banding

[Kipp]

I posted this in the general chit chat yesterday (sorry, I missed this forum to post) Running a Roland SG2-540 (solvent ink)

But I'm getting banding in my prints (6MIL glosss) , but when I run on a thinner vinyl it's fine. (3MIL gloss) Any clue why this is happening?
I manually cleaned the heads and it looks better but in the right light you can see the "lines" could it be the material is bad?

 

[cornholio]

Have you adjusted the (feed)calibration?
We had to replace heads on these machines because of so called microbanding. It could be media dependent.

 

[Kipp]

Have you adjusted the (feed)calibration?
We had to replace heads on these machines because of so called microbanding. It could be media dependent.

yes I checked the simple and detailed calibration, looks dead on. The microbanding you saw is what I think is going on here. Very fine lines that almost looked indented in the print? can only see them in the right light at the right angle.

 

[Zoogee World]

Have you played around with settings like speed, uni-directional versus bi-directional? I find sometimes thicker medias require slower printing or a different profile. Are you using the profile for that media?

 

[Kipp]

Have you played around with settings like speed, uni-directional versus bi-directional? I find sometimes thicker medias require slower printing or a different profile. Are you using the profile for that media?

I have used the same profile for the 3mil material I use and 6mil for years. Since this has happened I printed uni directional and seems to help. I'm not sure what other profile to use on the thicker material.

 

[Zoogee World]

Do you have a photo of a nozzle test? Could be the head is starting to go, unlikely though, as your machine is probably less then 2 years old. You said you did the GAP adjustment?

 

[Kipp]

Do you have a photo of a nozzle test? Could be the head is starting to go, unlikely though, as your machine is probably less then 2 years old. You said you did the GAP adjustment?

yep, here are some tests I ran. the machine is 1 year old. I had my other Roland 15 years.

 

[Kipp]

you can see in the black area what I'm talking about, I think it's that microbanding??

 

[Kipp]

 

[Zoogee World]

You're adjustments look good and the nozzle test, other then that tiny deflection (not enough to cause this), it's fine. When you mentioned earlier about the profile being used for years, was this talking about the other Roland? If so, I wouldn't base it on it, as I've noticed with my SG-300, that it is a lot more finicky then my other older models and have to play around constantly with profiles to stop banding. Not sure what material you're using, but there might be an ICC profile specific for it for that printer that might give you better results.

 

[Kipp]

You're adjustments look good and the nozzle test, other then that tiny deflection (not enough to cause this), it's fine. When you mentioned earlier about the profile being used for years, was this talking about the other Roland? If so, I wouldn't base it on it, as I've noticed with my SG-300, that it is a lot more finicky then my other older models and have to play around constantly with profiles to stop banding. Not sure what material you're using, but there might be an ICC profile specific for it for that printer that might give you better results.

I've used the (generic vinyl) profile for the last year, it does print better on uni directional. I'm not sure how to adjust the profile, the material is 6Mil white gloss. So you don't think the head is bad? I just ordered new caps to try

 

[Kipp]

Now it's not banding at all after I clean it, then after a print or two it starts again? Weird!!

 

[Zoogee World]

Sounds like it could possibly be cap top related, if it goes away after after a cleaning and comes back. Let us know once you've changed the cap tops.

 

[weyandsign]

Also may need what they call a flushing adjustment.