Poor print quality with my SC540 SolJet Pro II

[servant07]

Hello all, new here. I picked up a used Roland SC540 SolJet Pro II at a government auction. The printer was barely used however they let it sit in storage without clearing the lines. So I pretty much had to replace all the lines and print heads. I got it up and running, but the quality of the prints I am getting is quite bad. It appears to have dust and various debris in the ink. I have the printer setup in a clean room, no carpeting, using Roland OEM ink, and I have the magnetic anti-static rope kit passing over the vinyl as it feeds into the back of the printer. Doesn't seem to matter what vinyl I use, I have tried various Arlon and Oracal vinyls with the same results.

Any advice and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have attached pics to show exactly what I mean.

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

Stuff that size can't get through the head nozzles. I would say it's contaminated vinyl and one more question...is your heat turned almost all the way up on your print & dryer settings?
It looks like pooling which can happen if you are running it on glossy substrates with no heat and especially with dust present. Stick a humidifier behind the printer.

 

[eahicks]

Also what kind of RIP and what profile are you using? Could be the ink limits for the profile are not correct.
If it was one vinyl I'd say it was bad vinyl, as I've seen it before. But not from multiple. Has to be profile, RIP settings, or bad ink. I assume you bought new ink carts.

 

[servant07]

I did buy new ink carts, Roland Eco-Sol Max, and I do not have a dryer. Right now I am printing on Orajet 3640 Matte Finish vinyl. For RIP I use Flexi Pro and I am using the 3640 profile from Orafol's website. They didn't have my exact printer in the list as a profile option so I chose the SC545EX profile. Seemed to be the closest one to my printer model. Bad choice perhaps?

 

[jsonpaul]

I am having the same issue, the dark marks are dust from storage it is present only on the first part of the roll. So everytime I load media I wipe it with micro fibre cloth that sucks before priting.

I am print without heat and I am getting grainy results. I have seen in this forum that the heat may be a factor so I will try to turn on the heater on a low temp when I try it later.

 

[redprint]

I did buy new ink carts, Roland Eco-Sol Max, and I do not have a dryer. Right now I am printing on Orajet 3640 Matte Finish vinyl. For RIP I use Flexi Pro and I am using the 3640 profile from Orafol's website. They didn't have my exact printer in the list as a profile option so I chose the SC545EX profile. Seemed to be the closest one to my printer model. Bad choice perhaps?

Your should be able to profile your media with Flexisign Pro. It isn't a true postscript rip so it does have some problems but you should be able to get by. You will need a spectrophotometer to profile media. Your issue isn't with the profile, it is with your media being full of dust or dirt. When you load the media in the printer, stick your head down on the same level as the media and look for dust on the surface. The light has to shine just right and you will see dirt or dust on your media if that in fact is the cause of this. The ink cannot be contaminated, it is sealed and the ink heads have holes so small that all that would clog them quite fast. Make sure the inside of your printer is totally clean and doesn't have a ton of dust inside it. And how clean is your environment? If you have dust, dirt all over, it could be getting fluffed up just by movement. Most vinyl has static in it and will attract dust like a magnet. Unless you have high humidity.

Every time I load a new roll into a printer, I wipe it off with lintless scanner wipes. And I look at it with my face close to it to see if there is any dirt on the media. Usually the dirt or dust is on the beginning that was on the outside of the roll.

I live in Iowa and the air is so dry the last few months that dust attracts to vinyl like a magnet. I have never used an anti static device or string, maybe that is the culprit?