Oce Arizona 360 XT white ink problem

[ElJay]

Oce Arizona 360 TX
Onyx ProductionHouse 10

Any time I try to run a job on black or clear material where there is heavy coverage of white ink (spot layer or flood fill) the white will band and drop out almost completely about halfway through. I've had a tech out here three times to attempt to fix this problem and they've pretty much replaced every part of the white ink system (valves, pumps, heads). The lines are clear and all the air is bled out. Tech seems to think it might be static electricity, but I clean my sheets well with a 3:1 mix of alcohol/water/Simple Green and it still does it weither I'm printing on PVC, polystyrene, acrylic, plywood, or MDF. Could it be an ink setting/profile issue? I've got a big job coming up in the next week that's going to use a TON of white and I'm getting a lot of shoulder shrugging from the tech so any help that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Nate1n22]

I've had the same problem for the last year and a half. I usually have dropouts when printing a full 4x8 sheet of white. Haven't been able to figure it out.

 

[artbot]

i'd look at the heat. getting a reading on a resting head might not represent the temp' of the head halfway down the sheet. with an IR thermometer you can get real time temps off the side of the head and compare that to a resting temp'. if it's running cool mid sheet you'll have to over shoot the setting to compensate.

also, do you see any difference between fast and slow print modes?

 

[tgrinds]

Artbot might be right with ink temperature for that head. With white ink having a thicker viscocity, correct temp is critical or head won't fire correctly. Also, have tech check for a slight vacuum leak with white channel.

 

[DravidDavid]

This has been an issue with the Oce machines since day 1. All techs I've spoken to say they've never met a customer who hasn't had an issue with printing white and nobody I know who has a white printer is happy with it. I have the 250GT without the white and I'm far from happy! Needless to say, I don't envy your situation at all.

Printing white on Roland machines is hard enough!

Ink temperature and head temperature are both definitely things I'd check first. If any of your sensors are misreading or dying mid print, you could be damaging your head by pumping thicker ink through it. In fact, if it's been happening for a while I wouldn't be surprised if your head had already suffered damage. Do all the nozzles still fire at the moment?

Considering almost everything else has been tried, you almost have no choice but to purchase a new head and give it a shot. There is a heater near the ink tank and another heater near the ink reservoir as far as I'm aware. If either have bad sensors, a new head may not be necessary. If those sensors are fine, it will be the sensor in the head and you will need to replace the entire head.

If it is heat related. You will usually see "Ink heat system problem" pop up in your error logs. We've been down this road with magenta. It's not fun.

Good luck!

 

[Tgngreatnews]

Oce 460GT White/spot/flood channel banding

I have had my Oce for over a year. The past few months i have had terrible banding towards the end of our media we print on. just our white layer. It seems that no matter what size the media is the banding occurs. banding usually occurs a quarter way down from our media print. i have short purged the white channels several times, our heads are calibrated and in working order. our file sizes dont tend to change so our r.i.p computer isnt seeing changes. our color profile is spectacular. we run 256 CMYK and our whites are 258 for a better coverage. Although we have coverage issues. I have been told that using 256 CMYK with the 258 whites wont be an issue. and for a year it hasnt been.
Going to try to do a full purge to see if possibly bad ink is settled in the ink lines.
Any suggestions**pls forward any tips or tricks

 

[Tgngreatnews]

Banding Solved!!!

So I finally have good news!
My white banding has been solved!
I had a white banding problem for about 4 months. Always had to run the spot channel over our media a few times to get a full coverage.
After having my Maintenance guys take a look and being a little stumped
they noticed that the ink reserves were leaking from the seals. So i had both of my white reserves replaced and now we haven't had a banding issue
So this may be another tip that may help those with same banding issues.
good luck!