gross thick banding lines on both(!?) printers?

[Bryce I]

We've been having this issue on our Roland VG-540 for some time, and also with our new VG-2 pretty much right out the box. These big thick horizantal bands that will appear sometimes just once on a print, sometimes a few times, but always at a random spot. This issue comes and goes intermittently. I do do head cleanings, feed calibration adjustments and media gap adjustments daily. Both printers are under warranty, and Roland sent a tech out, but all he did was replace cap tops, and it didn't fix the problem.
I sent roland pictures and talked to someone who suggested really basic stuff like clean the heads and shake the ink pouches, and when none of that fixed it, they were like: "lets order some parts and get a tech out there." Tech came and replaced cap tops again, and it didn't fix the problem. We're in a rural area, a tech has to travel a day and stay in a hotel for even the most basic service call, and our tech, while super handy in general doesn't have any experience troubleshooting roland products. It's time to really hammer on warranty because these messed up prints are starting to really cost us. When I talk to Roland tech, it seems like they don't recognize the problem. I feel like we need to ID the problem, or they're just going to send more cap tops and our great but inexperienced tech again. Any thoughts or insights would be appreciated.

 

[Gino]

Is it always a double whammy like that ??

 

[CanuckSigns]

Ahh yes the "Roland Tru-Vis lines" as I called them, never could get them figured out, nor could my tech, ended up getting an Epson, problem went away immediately.

 

[Bryce I]

Is it always a double whammy like that ??

Not really. Sometimes it's one big line, sometimes a series of bands that kind of taper off

 

[Bill DiStasio]

We've been having this issue on our Roland VG-540 for some time, and also with our new VG-2 pretty much right out the box. These big thick horizantal bands that will appear sometimes just once on a print, sometimes a few times, but always at a random spot. This issue comes and goes intermittently. I do do head cleanings, feed calibration adjustments and media gap adjustments daily. Both printers are under warranty, and Roland sent a tech out, but all he did was replace cap tops, and it didn't fix the problem.
I sent roland pictures and talked to someone who suggested really basic stuff like clean the heads and shake the ink pouches, and when none of that fixed it, they were like: "lets order some parts and get a tech out there." Tech came and replaced cap tops again, and it didn't fix the problem. We're in a rural area, a tech has to travel a day and stay in a hotel for even the most basic service call, and our tech, while super handy in general doesn't have any experience troubleshooting roland products. It's time to really hammer on warranty because these messed up prints are starting to really cost us. When I talk to Roland tech, it seems like they don't recognize the problem. I feel like we need to ID the problem, or they're just going to send more cap tops and our great but inexperienced tech again. Any thoughts or insights would be appreciated.

Could it be the vinyl? Just a guess.

 

[Dale D]

So I had Tyrrell Tech (including the head district manager) at my place for 5 trips over a 4 week period on my New VF2-640 that was banding only when I pushed a lot of black. They replaced all possible components (Print heads, pumps, cap tops, diaphragm ,etc) and did not fix it.... come to find out it was the standard Roland DGA profiles. Use generic if your profile is not available. Ive been printing perfectly for 2 months now .

 

[Bryce I]

WOW. That's crazy. The profile I've been using is the Versaworks default, (Generic vinyl 1 v2). Is that what you mean by generic, or is that a standard roland profile? it doesn't have the word roland in it, like some that I've downloaded, but it did come with the program.

 

[Dale D]

Banding only showed up for me when I used certain profiles. Back then, Roland had nothing else for profiles. Now they have Arlon and a few others. My tech found it by accident. Try printing with a completely different profile and see if it goes away. Mine did.
I had been using the Roland profiles having issues. Generic may be causing you your issues since it is a slightly different model. I would had never thought that a profile would had caused me banding. We verified it with my machine.
I forgot, I even had Roland in China on the phone with my tech thinking it was static. My tech even ruled that out. It was frustrating as I was wasting vinyl.

 

[StephenOrange]

This seems like a possible feed problem. Have you tried running the job with the vinyl loose?

 

[Bryce I]

This seems like a possible feed problem. Have you tried running the job with the vinyl loose?

Some kind of tension related problem with the feed is one of the working theories. We've tried not using the the take up reel, and have still seen the issue, but I haven't tried it loose on the other side. I'll give that a shot today. Thanks!

 

[Bryce I]

Banding only showed up for me when I used certain profiles. Back then, Roland had nothing else for profiles. Now they have Arlon and a few others. My tech found it by accident. Try printing with a completely different profile and see if it goes away. Mine did.
I had been using the Roland profiles having issues. Generic may be causing you your issues since it is a slightly different model. I would had never thought that a profile would had caused me banding. We verified it with my machine.
I forgot, I even had Roland in China on the phone with my tech thinking it was static. My tech even ruled that out. It was frustrating as I was wasting vinyl.

I'll give that shot next time the banding appears. Thanks!
I used to download profiles from roland for each media type I was using, but so many of the Arlon and Orafol ones produced really crappy colors. Talked to someone in application dept at Roland, and he suggested Generic 1 v2 profile. We did test prints on all our medias, and the generic one printed the colors we needed way more popping than any of them profiles built for specific media. So If it is the profile causing this issue, we're back to square one with our color problem!