jv3 in low or high mode?

[signmaker mi]

i recently purchased a used jv3 and wanted to know from other users out there if i could set my printer and calibrate it to run in low position for all my output?

is there really any reason for running in the high position? all i have heard is that if you go to high its for thicker media but there really are not that many materials you have to do that for are there?

 

[gabagoo]

I generally run everything in the high position unless it is something with a continual spot colour background. In the low position, which is the way we got the machine and it was setup, created so many problems with scuffing that we were continually reprinting banners. Had to handle them with such extreme care it was crazy. Once we started printing in thick mode the scuffing subsided. The drying time is much faster in thick mode also,especially on vinyl we find.

 

[TheSnowman]

I don't even get what that thing moves. I don't feel any movement on mine when I move it to the thin or the thick position...nor do I see anything moving.

 

[thewood]

I run everything at the thick position. Setting the carriage to thick definitely raises the printheads higher. It's not so much the materials themselves that are thicker, but buckled materials that can raise up and cause head strikes. So, I leave it set at thick or in the high position.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

high for banners or other thick media, low for thin media like vinyl, paper, etc.. It does move, albeit a tiny amount. It's a safety precaution to help avoid headstrikes.

This is especiall helpful for running thicker materials that can't take much heat, like banner material. Banner tends to buckle under too much heat, so raising the head allows you to run banners a little hotter without risking too much buckling, which leads to head strikes.

You should really do a bidirectional calibration after adjusting the head height, it's not absolutely necessary but print quality will improve somewhat.

 

[Marie]

We run thick on everything unless it is for a super-fine print. On low, we kept getting head strikes.

 

[benjercorp]

Low position is most for quality purposes only.......

 

[iSign]

high for banners or other thick media, low for thin media like vinyl, paper, etc.. It does move, albeit a tiny amount. It's a safety precaution to help avoid headstrikes.

This is especiall helpful for running thicker materials that can't take much heat, like banner material. Banner tends to buckle under too much heat, so raising the head allows you to run banners a little hotter without risking too much buckling, which leads to head strikes.

DITTO!

You should really do a bidirectional calibration after adjusting the head height, it's not absolutely necessary but print quality will improve somewhat.

We change from hi to lo almost every day, if not twice a day... but we only do bidirectional calibrations every year or so

 

[Letterbox Mike]

You're lucky, changing head height on our JV3 throws it off enough that the print quality suffers, so we have to do it. We don't do it when we raise it to run banners, but we calibrate it when we drop it back down for vinyl. The funny thing is, on our JV33, we don't have to raise or lower the head at all (it's adjustable, just doesn't need it). We have is set to the lowest setting and for whatever reason we can't even force a head strike, so now we run all banners on it and just run the JV3 on thin.

 

[jdigital]

We've always run ours at high. No problems. Tried running it low and alignments off, plus we usually get head strikes. (even on paper) Stick to High

 

[Samurai_Screwdriver]

You should really do a bidirectional calibration after adjusting the head height, it's not absolutely necessary but print quality will improve somewhat.

Actually the JV3 is actually capable of storing two separate sets of calibrations, one for THIN and one for THICK it's just that there has always been considerable misunderstanding (thanks Mimaki!) of how to tell it which one to use. The JV3-SPII machines (75/130) actually have a sensor inside the carriage that can see what position the lever is in and choose the appropriate set of calibrations. Unfortunately the standard "SP", which is what most people have, does not have this sensor and so requires the user to tell it what position the Heads are in.

Here are the steps I use to get this to work:

1. Load the material you most commonly run in the "Thin" setting
2. Physically set the Head Carriage in the "Thin" position
3. Go FUNCTION => MAINTENANCE => PRINT ADJUST
4. Select "THIN"
5. Read the resulting print and enter in the calibrations.
6. Now here's the important part... go FUNCTION => SETUP => TYPE 1 => HEAD HEIGHT - Set this to THIN
7. Stick a piece of masking tape, sticky label etc next to the Control panel and write "THIN - TYPE 1" on it

8. Load the material you most commonly run in the "Thick" setting
9. Physically set the Head Carriage in the "Thick" position
10. Go FUNCTION => MAINTENANCE => PRINT ADJUST
11. Select "THICK"
12. Read the resulting print and enter in the calibrations.
13. Again, here's the important part... go FUNCTION => SETUP => TYPE 2 => HEAD HEIGHT - Set this to THICK
14. Add "THICK - TYPE 2" to your sticky note next to the control panel.

Now changing the Head Height is as simple as changing from "Type 1" to "Type 2" or vice versa. The added bonus of this is that if you always run Pressure Sensitive on Type 1 Banner on Type 2 then you won't have to mess around with your Media Comp nearly as much when changing materials either.

Hope this is useful to some of you folks out there