Yesterday we ran the new oversize hoses from the bulk ink tanks all the way to the print head. I ran 78" x 50' of solid purple-ish blue color overnight, and the cyan & magenta still drop out. It does not seem to be quite as bad as it used to be (maybe I just did not run enough length to make it completely starve,) but it could by no means be pass as a saleable print. One thing I did notice this morning though: The carriage never returns to the dock to pump ink through the lines during the print. The pumps will sometimes run shortly during the print, but the carriage does not actually sit sealed on the dock while they are working. If I stop the print, & run a head-clean cycle, the carriage will seal and pump ink through. This will temporarily fix the problem. My refresh priority is set to "Plot," and the rate is set to 3. Is this normal?
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Mimaki JV3-250SP streaking/Ink starvation
- Thread starter Fabritech
- Start date
eforer
New Member
Thats correct, it should be set to PLOT unless you can specify a refresh option in your rip settings at which point you could try that and set it to HOST instead. It should periodically return to the capping station and top off. What firmware are you on? It could be a software issue.
If you guy are running oversized dampers, the membrane on the left edge of the damper (when looking at the machine) is more easily ruptured than those on the small dampers. If there is a slight leak, it could cause this problem. You can check by using a syringe and putting some soapy water on the damper membrane and see if it bubbles. If thats the case the damper is the likely culprit. I mention this because I f'd up a damper installing new one's today.
If you guy are running oversized dampers, the membrane on the left edge of the damper (when looking at the machine) is more easily ruptured than those on the small dampers. If there is a slight leak, it could cause this problem. You can check by using a syringe and putting some soapy water on the damper membrane and see if it bubbles. If thats the case the damper is the likely culprit. I mention this because I f'd up a damper installing new one's today.
I know for sure that it is not the most recent firmware, but from what I understand, it is the most recent version that I can use with the bulk ink system that I have. When we converted the machine ages ago, we actually had to downgrade the firmware to accommodate the bulk ink. That is what I was told then by our tech at the time. It could be bad info though.
ColesCreations
New Member
You may be able to run newer firmware if you buy resettable chips, that read full ink every time you switch the printer on.
Don't see why it would make a difference though.
I will check into how often our printer returns to the capping station during a print, but it is not very often, and, our printer was made in 2007, and still prints those lovely rainbows.
Don't see why it would make a difference though.
I will check into how often our printer returns to the capping station during a print, but it is not very often, and, our printer was made in 2007, and still prints those lovely rainbows.
eforer
New Member
Fabritech, just out of curiosity, do you custom profile your stuff? If your ink limits are set really high, it might fire hose ink down and just exceed the damper capacity. I also assume you have made unique profiles for your production modes you are not just using a high pass number high res print mode profile.
No, unfortunately we do not. We actually use a bunch of different profiles that were either provided w/ Photoprint or downloaded. There is no set profile that we use for any one media. That usually works OK for us, but every once in awhile it will give us major headaches when trying to color-match. We really did not get very good training with this machine when it was bought, and we have always been too busy to take a class on custom profiling. We pretty much only print on 360x540 6 pass. The ink limits are set pretty high in all of the profiles that we use, but the machine does not appear to be dumping any more ink on the media than it needs to. I have followed the carriage as it prints, and the oversize dampers always appear to be about half full no matter how good or bad the machine is printing.
eforer
New Member
If I was on double cmyk, I'd make some profiles for you. I would try to set the ink limits as low as you can get away with and see if that improves the situation. Although, if the dampers look full, that might not have anything to do with it. Is your capping station aligned correctly, it might not be getting a really quality refresh if the caps don't come right up on the heads.
We think we have discovered our problem with the ink starvation on our JV3s. Myself, along with one of our vendor techs believe it was the Onyx driver for the JV3s. We loaded the EFI Fiery rip and have been training on it for a almost a week and have not seen the ink starvation problem with the Fiery. Made a custom profile for 180C on the Fiery and Onyx and the Fiery color blows away Onyx and showed no ink starvation. Same two files printed via Onyx show ink starvation problems as well as poor color!!!!!!!!!! Onyx works great on our Epson 11880, but really sucks on our Mimaki JV3s. Now I just have to learn a new rip!!!!!!!!!!!
Good Luck, Jim
Good Luck, Jim
I was already considering upgrading my very outdated RIP program (Photoprint DX v4.0,) but we were waiting to see if this printer could be fixed first. We are currently toying around with purchasing a new Roland and dumping the Mimaki. If that is the case, I do not want to buy a new RIP for this, only to have to buy another one for the Roland. I would be very open to testing a new RIP program on a trial basis to see if it fixes the problem though. Does anyone even offer trials on these programs?
I just got off the phone with a Triangle Ink tech. He said that the heads are most probably overheating and misfiring. He told me that the Epson heads are not supposed to operate in temps over 30 C, and are subject to misfiring and clogging when run at temps higher than that. He also said that no printer should be run for extended periods of time without intermittent head cleaning. I suppose I can try cooling the platen & seeing if that helps. Any thoughts?
ColesCreations
New Member
Well.
Now we have done some Dual CMYK printing, colors are OK after using one of the Flexisign profiles and reducing Magenta by 20% in the rip/print.
But- the horizontal banding is now worse in areas of dark coverage, today I printed large areas of solid, no color-correction squares of Black, Magenta, Yellow and Cyan.
Looks fine for a while, watching closely while printing, cover open, I notices sometimes the passes are not gradually more saturated, sometimes a "first pass" has more or the same ink than the second pass, this area will show up as lighter colored stripes.
It's almost as if the printer goes a pass or 2 without laying down ink, then back in business for a few inches, then skipping a pass or 3...
We have the Refresh set at 3, but it NEVER stops to pump during a print..??
Did not get it to print the colorbands on the side, but could not get it to work in the Rip, will try more tomorrow and set it up in the printer.
Sorry if I am hijacking the thread, but figured it was related.
By the way, also tried Rasterlink, different profiles, don't think it is rip related.
:Ideas:
Now we have done some Dual CMYK printing, colors are OK after using one of the Flexisign profiles and reducing Magenta by 20% in the rip/print.
But- the horizontal banding is now worse in areas of dark coverage, today I printed large areas of solid, no color-correction squares of Black, Magenta, Yellow and Cyan.
Looks fine for a while, watching closely while printing, cover open, I notices sometimes the passes are not gradually more saturated, sometimes a "first pass" has more or the same ink than the second pass, this area will show up as lighter colored stripes.
It's almost as if the printer goes a pass or 2 without laying down ink, then back in business for a few inches, then skipping a pass or 3...
We have the Refresh set at 3, but it NEVER stops to pump during a print..??
Did not get it to print the colorbands on the side, but could not get it to work in the Rip, will try more tomorrow and set it up in the printer.
Sorry if I am hijacking the thread, but figured it was related.
By the way, also tried Rasterlink, different profiles, don't think it is rip related.
:Ideas:CL Graphics
New Member
I am still having the same problems. Did anyone ever get there mimaki to print right. I have tried 3m and oracal media. Rasterlink and wasatch. Lots of different profiles. Bidirectional, Unidirectional, fast print, 8 pass to 16 pass. Still get streaking in my blues and purples. I have a purple wrap to do in a couple weeks. Hope I can figure something out.
ChicagoGraphics
New Member
I never had any problems with my Mimaki 160sp using Onyx rip.
CL Graphics
New Member
Well i changed the head height to thin and it seemed to help when printing 16 pass. 8 pass still looks bad. I also changed the ink limit from 250 to 300 and that may have helped a little. I dont think its a profile issue as much as I think there is a problem with the machine. Chicago what inks do you run. Do you do your own profiles.
eforer
New Member
Always run the head height thin unless you are printing really heavy duty, wavy banner material etc. Even on ultraflexx 13 oz, we run the head thin with no head strikes. You also can't just change the ink limit on a profile without totally f'ing the whole profile up. The characterization, linerization etc. is based on those ink limits. The only time I experience vertical banding is typically when the media isn't sitting perfectly flat on the platten. If you have too much heat, it will create waves alont the long axis of the material which will cause a vertical banding phenomenon. I get it mostly on banner material if we run too much heat. The oversized dampers might help too, but that was covered earlier in this thread. I only have a 160s so there could be problems I have not experienced on the 250 models.
-Ed
-Ed