Mutoh Valuejet w/takeup: vertical banding in cyan. HOW TO FIX.

[ProWraps]

flawed take up system!

the system puts pressure on the media coming out of the printer and it creates vertical banding in the cyan prints.

i mentioned this to mutoh last year when we had 25 vans to print, all cyan. the rep said i was crazy. i have reproduced the error over and over today. and it IS a problem. with the take up bar putting tension on the media, we get vertical banding. manually activated. we dont. its instant error correction.

just a heads up to all of you running this system.

we have to leave the take up bar up, and manually activate the take up with no tension on the media.

try it. it works. hope this helps some of you.

there are other factors such as temp, etc. but if you are running the right temp/humitidy consistantly and still getting vertical banding, try it.

 

[ProWraps]

sorry edited title to say VERTICAL banding.

unfortunately this requires constant baby sitting. for the two printers we are running 1304's it sucks. but it works. we are a stickler for quality so i wont accept the vertical "heat" lines in the prints.

many have had a problem with this system and i now see why. the older system used an "eye" to detect the media take up. the bar with tension system is flawed and i seriously hope they dont include it on their next gen printer setup.

the obvious reason for the problem is skew. its damn near impossible to get the media taped to the roll PERFECT in line with the out put of the printer. the tension creates "skew" on the media which is visible the most with cyan for some reason.

there are too many factors at work such as the alignment of the take up reel, the placement of the core, the way the print is taped on it. all culminate in the tension and skew of how the media is being pulled out of the printer.

the horizontal banding, well THAT is just a mutoh perk!

 

[randya]

If it works without the take-up,but not with the take-up, it sounds like you need to do a pf adjust with the take up connected.

I have found that the current take up works MUCH MUCH better than the photosensor one, but you do have to compensate for the added pressure.

I cut each corner off my media, put my tape on the center 'point' and pull with the tape to attached to the take up roll to center it.
If you have trouble, have one person hold the tape and have another go behind the printer and reroll the media (or just add tension), to help straighten it up.

You may also need to check the alignment on the take-up, it is adjustable.
http://service.mutoh.com/#/Videos/VJ 1604 Instal Video/VJ1604 TakeUp.wmv

 

[GAC05]

My black magic for the take up on the 1304:
Single tape in the center
Let the printer run with the take up freewheeling until there is plenty of printed slack
Wind it tight (& back it off) by hand with the bar not touching the material a few times to get it settle down evenly.
The trick is when you set the core on collar don't butt it all the way up, leave about a 10mm gap on the drive side.
Watch the tension on the material as feeds over the drop down bar - if the tension is not even slide the take up core to the left or right until it looks good all the way down the bar. Without the gap you can't adjust to right.
Should be good to the end of the roll.
lather, rinse, repeat if needed.

When the magic fails:
I had to run a few rolls of some really bad 13oz banner material, it would not run straight no matter what I did with the take up engaged so I just hand wound the reel through each roll to get the job done.

wayne k
guam usa
l

 

[randya]

The trick is when you set the core on collar don't butt it all the way up, leave about a 10mm gap on the drive side.
Watch the tension on the material as feeds over the drop down bar - if the tension is not even slide the take up core to the left or right until it looks good all the way down the bar. Without the gap you can't adjust to right.

wayne k
guam usa
l

Sweet!

 

[MachServTech]

If it works without the take-up,but not with the take-up, it sounds like you need to do a pf adjust with the take up connected.

On my solvent printers I had two sets of PF look-ups. On the take-up and loose.