Lines in print

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

I'm printing on Glass AdHere at the moment, but I occasionally get these lines when printing on banner material, also. I haven't noticed any problem printing on gloss adhesive media such as Orajet 3651 and 3951RA, only on these two materials so far. 99.9% of my print looks perfect except these occasional 'streaks' that tend to appear along the edge of an area with solid color. I'm using a generic Mimaki color profile on a Mimaki CJV150-130 and this happens whether I print bi-directional or uni-directional. It also happens when the printhead is in the low or high position, so print head positioning seems to make no difference. These streaks are running in the scan direction, not the feed direction.

Any ideas? Is it some kind of static issue?

 

[Joe House]

My first guess is that you have a fiber of some sort - banner scrim, hair, etc - on the bottom of one of your heads and it's pinstriping your print. On rare occasions I've seen ink build up significant to cause that as well. Get a bright flashlight and look at the bottom of your print carriage and see if you can find that fiber - or anything else obvious.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Doing a thorough cleaning around the head, cleaning the capping station, and doing a wiper replacement at the moment, although I just did a good cleaning a few days prior and this has been occuring off and on for the last few weeks. There are no obvious 'stalactites' of any sort that would interfere with the print hanging anywhere near the print head or the area around the head, which is why I have to wonder if it's a static issue or something else altogether.

 

[Solventinkjet]

You could also have a deflecting nozzle causing this. How does the nozzle check look?

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

You could also have a deflecting nozzle causing this. How does the nozzle check look?

The test print looks perfect, as it typically does.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Here is the last test print.

 

[papabud]

your test print looks really good. looking at your prints i would look at the surface under the print. looks like something is pushing up and making the print rub the underside of your printhead

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

your test print looks really good. looking at your prints i would look at the surface under the print. looks like something is pushing up and making the print rub the underside of your printhead

The material isn't striking the print head. I am running the print head in the upmost position, which seems to help a little but still doesn't eliminate the problem. This material is somewhat rigid and lies very flat. I'm only seeing this happen in specific areas of the prints. in this case, only along the top edge of this red lettering. I'm going to try a different color profile and see if it makes any difference.

 

[papabud]

its a very straight mark and evenly spaced. it might even be that your putting down to much ink and its not drying fast enough and is running along a groove

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Several days later and we're still having these issues on every media we run. I'm waiting for a Mimaki tech to call back. In the meantime, we've cleaned everything several times and there are no foreign objects interfering with the print head. We believe it may be a static issue, although the humidity has been pretty high the last few days and I just can't see how this could be the culprit with a printer that has run flawlessly over a period of the last 18 months. Does anyone have any further suggestions that we can try while waiting for a technician to contact us?

Again, the printer is a Mimaki CJV150-130. This time around, we are running Orajet 3951RA using an Orajet 3951 color profile.

 

[mpn]

Look for a piece of hair. I know it sounds weird and you said you've cleaned it but that is what it looks like. Had it happen before.

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

Look for a piece of hair. I know it sounds weird and you said you've cleaned it but that is what it looks like. Had it happen before.

We've already gone over that. Shined a light across the print head and surrounding housing several times after several different test prints. I'm pretty sure even our Mimaki tech, who I spoke with earlier, is scratching his head over this one. Everything has been examined and cleaned at least 3 times. It's so random and predominantly only happens around darker colored areas with a white background. We ran a 24" x 18" full color test print with no white areas and the image printed flawlessly. It's so bizarre.