Need Help Mimaki JV3-130 SPII Print is skewed?

[ktwigger]

Hi guys,

I posted a few months ago about our plotter's die cut being way off when it cuts. After piles of hair being pulled out and a couple of months sitting in my shower with the heat on high, contemplating my life choices....

IT'S THE FREAKING PRINT.

Today started out annoying and has been nothing but an uphill battle since, but after about 45 minutes of frustration trying to get the crop marks to line up on the plotter with no success whatsoever, I laid the print out on our table and measured. Turns out the entire print is skewed. Not crooked, freaking skewed as hell. The crop marks lengthwise should be exactly 98" apart. On one side of the print it's almost a whole 1/4" short of 98", on the other side it's almost 1/4" over 98". So basically about 1/2" of difference.

Has anyone had issues like this? Is it the printer? Could it be the laminator? How has it been remedied? This happens pretty frequently now with our longer prints and it's causing me to get more gray hairs so any help would be so appreciated.

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

sounds like it could perhaps be rip related compensation issues. what material are you running and what rip?

 

[ktwigger]

Orajet 3165RA with RasterLink v2.10

 

[ktwigger]

I should also note that it isn't every print. I mean literally the same thing can be printed twice and one will be off and the other can be fine.

 

[gabagoo]

Maybe the printer is having trouble pulling off a large roll... Sometimes I wonder how it can pull one of those 80 pound rolls of banner material without slipping

 

[ktwigger]

I don't think so, seems to have trouble just as much on the beginning of a roll as the end.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I have run into this exact problem on JV3s and it's a bad encoder strip and/or sensor. You can try to clean them with alcohol but usually they just need to be replaced.

 

[rjssigns]

VanderJ to the rescue He helped me a lot getting my printer back in shape.
My Roland was skewing prints also. First thing I did was make sure the encoder strip was clean and the encoder sensor was lined up. That wasn't it. Prints started to mess up really bad so I replaced all the ribbon cables. Worked like a champ.

But....then it started skewing again. Encoder sensor finally bit the dust and had to be replaced. While I was in there I replaced the encoder strip. Been running just fine now.

All the parts I mentioned are consumables. Thankfully they are cheap as chips and easy, but tedious to replace.