Dear Lord, Give me the strength...with pics this time

[Impact Image]

First of all....Artbot...thanks a ton. The fact you called a perfect stranger is a testament to your character.

Fighting banding but not sure if it's what everybody else calls banding and at what point I should just suck it up and print at 16/2 @ 720x1440.
As I've mentioned in another (couple of) threads something is not right. I was forced to reinstall COlorip and lost my profiles. Now I don't know if I have a profile problem or hardware problem. Heads have been manually aligned, dampers replaced, cap tops replaced, heads soaked. New wipers will be here tomorrow (if that's it I'll do cart wheels...off of a bridge).

I am chasing my tail with profiles now. When I slow things down and lay enough ink to get good coverage the black ink pools.

See below. The orange with the "www" was printed after I started having the trouble. It was a JPEG printed at 16/2 @ 720dpi. The other samples are a customer supplied PDF. I don't think I can blame the file but the JPEGS seems to print better. Test prints aren't perfect but don't look like "replace your head" bad. That double line showed up for the first time this morning...after a head soak.

I've run heat up and down for printers and dryers but did so looking for a generic profile. See above "chasing tail" comment.

I'm using Triangle inks across the board but have been for a while. I sent them an email last night and am waiting for a response.

If anyone can help I'd be MUCH appreciative. I'm sure I'm forgetting some info but dealing with this is taking it's toll on me.


Thanks in advance.

 

[Gene@mpls]

Second pict from the left looks like mine (Triangle MLD + VP540) when the
heat is turned off.

 

[Impact Image]

I'm thinking heat and feed rates are the culprit but not sure where to settle.

I did find that Colorip was overriding front panel controls but fixed that.

 

[Impact Image]

SP300 by the way.

 

[ucmj22]

print test looks nasty! I'd get that taken care of first, and work my way down.

 

[MikePro]

heat/feed rate means nothing when your test print doesn't come out properly... no matter what machine you're running.

you've got multiple clogged/failed nozzles. profiles don't even effect this, as you're printer runs test patterns with no influence from your computer.

*major head soak is necessary. idk how to do this on a sp300, but on my jv3 I'm able to fill the capping station with fluid, set a max99min soak, and simply power-down my printer and let it sit for a day.
**whatever this hasn't fixed for me in the past, i've then gone the extra mile to setup a syringe with tubing to SLOWLY inject cleaning solution directly through my damper and down through my head (about 1-3cc/30sec MAX). I then injected another syringe full of the ink from that channel to make sure my head was flushed of cleaning solution and "primed" with ink ready to give another quick head soak and everything came out PERFECT!!!

 

[Impact Image]

Major head soak going on now. It occurred to me that when I thought I was soaking in the past the pump may have pulled the solution out before capping. I did it manually and pulled the plug this time.

I've cleaned my little dye sub with the topside injection method. We'll see what happens with the soak first.

Thanks.

 

[Sticky Signs]

Yup, your nozzle check looks nasty and it looks like your media feed is off. Try running a few cleaning cycles and adjusting the media feed. Run another test print. While you're at it, try running a print in uni-directional mode. Also, not sure about that machine, but make sure the head is in the lower position.

 

[Impact Image]

Yup, your nozzle check looks nasty and it looks like your media feed is off. Try running a few cleaning cycles and adjusting the media feed. Run another test print. While you're at it, try running a print in uni-directional mode. Also, not sure about that machine, but make sure the head is in the lower position.

Had a few nozzles clear after first soak. Very promising. My concern is that I can remember less than perfect test pattens and not fighting this. It did the same thing in uni-directional. I'm still staring at the equation to calibrate feed (bringing calipers tomorrow)....again...never an issue but if they never changed then there'd be no reason to allow adjustments.

Soaking overnight and gonna start fresh in the morning.

Oddly enough, I enjoy getting inside and working on the damn thing.

Thanks for the help. It's nice to know that I'm not alone.

 

[artbot]

after the head soak, when you pull the plug, bring the carriage off to the left for a moment. pulling the plug and walking off can or will empty your carts.

the test print looks bad enough that some of what you are seeing is banding from clogged heads. too many nozzles in a zone can cause a missing line. the media feed looks possibly off too.

looks like too much ink and not enough heat. but i'm not an expert on vinyl. i can get the same effect by not precoating my material enough. the ink needs to be seized up on contact whether through heat or solvent effect. this ink is sitting wet on the substrate, and there's a bit too much of it.

 

[bull-deano]

I might be recomending the obvious here but have you performed a manual clean with sensor swabs and cleaning solution. I didn't see you mention it in your original post. If not then I would recommend getting on it ASAP. We perform a manual cleans at least bi-weekly.

 

[Impact Image]

With the spare time I've had on my hands manual cleanings have become commonplace.

Wipers were shamefully bad. One of those things that you hear but don't see. 10 fresh ones will be there in the morning.

Thanks again for the help. I hope I can return the favors someday. Artbot....name your favorite bar and I'll call you in a tab.

 

[MikePro]

Wipers were shamefully bad. One of those things that you hear but don't see. 10 fresh ones will be there in the morning.

clean my wiper daily, and change in fresh one monthly

 

[SE SignSupply]

Get off the triangle and go back to Eco-sol max. You can't print enough on an SP to pay for the 3rd party ink problems.

That profile does not look compatible with your media. Yes, the test print looks bad but a SP-300 prints so slow it hides even the worst head problems.