Grainy Printing even with Vector art.

[samhayne]

I have a Roland Versacam VS 300-i. Almost everything I do is stickers. I'm using genuine Roland ink and printing on General Formulations 220 (shiny white adhesive backed vinyl 6 mil). I'm always looking at other folks work and I think that my prints come out with a little bit of a grain to them. Even when they are vector and when the images are pretty dense. It's always been like this. Not sure if I was not set up right initially maybe? I'm pretty much all self taught. I'm using Adobe Illustrator and saving as EPS then opening the files in Roland Versaworks and sending the jobs from there. No heads clogged and everything working well. Just think I could have better print quality.

 

[Drip Dry]

I have a Roland Versacam VS 300-i. Almost everything I do is stickers. I'm using genuine Roland ink and printing on General Formulations 220 (shiny white adhesive backed vinyl 6 mil). I'm always looking at other folks work and I think that my prints come out with a little bit of a grain to them. Even when they are vector and when the images are pretty dense. It's always been like this. Not sure if I was not set up right initially maybe? I'm pretty much all self taught. I'm using Adobe Illustrator and saving as EPS then opening the files in Roland Versaworks and sending the jobs from there. No heads clogged and everything working well. Just think I could have better print quality.

View attachment 162059

The dollar bill has to be a jpeg, but looks very crisp.
The letter and background next to it looks like the problem
Something that looks like that was always heat in my experience with the Roland. Seems that you could add heat
The other thing is and I think this could be more the problem is the material your using. I never used General Form but I always viewd it as a cheaper material
I always used Oracall 3651 and really never had any problems
It probably cost a little more but is worth a try

 

[samhayne]

Thanks for the response. I will try both suggestions.

 

[ToTo]

Check printhead alignment.
Also wipe an area of substrate with IPA and print on wiped surface. Maybe plasticizers are causing this.

 

[greysquirrel]

Dido to the above. Looks like old vinyl

 

[Applied Graphics WY]

I have a Roland Versacam VS 300-i. Almost everything I do is stickers. I'm using genuine Roland ink and printing on General Formulations 220 (shiny white adhesive backed vinyl 6 mil). I'm always looking at other folks work and I think that my prints come out with a little bit of a grain to them. Even when they are vector and when the images are pretty dense. It's always been like this. Not sure if I was not set up right initially maybe? I'm pretty much all self taught. I'm using Adobe Illustrator and saving as EPS then opening the files in Roland Versaworks and sending the jobs from there. No heads clogged and everything working well. Just think I could have better print quality.

View attachment 162059

I think it may have something to do with the vinyl brand. I used to run oracal 3751 with beautiful results on my Roland. I recently switched to general formulation and have noticed several of the colors are a bit grainy. I’m thinking I need to experiment with my heat settings as I was still running the same as I used for the oracal. If graininess continues, I’m switching back to oracal.

 

[brdesign]

Have you tried other vinyl types to see if it has the same effect? I think it's either the material or the profile, try a few different profiles in versaworks. I used to run a Roland at my previous workplace and we used one of the generic Avery vinyl profiles on just about everything with good results. Not perfect, but good enough. Also avoid .eps files, .pdf or .tif files would be best. https://printplanet.com/threads/the-case-against-the-eps-file.268330/

 

[2B]

My first thought is the material
Try different media
also, try other media profiles inside of VersaWorks

are you printing BI-directional or UNI-directional

as mentioned do a head alignment test

we get better imprint quality when we use PDF, CMYK colors, flatten and convert to curves on export

 

[vondegroot]

What's your heater setting at on the 6 mil? I have mine at 45/50 for that vinyl.

Try printing Uni-directional also.

 

[Joseph44708]

I printing on two Roland XR-640 printers using General Formulations 220
No problems here.
Last cleaning?
Head height?
Heat?

 

[Ernestww]

I would guess bad vinyl. Try another roll. Look like surface contamination.

 

[unmateria]

Hi roll is older than 15 months, or coating is not for solvent, or you just have to make a linear densotimetry to the profile limiting ink on the channels (colours) with problems