Banding..

[oksigns]

Recently encountered banding across the whole print on the heaviest areas(this dark black and white background). I cleaned the printer and the banding stopped except for one area. The only thing I could come up with, thanks to these forums, is a the heater going out, and wouldn't you know it; the center of my XR-640 is cold while the sides feel toasty.

This Roland is a year old and I am bummed. I got a call out to my tech but they want to point fingers elsewhere. Is this a relatively common thing? What can I expect or am I missing something?

nozzle pattern is perfect, head is clean, alignments are good, but if I print over the center-ish part of the printer, I get this faint banding(no white)

 

[WalkerP]

Create and print a big square with the same CMYK value of where the banding is evident. Mark where the banding is on the platen with tape or something. Get a laser thermometer (super cheap from Lowes/HD) and measure the heat across the platen. Kind of hard for the tech to argue if the banding lines up with heat differential...Now if it doesn't, then there is another culprit.
Does it do it running bi and uni directional print? What about if you change passcount?

 

[oksigns]

So thermometer shows it is working right and after some "support" I see that a 12 pass profile produces perfect results now, but color accuracy is shot; using Vinyl II HD, High Quality, and Density Control Only specifically. I don't know what would cause this banding all of a sudden.

 

[WalkerP]

Hmm, are you using the Roland RIP or another one?