Cant Print Dark Colors

[Brands Imaging]

I know that this has come up over time and I have read most of those threads...

I am using MPI 1005 The new supercast film

I have went through 6 different profiles...changed the passes, feed rate, heat settings and i just cant get it right...

this is what i'm getting

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Eek. What is that color supposed to be? Do all dark colors look like this? Is it only happening on this particular Avery vinyl or others as well?

From that picture it looks almost like an ink starvation issue.

 

[sjm]

That's a bad piece of vinyl. Ink starvation would have showed up predominantly in the black areas too.

 

[Brands Imaging]

F*#k.....I totally thought it may have been a bad piece....its only happening with green and black though.....I turned the heat way up to see what it would do and the black laid better but the green is really messed up....I am using flexi and installed an older version of rasterlink and its looking better but not what it should be...I dont know what to do ad I have a wrap tomorrow AM with this crap...

 

[StopSignGraphics]

This is a simple test, try printing part of the image on a different kind of vinyl. If the image prints well on it then you more than likely have a bad batch of mpi 1005.

I worked for a company that used a lot of mpi 1005. Every once in a while we would get a bad batch that would have trouble with the ink.

~Chris

 

[The Big Squeegee]

Looks to me like you have some of the other colors dropping where they shouldn't. Check the wipers and clean the encoder strip.

 

[Brands Imaging]

well....I did change the material and it got alot better but its still not what it should be..
I have to say....and i know this is really stupid but I havnt changed my wiper in 2 years..

do you think that could really be it? could that be it PLUS the material??

 

[Rooster]

If your wiper isn't nicked there's no need to replace it.

Mine is two years old and works just fine. As long as you keep everything clean and well maintained, the service intervals can be extended quite a bit.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

I'd change the wipers. You should do it about once a year. They can get worn and stiff and lose their effectiveness. A dirty encoder strip will drop colors where they don't belong but that will be more uniform. The mixed colors look like they may be associated with a short cleaning or something of that sort.

If the heads are old, they may be putting out too much ink. Try doing something to lighten it up to reduce the amount of ink. I'm not familiar with your system so I don't know what you can do in that regards.

 

[Brands Imaging]

the wiper is nice, always clean and soft so thats why I have never changed it..plus i thought my machine would notify me in some way.

I am also pretty meticulous about cleaning my machine...frequent normal/hard cleanings, capping station and heading cleanings.

I was pretty convinced that this was a profile setting in the beginning but i went through 7 different profiles, heat setting, feed rate and since we got flexi a few months ago I played with the dither settings FMX, SO Diffusion and the more advanced the dither the more tye-died those random colors got...

here is another picture with an advanced dither like error diffusion or SO diff.

 

[StopSignGraphics]

One thing I used to do when I was trying to trouble shoot a problem like that was print a foot of each of the ink colors the full width of the material. So on a cmyk machine I would print a foot of cyan, a foot of magenta and so on.

It might help narrow it down to a certain color. To me that still looks like a material issue.

 

[The Big Squeegee]

Just another thought...

The stray colors appear to be on a cycle. The only thing I can think of that is on a cycle is the heaters. If the heat is focused in one spot more than another the result would be that the vinyl would raise up from uneven expansion. Raising the head to the upper position may clear up the problem.

This vinyl may be more susceptible to warping from the heat.

 

[MikePro]

I get similiar results when trying to print an RGB file through a CMYK printer.

 

[Brands Imaging]

ne thing I used to do when I was trying to trouble shoot a problem like that was print a foot of each of the ink colors the full width of the material. So on a cmyk machine I would print a foot of cyan, a foot of magenta and so on./QUOTE]

i did that just this AM (thanks) and its a good measure of troubleshooting. My black looked messed up, my designer was trying to print pure black (100% k) and thats why it was coming out like that. I am gonna change the color of green b/c I think that color just sucks and we will see what happens..

what we wound up doing was bumping the pass to 4(from 8 or 12) and making the head uni directional and that fixed most of the problem...I think it may have been a humidity issue.

thank you all for your help...