Motor Feed Error

[mbarden]

Hi Everyone,
Running a SP540 and when ever have new heavy roll on the machine I often get a motor feed error as it pull the material from the roll. I do not use the media rollers that came with the printer. Will that correct the problem or do I need to manually feed out the roll?
Thanks
Mike B
Big River Sign Co.

 

[GK]

how heavy is the roll you are using? i know with our smaller machines the biggest rolls of material we can use are the 50yd rolls.

 

[txsurfer]

This is my biggest gripe! When using Banner Material we have to keep the material rolled out otherwise "MOTOR FEED ERROR", We have lost several jobs!

 

[GK]

Yeah it sucks, i was hoping a 3rd party would start making an aftermarket set of rollers for the smaller machines so you could load a bigger roll on it without this error. Having to swap out 50yd rolls when you have a short production run of banners sucks and it is never really feasible to use the larger machines for these short runs.

 

[mystysue]

we have only noticed this with the big banner rolls.. it seems that the material wants to almost stick together.. we just unrolll the amount that is gonna be used and let it hang off the roll in the back.. and have had no problems since.. ... It also really helps to keep the banner running straight if you unroll some so it helps in a couple ways to do this..

 

[mbarden]

Thanks Everyone,
At least i'm not the only one having the problem. It does suck though.
Thanks
Mike B

 

[GK]

Sure, there are fixes for it like unrolling the media before it is ready to go through... then you have to worry about media contamination, media skewing etc. It really doesn't permit unattended printing if you are doing 50 banners per order.

 

[Gino]

Sure, there are fixes for it like unrolling the media before it is ready to go through... then you have to worry about media contamination, media skewing etc. It really doesn't permit unattended printing if you are doing 50 banners per order.

Those would be some mighty small banners if there are 50 banners figured on a 50 yard roll. lol Only kidding, that just struck me funny :Big Laugh
​

 

[cinemasign.grafix]

Yes , using the media rollers help.

 

[Drip Dry]

I tried an aftermarket brand and had that problem. Seemed it stuck to itself on the roll. I went back to roland banner material and the problem went away.

 

[cdiesel]

Using the rollers will definintely help, also, make sure the "drag bar" is not engaged. This is a device attached to the support rollers on the back of the printer. Makes a huge difference!

 

[GK]

Those would be some mighty small banners if there are 50 banners figured on a 50 yard roll. lol Only kidding, that just struck me funny :Big Laugh​

lol thats the problem... 50+ banners in an order and you can only put a damn 50 yard roll on before you gotta change it...and change it....and change it -- hate babysitting machines

 

[ChiknNutz]

I always use the media rollers (for both vinyl and banner) and don't have that problem, unless using a 54" x 50 yd roll of banner mat'l (as it is usually reverse wound). Even still, I don't usually get the error, but the prints come out crappy if you allow it to pull directly off the roll (lots of banding and poor color saturation). The ones that come with the printer are kinda crappy in that they will come out if you don't have the collars on the support bars sucked up good and tight to the media flanges. I also have a Summa cutter that came with really good media flanges that stay put. I use these most of the time. The only time I use the Roland ones is when it is a fresh roll of banner, because they are a bit larger in diameter and the Summa ones aren't big enough to support the roll until it's used up some.

 

[Elwood Moose]

Agreed with above.. Summa has figured out those media rolls... Roland can take a lesson from them.

Not sure what the big diffis between the two.. but the Summa runs straight for the entire roll, never had a slip-off, and never had a feed error. Roland...mmm..not so much....

 

[wes13]

I get that problem a lot with big heavy 80 lb. 54" x 50+ yard rolls of 15oz. banner material,
even if I use the media flanges I would still get the infamous motor feed error.

The solution is after you get the roll loaded on there, roll out extra feet of banner until it drapes on to the floor behind the printer or however much you think you might need, and just keep an eye on it!.
I have not had the problem since..
hope that helps.

 

[mediaman]

Roland now offers new media flanges (Part # 100003083) @ $44.00 each. These may be the type that Summa now uses. They have a rubber collar that fits in the media core and a knob on the outside that expands the rubber to seat firmly in the core eliminating slippage. Using the flanges should reduce the friction and put less strain on the feed motor. Roland also uses four roller stoppers instead of two and they are more heavy duty than the earlier versions. These modifications should help with feed alignment and reduce the drag on the media that can cause feed motor errors. BTW, the max roll weight on the SP/VP-300 is 44 pounds and the XC/VP-540 is 66 pounds. I bet some of the banner rolls mentioned above are heavier than 44 pounds.

 

[cdiesel]

I'll have to check out those new rollers.

Chris--we had the same issue with banding while not unrolling the banner first, but we were able to dial in the feed motor and get perfect prints everytime. I don't believe you're running versaworks, but in VW you can adjust the feed calibration %. I think standard is usually around -.25%, but we've had great results in the +.55% range.