Media Clamps..Use Them?

[kroger]

I was using the media clamps with my Roland sp300i as I was advised to when I purchased the machine. For awhile now I haven't used them as I was having head strikes? And already replaced a head a few years back. Lately the corners are catching with the heads without the media clamps. Is it a must I use them or not? I need another black print head again and 4 hrs away from a tech $$$. I can't really service it myself. Near Kingston, ont Canada. TIA

 

[Solventinkjet]

It is better to use them for exactly the reason you are experiencing now. Was the head hitting the media clamps before? If so, they might have been bent which would cause the head to hit them. You could replace them with new ones and it should work better.

 

[kelly r]

It is better to use them for exactly the reason you are experiencing now. Was the head hitting the media clamps before? If so, they might have been bent which would cause the head to hit them. You could replace them with new ones and it should work better.

Thank you that makes sense. Yes I think print heads have crashed with the clamps, reason for taking them off. They aren't bent up but when I attach them back on they don't sit flat at the back but flat at the front. hard to explain, they slant toward the front? is there a way to lower the bar they are attached to?

 

[Joe House]

is there a way to lower the bar they are attached to

No. As VanderJ said, replace the clamps (contact a Roland distributor). I wouldn't use them till they are working properly. Also, if the corners (edges) of your media are bent up so much that they're hitting the print heads, they may have enough force to lift the edge guards into the path of the print heads as well. You would be better off to throw that away or at least as much as has the damaged edges.

As for "If you need to use them all the time?" My take is this: Head strikes on vinyl over time will damage a print head, a one time occurrence usually will not. Head strikes on a incorrectly installed or bent media clamp will almost surely damage the print head(s). Use them if there is slight lifting at the edges of the media. If the damage at the edge of the media is severe, then toss that and don't count on a media clamp to flatten it out.

 

[T_K]

I have a vs-540i, and I rarely use the media clamps unless necessary. But for >95% of my media, I don't get head strikes unless I've dropped a roll on its edge. Mostly I leave them off because it's not a problem most of the time and it's one more step to remove them when cutting off the media. I've learned to always use clamps for banner material, as this stuff always has a curl to the edges, but I don't print many of those anymore.

Haven't heard of the heads striking the clamps before. It sounds like either the clamps are defective or the attachment bar is defective. Probably the clamps.

 

[2ny]

We have both an old SP-300 and a SG-540 that we got last year. The old SP-300 have never had any problems with mediacrash or the clamps. However -the new SG-540 with its low head height crashed a couple of times a short time after we got it. One time it got hold of a media clamp also, and the end result was that we had to get a head replacement on the machine. I have been told that Roland recommend use of the mediaclamps whenever the machine is printing, and have been very careful with the media edges and placement of the clamps on this machine. However, I think the operation of removing the clamps to perform a sheet cut is idiotic. One can very easy forget to put them back, and the possibility for a poor replacement in the groove increases fast. But this is how it is, and we got to be very painstaking careful. As you mentioned Kelly, the clamps do not sit quite flat from the back, but slant a little towards the front. Thats normal. You could also try to feed a little extra media out of the machine before you start printing, but then you mess up the eventual print/cut operation if thats what you wish to do. Are you unrolling media on the back before you print? If the media has any strain coming of the roll, it can cause trouble.

Best regards.
Tony