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Grainy prints engineer visited

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swarnes

New Member
DL Signs said:
To save ink, just make a smaller swatch of the most problematic color/ colors for testing, or just use scrap material if you have any laying around, that way you won't be using as much ink or media while you're troubleshooting. Since you just had a tech in, and if it does that on all media, there's always a chance he set something wrong too, because that's really grainy, and not normal. Even a generic profile on high quality shouldn't look that bad. Look at 3M or Oracal profiles for glossy photo, just to see if you get any difference, if not, I'd contact the company who sent the tech out to service it, or try Roland support.
Click to expand...
It's what I don't understand, feel like they think it's right, he said its expected because of it being an inkjet without extra colours and only cmyk.
 
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garyroy

New Member
He sure didn't say that when he sold you the printer.
He's waffling out of the problem, don't listen to his excuses, be more persistent.
 
C

cornholio

New Member
The SG are notorious for producing grainy solids in lighter tones, because they have no light colors. In addition, the TR-2 is higher pigmented, than earlier inks. This means, less but darker dots are printed to achieve a desired color.
From what I can on your pictures, the dark red looks like beading or pooling to me. This is a material/heating/printspeed problem.
On one photo, I think I see unsharp edges of the patches. This is normally a bad M-Gap adjustment.

Then, there is one thing, that is very annoying...
Roland thinks the two channels on printheads fire at the same speed, so only one channel needs to be adjusted. (This was their misconception starting with Epson and they do it with Ricoh as well)
When adjusting SG's (VG's as well) the CM head is sometimes so badly off, it needs replacement. Otherwise, you will never get a decent quality.
 
D

damonCA21

New Member
swarnes said:
Hi,

Will try this it's just putting print 2x where the nozzle speed is? Just out right now. Overprint 2x means it prints twice the same line? That's what I mean small logos and stuff with grain is my aim, and how it is now, you would get laughed out and no repeat business. Its why fine tuning it will be ideal.

Will test your method.

Thank you for the response.
Click to expand...
Hi yes, set it to 2x. It lays down 3 layers of ink, so makes a very solid colour with no graininess. It makes it look like it has been screen printed rather than inkjet printed. It does use more ink, but gives a much better finished result. Even when you look close up you can't see any dots from the print.

It can make the print darker, if it does this go into the image settings on VW and increase the contrast and brightness to full
 
C

ColorCrest

All around shop helper.
See the attached images as samples for reference...

IMG_0516z.jpg IMG_0518z.jpg IMG_0519z.jpg
 
S

swarnes

New Member
cornholio said:
The SG are notorious for producing grainy solids in lighter tones, because they have no light colors. In addition, the TR-2 is higher pigmented, than earlier inks. This means, less but darker dots are printed to achieve a desired color.
From what I can on your pictures, the dark red looks like beading or pooling to me. This is a material/heating/printspeed problem.
On one photo, I think I see unsharp edges of the patches. This is normally a bad M-Gap adjustment.

Then, there is one thing, that is very annoying...
Roland thinks the two channels on printheads fire at the same speed, so only one channel needs to be adjusted. (This was their misconception starting with Epson and they do it with Ricoh as well)
When adjusting SG's (VG's as well) the CM head is sometimes so badly off, it needs replacement. Otherwise, you will never get a decent quality.
Click to expand...
So a 2nd head needs to be adjusted?
 
S

swarnes

New Member
damonCA21 said:
Hi yes, set it to 2x. It lays down 3 layers of ink, so makes a very solid colour with no graininess. It makes it look like it has been screen printed rather than inkjet printed. It does use more ink, but gives a much better finished result. Even when you look close up you can't see any dots from the print.

It can make the print darker, if it does this go into the image settings on VW and increase the contrast and brightness to full
Click to expand...
Hi, will try that some more, thanks
Christian @ 2CT Media said:
What RIP are you using? Have you tried changing the dot pattern?
Click to expand...
Versaworks 6, any information on how?


My blue has very bad banding any diy fixes? Greenbis also the same...Heads are perfect according to roland.

Thanks all for response, I found how to quote multi so will do that than post replies back 6x haha
 

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S

swarnes

New Member
20230828_024758.jpg

most colours seem to work nicely now after doing a fill thing using pause and power... its just the yellow and orange blend has dark dots, is this normal?
 
D

damonCA21

New Member
swarnes said:
View attachment 166791
most colours seem to work nicely now after doing a fill thing using pause and power... its just the yellow and orange blend has dark dots, is this normal?
Click to expand...
That can be normal with orange and green tones as these are the hardest for the printer to reproduce. it may also be how the gradient fill on the artwork was made. For example in Corel with a gradient fill you can choose between 256 and 999 bands for the quality
 
S

swarnes

New Member
damonCA21 said:
That can be normal with orange and green tones as these are the hardest for the printer to reproduce. it may also be how the gradient fill on the artwork was made. For example in Corel with a gradient fill you can choose between 256 and 999 bands for the quality
Click to expand...
I just use illustrator and set up a gradient from swatches. Will look into that.
 
C

cornholio

New Member
swarnes said:
So a 2nd head needs to be adjusted?
Click to expand...
Head 1 needs to be adjusted to head 2 in this case. But head 1 consists of 2 rows of nozzles (cyan and magenta) and head 2 has yellow and black.
When doing the horizontal adjustment, the two channels of one head overlap perfectly.(or at least they should)
Often, the cyan/magenta rows don't overlap. So you have to decide to adjust to cyan, magenta or in the middle.
If the gap between cyan and magenta is really bad and can't be optimized by using fresh ink and heating up the head, the head needs to be replaced.
 
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