/s head speed or a combination of the speed and high pass count.

Unfortunately Versaworks doesn't let you increase head speeds over their default values so it's impossible to test that theory on any other mode because Standard for example is capped at 760 mm/s. I've been able to rewrite some of the .rml file code to allow Versaworks to show 1000 mm/s head speed in Versaworks, but when you send it to the printer it throws a data error.

Even if I was able to show that the 1000 head speed fixes the problem, the question is still why is it there to begin with and why does the increased head speed fix it?

Everything is still pristine. It's only a few months old after all with minimal use. All the tests prints are and always have been perfect. Well, except for the clear head which mysteriously lost half it's nozzles after Rolands last visit which has yet to be addressed at all. But that's a whole other issue. Haha

Speaking of clear. Does yours blow through white ink like no tomorrow? I have all my spent in cartridges stacked up and I have gone through as many whites and clears as I have CMY, even though I rarely use white and have only printed 2-3 small clear jobs.

The auto clean function puts minimal ink through the lines to keep everything from drying up. Maybe you're not firing the heads regularly enough? Thats the only thing I can think of, if there is some minimal drying in the ink lines, that could affect the banding. We use ours very literally every day. So if your machine was working fine out of the box, maybe it's just sitting too long between prints...
We don't have a head dedicated to clear ink, we went for double white cartridges. So the short answer is yes, we do go through white ink like nobodys business, but we use it very often.

 

[Brian27]

The auto clean function puts minimal ink through the lines to keep everything from drying up. Maybe you're not firing the heads regularly enough? Thats the only thing I can think of, if there is some minimal drying in the ink lines, that could affect the banding. We use ours very literally every day. So if your machine was working fine out of the box, maybe it's just sitting too long between prints...
We don't have a head dedicated to clear ink, we went for double white cartridges. So the short answer is yes, we do go through white ink like nobodys business, but we use it very often.

I do minimum 4 jobs a week, shake the white and run a test print every morning so it's not like it's sitting for ages in between jobs. The banding and other issues have been a problem from the start.

I don't use white or clear hardly at all so it's basically wasting as much white/clear during cleaning cycles than I actually use printing CMY. If I pull up an auto cleaning report in service mode, it shows CMYK have auto cleaned 30-40 times while the clear/white have cleaned 400 times. That seems a little bit on the ultra extreme side. Especially considering my clear head is now dead and I have to discharge the white ink every time I need to use it because it prints at about 10% opacity if you don't use white for a week. So not only does it waste an obscene amount of ink, it doesn't even work when doing so. lol

 

[ImpactSignCo]

I do minimum 4 jobs a week, shake the white and run a test print every morning so it's not like it's sitting for ages in between jobs. The banding and other issues have been a problem from the start.

I don't use white or clear hardly at all so it's basically wasting as much white/clear during cleaning cycles than I actually use printing CMY. If I pull up an auto cleaning report in service mode, it shows CMYK have auto cleaned 30-40 times while the clear/white have cleaned 400 times. That seems a little bit on the ultra extreme side. Especially considering my clear head is now dead and I have to discharge the white ink every time I need to use it because it prints at about 10% opacity if you don't use white for a week. So not only does it waste an obscene amount of ink, it doesn't even work when doing so. lol

To save yourself some $$$, you could swap your white and clear cartridges for cleaning cartridges if you don't forsee yourself using them in the near or distant future. If you decide to use them again, you would need to do a few powerful cleanings to get the ink back through the line, but it would save you on ink a bit. Since we got the LEJ, we don't use the white ink on our Soljet that often, so I have a cleaning cartridge in that slot right now instead of blowing through ink.

 

[Brian27]

To save yourself some $$$, you could swap your white and clear cartridges for cleaning cartridges if you don't forsee yourself using them in the near or distant future. If you decide to use them again, you would need to do a few powerful cleanings to get the ink back through the line, but it would save you on ink a bit. Since we got the LEJ, we don't use the white ink on our Soljet that often, so I have a cleaning cartridge in that slot right now instead of blowing through ink.

Yeah I considered that for the clear. Problem is that white doesn't cure properly when you print it at anything less than 100% opacity, so what I was doing was printing the white and then putting a layer of clear/gloss over it to protect the white from coming off. Do you even print on acrylic?

 

[Brian27]

To save yourself some $$$, you could swap your white and clear cartridges for cleaning cartridges if you don't forsee yourself using them in the near or distant future. If you decide to use them again, you would need to do a few powerful cleanings to get the ink back through the line, but it would save you on ink a bit. Since we got the LEJ, we don't use the white ink on our Soljet that often, so I have a cleaning cartridge in that slot right now instead of blowing through ink.

Whoops. I meant do you ever print on acrylic.

 

[ImpactSignCo]

Whoops. I meant do you ever print on acrylic.

Oh yea. Working on some acrylic right now, second surface prints, then overlay with white ink.

 

[Andy D]

I know nothing about Roland but have worked on many UV Printers & I do recognize and have had some of the same issues.
In picture 1 of 7 you definitely have light head banding, it happens on solid dark/black backgrounds from putting down too much ink in
one pass, these are the steps I would take:
1. check your ink limits in your profile, you may be putting down way more ink than is needed, wasting ink and causing the banding.
I would create a profile with real low ink limits and nudge it up until I got a happy medium of the saturation required and no light banding.

2. I would insist Roland change my UV lights fee of charge, you could have a faulty one.

3. In the mean time, until I figured out the issues, I would run the prints twice or more, meaning putting down half the ink required and then run it again
at 50% of the ink, you should be able to run it at a lower pass because the two layers blend in to mask banding.

I'm not sure of your experience level, can you create profiles? I have found that many issues that seem like hardware problems are actually profile glitches.
Do you have "over print black" turned on? Is your black something like 80% Cyan, 80% magenta, 80% yellow, 100% Black or is it just 100% Black?

The vertical stepping is weird though, is it in the ink or is it lines of gloss lines next to mat lines? If so, could the UV lamp be pulsing? Or light shudders malfunctioning?

 

[Andy D]

In picture 4 of 7 of the color boxes have you looked at the lines though a loupe?
I wonder if it's a ink issue or what... if you could take a picture via a loupe and post it
I would love to see it.

Pictures 5, 6 ,7 could be from "head starvation", if you're putting too much ink down in one pass
and the pumps can't keep up with the ink reservoirs, you start to lose nozzles until the pumps can catch up....

 

[Brian27]

I know nothing about Roland but have worked on many UV Printers & I do recognize and have had some of the same issues.
In picture 1 of 7 you definitely have light head banding, it happens on solid dark/black backgrounds from putting down too much ink in
one pass, these are the steps I would take:
1. check your ink limits in your profile, you may be putting down way more ink than is needed, wasting ink and causing the banding.
I would create a profile with real low ink limits and nudge it up until I got a happy medium of the saturation required and no light banding.

2. I would insist Roland change my UV lights fee of charge, you could have a faulty one.

3. In the mean time, until I figured out the issues, I would run the prints twice or more, meaning putting down half the ink required and then run it again
at 50% of the ink, you should be able to run it at a lower pass because the two layers blend in to mask banding.

I'm not sure of your experience level, can you create profiles? I have found that many issues that seem like hardware problems are actually profile glitches.
Do you have "over print black" turned on? Is your black something like 80% Cyan, 80% magenta, 80% yellow, 100% Black or is it just 100% Black?

The vertical stepping is weird though, is it in the ink or is it lines of gloss lines next to mat lines? If so, could the UV lamp be pulsing? Or light shudders malfunctioning?

Hey Andy. Thanks for all of the suggestions. Very out of the box thinking which is more than I can say for any tech who's been here. Unfortunately I've tried all of these theories out on my own.

-I have tried every possible variation of profile. Less of CMY, or K. More, half, voodoo profiles. They all produce banding.
-The problem is also not limited to black it's just easier to tell in my tests if it gets better or worse so I only test with black.
-I've tried printing black at half opacity, but with more passes. No effect. Roland also tinkered with different profiles and even resorted to installing different RIP software which didn't improve the banding.
-You would think changing the lamps, among other things, would be one of the first things they would do. You'd be wrong. Instead, they recommended rigging it by unplugging a lamp. Something I already tried months ago and doesn't work. Not to mention it requires you been in service mode to even turn the printer on.
-I've also done some hoaky things with the lamps I won't even mention here and none of them work. I put a IR Heat gauge on both lamps and they are identical in temp at all times.
-The default Standard profile is 70-75-65-60 - All of the different qualities have different ink limits. (the higher quality the less ink) but they still show banding.

The horizontal lines you say could be starvation, something Roland has yet to even acknowledge as a problem, yes I've looked at them in a magnifying glass but you don't even need one to see that within those lines the ink pattern is different or incorrect. (Dont know the tech term for it.) The picture I sent Roland over a month ago are attached. Your theory is about as good as any. Why Roland hasn't come up with any is beyond me.

As I was sitting here typing this a job I was printing finished. (attached) As you can see the banding is universal across all colors and substrates. And just in case you're curious, the banding gets worse the higher quality you print in. =/

It's been over a month since I gave up on this printer and stopped doing tests but with your feedback I think I might try some different ones and see if it makes any difference. Either way though...how is that James has the same printer purchased the same month as mine, but has none of these problems?

 

[klmjff]

Wait, you're printing for Starbucks?

And they accept that quality?

Just wondering....

 

[Andy D]

Okay, on the latest #2 print the lines are vertical, but that's not the way
it came off the printer, correct? If they are horizontal I'm 90% sure it's head starvation,
it could be trash in the lines, bad filter, bad pump, ink temps too low, head temps too low. etc.
Can you tell if you're dropping just one color?

If the lines are vertical, in my experience it's air in the lines.

Again, I know zip about your printer, i'm basing this on printers I have used.
Usually when I have major issues it's not just one thing, it's when several small things all line
up, and this is why it can be hard to nail it down.

Are the issues constant for all materials?

When you say "-I've tried printing black at half opacity, but with more passes."
do you mean doing a double strike? Because that not what I meant,
what I would do it rip it at 50% density,
so a red that was 4 c, 100 m, 90 y, 0 k would be 2 c, 50 m, 45 y, 0 k...
I print it once, back it up and print it again.

 

[Brian27]

Wait, you're printing for Starbucks?

And they accept that quality?

Just wondering....

Right? That's why this is such a big problem. We're not making window signs or iphone cases here. We make high end display products for bars, restaurants, hotels and tradeshow displays and furniture for some of the biggest brands you can think of (small companies and residential too). People are literally sitting inches away from our products so they can't have these problems.

Luckily that is just a mockup for them and I'm hoping for the life of me that the laminate and laminator coming in this week will hide these problems until it's working properly.

 

[Brian27]

Okay, on the latest #2 print the lines are vertical, but that's not the way
it came off the printer, correct? If they are horizontal I'm 90% sure it's head starvation,
it could be trash in the lines, bad filter, bad pump, ink temps too low, head temps too low. etc.
Can you tell if you're dropping just one color?

If the lines are vertical, in my experience it's air in the lines.

Again, I know zip about your printer, i'm basing this on printers I have used.
Usually when I have major issues it's not just one thing, it's when several small things all line
up, and this is why it can be hard to nail it down.

Are the issues constant for all materials?

When you say "-I've tried printing black at half opacity, but with more passes."
do you mean doing a double strike? Because that not what I meant,
what I would do it rip it at 50% density,
so a red that was 4 c, 100 m, 90 y, 0 k would be 2 c, 50 m, 45 y, 0 k...
I print it once, back it up and print it again.

Those lines are vertical which is the biggest and most consistent problem I face. I think we've pretty much ruled out anything related the print heads and such since they've replaced the black, cyan and magenta heads, dampers and caps and the banding is always present regardless of color. The lines are perfectly consistent no matter where on the table I print and no matter where I start the print left to right. So if I start a print where you usually would and then start the same print in the middle of the bed/sheet, those vertical lines will be perfectly lined up which to me points to some sort of mechanical problem like a vibration which you can actually feel when you manually slide the head assembly left to right. Whether or not that vibration is normal is impossible to know without doing the same thing on a working version but both Roland techs who flew out spend all their time tinkering with the drive belt so one would assume it's not supposed to be there. What kills me is they we're fixated on the belt tension for months and were sure that was it, yet it didn't occur to them to replace the belt, drive gear or belt motor.

I've tried both a half ink limit test and half opacity test. Neither work. What's interesting is if you print full K, which I can't/don't for a number of reasons, the vertical banding goes away. It would seem that whatever underlying issue their is has some sort of effect on the colors properly mixing to create uniform colors.