Inconsistent background color

[SARTampaBay]

Not sure this is a Mimaki problem, but I'm starting here.

This weekend we were printing Avery 1005ez on our JV3 160sp. The image was created in Photoshop CS6 and ripped in Flexi. We printed in horizontal panels of 16 feet. The background consisted of a range of blues. In only the top panels in a particular area of the background, the color became inconsistent. This occurred only in the background image. Other copy printed in the same passes was good.

We cropped the design and resent the problem areas, and with a small exception, it fixed the problem.

I apologize for the poorly lit, crappy pics - hope they show what I'm getting at.

Could this have been a problem with how the printer handled this particular part of the blue? (Cyan head is good) Or is this more likely a rip issue of some sort?

We got the truck done, but I can't stand not knowing what caused this.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[gabagoo]

what settings did you print at? High speed? resolution?

I have had issues with blues and slow the machine down and increase the passes at times

 

[4R Graphics]

sometimes crap happens if the heads are good and it fixed it self thats really the best answer.

I have seen printers for no reason do some stupid stuff then resend and never have a problem.

It could be a number of things
My guess since it was a onetime thing is that perhaps the pc and the rip had a slight hickup who knows maybe a service in windows started up or something and caused this one problem. Second idea is that perhaps on the transfer from pc to printer something got dropped who knows why and now it wont happen again.

I will tell you this I have worked on electronics down at the component level for over 15 years on multi million dollar systems and sometimes electronics will just do weird stuff once or twice and you will never see that problem again.

Welcome to our technologically advanced world.

 

[MikePro]

test print or it didn't happen...

my money's on the cyan being "fine" but really its missing a few nozzles on the test draw.
otherwise, dirty encoder strip/sensor or an air bubble in an ink line (causing random dropouts)

 

[scuba_steve2699]

I have seen similar issues with a few deflected or clogged nozzles. weird thing was on that - it showed up with certain colors and only some of the time. got the nozzles clear and no problems since.