Having an issue with VersaCamm prints

[DBrock5150-]

I just received my 54" VersaCAMM this week and I'm having a little problem with one type of print in particular. Maybe i'm missing something easy, but I can't figure it out. Any help would be much appreciated.


Here's what I've got:

54" VersaCamm with the new Max inks
Flexi 7.5 and VersaWorks

Here's the procedure:

in flexi, make a box, 6" x 6" or so. fill it with a radius gradient with any shade of red, burgundy, wild cardinal etc.. and an inner color of white. (i'll try to attach an image) I export the image as .eps. load the image in to Versaworks, print it out, and it always comes out some shade of brown. A dark blue gradient looks muddy black, pretty much anything with red is way off... Except when i use 'RED' from the flexi pallet, that works fine.

any ideas? can you try it out to see what you get?

thanks.

 

[trauts]

maybe printing cmyk... if i want a red to print like in a flag i use spot colors

 

[DBrock5150-]

when you say 'printing cmyk' do you mean going in to the color specs and simply changing the mode to cmyk ?

 

[ChiknNutz]

What version of Flexi are you using? I've been told by several folks, including my tech that was just out here today, that except for version 7.6v2, it lays down too much ink. The latest version is supposed to be substanitally better.

 

[DBrock5150-]

I have 7.5 v2.

 

[pgettys]

well i had the same problem with color rip and you have to go in and change the colors


in color rip i have to
go to colors
special colors
select the color that is off and then it will say replace spot color and then you choose from the system choose i use RGB and pick the correct color
when it ask just save the normal profile and voila your done

not sure about versawerks though

Paul

 

[Drip Dry]

Your problem is Flexi, not versaworks.
I've been struggling the last 6 months for a solution . I'm sorry I don't have an answer but here is what I found so far.

Problem: After exporting an .eps file from any version of Flexi 7.0 or higher, the colors are all muted looking. Reds are brown, yellows are lime green etc...

What I found: I also have a version 6.?? of Flexi. I downloaded color charts from sites like roland and givemehelp.com. I then opened these charts into both versions of Flexi, exported to .eps and printed them through Versaworks. The result was an incredible difference. 6.? printed bright and vibrant colors, 7.6 printed terrible.
I also took the same chart into Illustrator.. exported to .eps and printed through Versaworks. Same result as 6.? , nice color.
I did find that if you do a soft proof on the screen, the colors you see on the screen is what you get from the printer. Problem is that you can't get a bright color in soft proof.

What did Scanvec do: After many e-mail support questions, they asked for the sample charts so they could test. I have not heard anything in 3 weeks. I suspect I won't be hearing from them again unless I become a pest. Yes I will become a pest. I've spent too much money on Scanvec ( who remembers casmate when it came on floppies?) not to have it work correctly.

My conclusion: Something changed in the higher versions of Flexi in the export to .eps function and scanvec dos'nt seem to know what it is.

What can others do: Draw a box in Illustrator or Flexi ver.6 if you have it, Assign the same pantone red and export both to eps and print them both to Versaworks. If you get the same results I did, then start complaining to Scanvec. The more complaints they get, may get them to notice there is a problem. Maybe then they will address it in the next version .

Final Thought: Someone please tell me I'm wrong. Tell me to push a button to fix it. Please ,Please I would be very happy

Jim

 

[iSign]

Hi Jim... wow, another old Casmate dinosaur (15 years here)
I got the crossgrade to Flexi 3 years ago & then left it collecting dust until I bought a Mimaki inkjet printer 2 months ago. I upgraded to the latest version (7.6?) & have been getting real good color on all my prints.. I almost always use rastor images though. Even if I got vector art, I am usually starting in Adobe software & I just import to Flexi for printing, so I haven't messed with any "spot" colors in flexi yet. The only bad color I ever got was from using the wrong profile.

 

[Drip Dry]

Hey Doug,

Interesting that you rip from flexi and get good color. I thought I might get different color results from ripping from flexi rather than exporting and then rip from the roland software the printer came with. It seemed to me that I would get better results from the software that came with the machine. Kinda like not using omega to print to the gerber. I tried to using flexi a few years ago to print to gerber and had different problems and went back to omega.

Anyway, I tried to rip and print from flexi but couldn't get it to print... error message that says " can't open port " Still getting to the bottom of that problem.

I wonder if you could do a test for me since I'm not able to print from flexi just yet. Could you draw a box and choose a bright color red. Then export it to an .eps file and print it as well as rip & print from flexi and compare the results of the two.

Thanks for your help
Jim

 

[DBrock5150-]

I wonder if you could do a test for me since I'm not able to print from flexi just yet. Could you draw a box and choose a bright color red. Then export it to an .eps file and print it as well as rip & print from flexi and compare the results of the two.

FYI: the problem that I am having is not when i make a solid box of red, but only when I make a red-white gradient like the image above.

 

[Drip Dry]

FYI: the problem that I am having is not when i make a solid box of red, but only when I make a red-white gradient like the image above.

I think the problem is with the export function from flexi. I think you would have the same problem whether it was a gradient or a solid color. Just to make it more confusing, I just upgraded to the new max inks and found that I could print a single red box and get a decent color but others are still terrible.

As you see in my previous post that I'm not able to rip & print from flexi just yet.
My thought is that if you can, than it would eliminate the export function. It would also eliminate an extra step having to move it to versaworks.

Another check would be to create the same gradient in Illustrator or something and export to the .eps and then print through versaworks. This would remove flexi from the entire problem.

I truly believe the problem is with the export function and the end user does not have any control to adjust it.

Sorry
Jim

 

[DBrock5150-]

I think you would have the same problem whether it was a gradient or a solid color.

if i print a solid color, it's just fine, it's only when i do the gradient. I think it's a flexi problem too. I tried the same image exported as a .tiff and the color was good, but you get all the crooked lines. I'm going to try exporting from corel this afternoon. I'll let you know what happens.

 

[gtjet]

Just out of curiosity, we had a similar problem with a red-white gradient printing through Flexi. Turns out we had printed an electrical sign face print on clear and clicked on over print. Then went back to reqular vinyl and did a print and the red printed black. Called Flexi and they quickly told us to uncheck the overprint and that did it. Is your over print check marked?

Probably not what is causing the problem but it is similar to what we had so I thought I'd throw it out.

 

[iSign]

Jim,
I'm not completely sure what you are asking as far as "comparing the two"
I use a Mimaki, not a Roland... & I use Flexi exclusively for all my Mimaki printing. I don't know how to do 2 different methods to compare... only the one method of "rip&print" out of flexi. If you mean rip&print one as a box drawn & painted red directly in Flexi... & one as an .eps file drawn & painted elsewhere, then inported to Flexi... I guess I could try that, but not for a few days as I have just ran out of my first ink cartridge, & my new set has not arrived yet (another whole nozzle cleaning crisis to discuss there... but I'll save that for another thread)

 

[Drip Dry]

Hey Doug,

Ok, Ok Guess I wasn't paying attention when I made that request.:Sleeping:
I knew you had the mimaki. Roland supplies a rip & print software with the printer. I assumed ( you know what happens when I assume) Mimaki did the same and it would be an easy test for you. What I was looking for is the difference between a file directly ripped from flexi and a file that was exported from flexi as an .eps and printed from a different rip software.
The thing I need to do now is to get Flexi to rip & print to see if I can elimenate the exporting thing altogether.
Jim