I've been putting off writing this for a couple months now due to the fact that Roland will definitely read it and probably provide even crappier customer service than they have been, but at this point I'm realizing it doesn't get much worse so to hell with it. This will however be the ultra condensed short version just to see if anyone out there can help me where Roland has failed spectacularly.
There are a number of issues with this printer, but the main one is that it produces really bad vertical banding and bizarre horizontal lines every 5" or so. It's most noticeable with solid colors but it's always there regardless of what is printed. There have been 3 Denco techs and 2 Roland techs fly out to try and figure it out. One of which was the lead product manager for the FT series. None have been able to figure out the problem or improve the result in any way. They've replaced some of the heads, dampers, caps as well as the belt pulleys because they thought it was related to some sort of vibration in the belt.
I personally have tried literally everything since I got the printer in August and have gone well beyond what any normal person would do to try and help find the problem including hundreds of hours of test prints and thousands in wasted ink/media. Since the last Roland tech came out on the 22nd of November and couldn't fix it, they essentially ignored all communications from myself and Denco until they finally came up with a "solution" a month later that supposedly worked for another customer with a brand new 640 who had the same issue. This was merely unplugging one of the uv lamps which is something I already tried moths ago and doesn't work. Plus it requires you to always be in service mode. The banding and defects are still present, they're just masked because the print becomes more glossy because it isn't cured properly.
I detailed all of this in an email to them the same day along with pictures. They then, finally, decided it was time for replacement. They said last week they we're going to send me samples from the printer they'd be replacing it with (their demo) and if I approved them they would move forward. However, yesterday they sent a Denco tech out here to run some test prints to send to Roland. Turns out these tests are simply the same test I ran two weeks ago with the lamp unplugged. Do they not believe it doesnt work? Do they think I'm just an idiot? Does it really matter how my FT prints with their rigged solution? I don't get it.
At this point I fear this printer simply isn't capable of printing without banding. They say this issue is isolated to mine, and one other guy's, but if that was the case, then why not simply replace the printer without making me jump through 4 months of ridiculous hoops for a brand new $80,000 printer? If it's just mine, then why do they need samples of their ghetto rigged solution unless theirs produces the same defects?
I'm at a loss at this point. I would have preferred if they'd just fixed this one considering the ordeal it's going to be setting up a new one and getting rid of this one but I honestly don't think they have a clue as to what is causing it or if can even be fixed at all.
What are your guys' thoughts, ideas, input?
