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drips on banner

Jackflush

Gorgor
Strange drips on banner. This material came with our sp-540v. Labeled as EDB-G 48"x40 yd Gloss White from Aspire emerald Digital. Before printing I selected Generic Banner profile. I dont know if thats the problem. I am still scratching my head when it comes to selecting a profile before printing. I need direction to information on profile selection. Also searching the forum or the web has been no help. Its so new to me that I dont even have a clue where to look for helpful information about my printer/cutter.
 

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Jackflush

Gorgor
what is that called? overspray? or just strange drips? Is it due to static or clogging? any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
It is the head getting too close to the material as it buckles slightly - raise head height, and drop pre-platen heater (that's how I manage it) - my heaters for scrim banner are set at 20, 30, 50 (centigrade)
 
scrim is the weave. I think there was something on the banner before printing, those don't look like head strikes to me. Can you take a closer pic? If it were a head strike there would be ink in the "white" but there is not.
 

Jackflush

Gorgor
ok there were some head strikes in the white areas. they are faint dotted lines. When I look close on the drips (as I call them) they are navy blue with teal blue in the middle. Almost like the ink soaked in, Faded in the center of the drips. I will be looking over the heads. I can start learning how to properly care for them in my manual. I think the fur comment I should look into. Thanks for helping me along.
 

threeputt

New Member
Examine the heads closely. Real close. My bet is there is a whisker of lint. Probably from the banners themselves.

It acts like a wick. Grabs ink from the heads and when it collects enough, it drops ink in droplets.

Just a guess. Happens around here all the time. Especially with banners.
 

Jackflush

Gorgor
I prefed a 12 foot banner and when it backed up to print it creased. I disabled prefeed and printed it when this happened. sorry i failed to mention that. Obviously I didnt wanna fess up. I just printed an ice cream sticker and no problems. I'm just guessing that generic banner might not have been the right profile, or a buckled banner... anyhow thanks for your righteous help.
 

jasonx

New Member
Tip with the SP540 on banner.

Load the material. Test print it. Unclamp it flatten it out and reclamp it. When we had our SP the heat from the printer would make the pvc expand and ripple and you'd always get head strikes. Once you reclamp it once the material got warm it seemed to fix the problem near the start.
 

seesaw signs

New Member
We've had the same problem and found that it is thread from the banner, usually picked up from the cut edge of banner as the heads pass over it. The ink gathers enough to run down the thread like threeput explained and drops on the banner. It rarely happens with vinyl, and if so its because we printed banner earlier and the wipers didn't pick up the thread in cleaning.
Lightly (very lightly) flaming the edge of the rolls prior to printing burns the little threads away so that the head doesn't pick them up and so no more drips.
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
Tip with the SP540 on banner.

Load the material. Test print it. Unclamp it flatten it out and reclamp it. When we had our SP the heat from the printer would make the pvc expand and ripple and you'd always get head strikes. Once you reclamp it once the material got warm it seemed to fix the problem near the start.

Whenever I change the material in my printer, I start something printing so the heaters heat up - just before they hit the correct temperature, I unclamp the rollers, which aborts the print, wait 2-3 seconds then reclamp - that usually takes care of any temp variance with material vs printer
 

cfbeagle

New Member
You need to clean your heads with some cleaning solution and a swab. Ink has built up on them and is dripping off. It might be from a thread or something riding on it or it might be from just a lot of printing. I have to clean mine every 20 or 30 hours of printing. After about that long the ink that builds up around the heads starts to drip off just like what you see there.
 
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