Need Help Banding issues on Roland vs-540

[JohnHunter]

I have been using Roland printers for several years now and I have, just recently, run into a banding issue that is focused on the cyan inks. I have run several cleanings from normal to powerful, have done manual maintenance cleaning both sides of the printer, and it is still giving me a hard time. Every other color prints fine, it's just cyan. Test prints come out ok but when I try to print 100% cyan it bands throughout the print. Any suggestions or ideas anyone?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Post a picture of the issue and the nozzle check. Usually banding in one color is going to be either missing or deflecting nozzles, a bad damper, a broken head manifold, and/or a failing head.

 

[Terry01]

Check your temperatures are high enough...?

 

[JohnHunter]

Post a picture of the issue and the nozzle check. Usually banding in one color is going to be either missing or deflecting nozzles, a bad damper, a broken head manifold, and/or a failing head.

 

[Joe House]

If your nozzle test looks good and this is only in cyan, my mind goes to static issues. This is material dependent, but if your relative humidity is below 40%, you're asking for trouble. Make sure that your environment is within the specs for your machine - generally 40 - 60% RH and 68 - 88 F. In Albuquerque right now, if you're not humidifying your environment, I can guarantee that you have low humidity in your shop. If the room your printer is in is small, you can probably increase the humidity with a residential, but if your printer is in a large room or shop, you'll need to get an industrial humidifier.

Good Luck

 

[JohnHunter]

If your nozzle test looks good and this is only in cyan, my mind goes to static issues. This is material dependent, but if your relative humidity is below 40%, you're asking for trouble. Make sure that your environment is within the specs for your machine - generally 40 - 60% RH and 68 - 88 F. In Albuquerque right now, if you're not humidifying your environment, I can guarantee that you have low humidity in your shop. If the room your printer is in is small, you can probably increase the humidity with a residential, but if your printer is in a large room or shop, you'll need to get an industrial humidifier.

Good Luck

The production room where I am also located is probably 10' x 8' that then opens out into a vehicle bay. I do however have one of those kind of cheap flimsy sliding plastic doors in the doorway. Do you think a residential humidifier will cut it?

 

[Joe House]

It's hard to tell. You should get a cheap hygrometer so you know where your humidity is and if your even close to your target. If there's not a lot of air exchange between your print room and other rooms, you may be able to affect it in a positive way.

Good Luck

 

[Zoogee World]

Can you post a nozzle test. I know you said it looked good, however this will give us all a better idea as to where to advise you to start. Have you played around with printer settings, like heat and speed?

 

[truckgraphics]

I suggest changing the print profile. We also have a VS-540. Print heads wear so you often need to compensate in our experience.

 

[JohnHunter]

Can you post a nozzle test. I know you said it looked good, however this will give us all a better idea as to where to advise you to start. Have you played around with printer settings, like heat and speed?

 

[Zoogee World]

Thanks. There is a good amount of deflection in the cyan there, also some missing nozzles. You might be able to get by for now with slowing down the printing and doing uni-directional, maybe trying different profiles, however my guess is that you'll need a new head in the near future. Another thing you might try is a 48 hour head soak. Turn off power and unplug. Clamp off the tubes after the cap top, before the pump, fill the cap top with cleaning liquid, lock the head in place on the cap top, check on it in 24 hours and top off liquid if needed. After the 48 hour head soak, do a couple powerful cleaning and a medium and see if there is any improvement.

 

[unmateria]

Check wiper is completely flat and make a flush with cleaning cartdridges. If its not that, it is a printhead beginning to fail mixing colours. But check or replace wiper first because that pattern of mixing colours in the center (wiper not wiping the center) usually looks like that