help with EFI 16H

[John_The_Printer]

Hi All,
Looking for a good resource for help with or 16h. We are a few months in to our 16h ownership and seem to be doing most media well or at least ok. We run into some issues along the way and get a lot of head scratching from the folks who sold us the unit and a cold shoulder from EFI has some folks there who just wants to sell big ticket training sessions.
The specific issue I need a quick cure for is printing onto colored vinyl. The "EFI" pdf 's that are available don't seem to quite get me there. I'm running at "ultra" to get the result shown below and I cant charge enough for ultra and even if I could this quality isnt good enough. The whites need to be solid and the colors need to be Damn near PMS matches... I'm just south of Boston and would even love to work with someone nearby who might be willing to share overflow work back (and forth) and develop a non compete relationship.
The scale in the photo : the "R" is about 3.5" wide....

 

[jmcnicoll]

What is that your printing on? What red pms is it? What is your head gap at? Is that one or two layers of white?

 

[jmcnicoll]

I also believe you should get training for two operators the first year, but that may depend on which printer on purchases.

 

[John_The_Printer]

Thanks for the feedback, we are printing on 14oz black upholstery vinyl. Using the default calibration for set head gap 0.5-0.6(could this be a scenario where it needs to be further away from the media perhaps?), when the media is loaded using the auto set gap feature in Print Control Utility. That is two layers of white.

The Red PMS is CMYK
100%magenta
87%yellow

My training was limited, went over the basics/maintenance, so I appreciate any and all tips.

 

[jmcnicoll]

What pms is it suppose to match? Looks like the white is banding, make sure you circulate the white ink and print some solid white first to make sure it's printing ok. Try a little higher head gap to see if that makes a difference. That material looks thinker and soft for may be a bad reading on it. Is your bidirectional test good?

 

[John_The_Printer]

I made sure the white is good to go, being used so little generally speaking(most of the media being white) I make sure to give it a good run. Doing exactly what you're saying as well as some manual/auto purges. The material is rather soft, is there a tip or trick as to reading spongy/soft material more accurately. In regards to getting the machine to read the media the only tip I got was to use white painters tap on the leading edge etc. The bidirectional tests are good.

 

[jmcnicoll]

white can be troublesome if not used often. Being so soft it probably thinks it is thinner material than it actually is and heads are closer to material than the height your bidi was set at.

 

[John_The_Printer]

Got on the phone with EFI and they are going to run through a checklist of steps with us. I'll update with more info after their intervention. Thanks for the input thus far.

 

[ellsmako]

Yeah I was going to suggest speaking with EFI since the printer is new and you are covered by warrenty. I am sorry to ask but have you tried to profile the material which may not be possible since you have double white.

 

[Greg Kelm]

try .07 Head gap, unidirection. Any static on that material?

 

[cstone94]

You need to be closer to the media. 1.5mm head gap.

Also, your white is not white. Do a jet test and post a photo. Even better when you have black media so we can see how those white heads look. To me, it looks like you are firing 50% of the nozzles on the white heads.

Lastly, you are printing Spot Color White_ink and setting color on white, white coverage 100%? Using the Ultra 1200x1200 24 pass?