Hey guys, new to the forum and new to wide format printing. Basically we purchased an SC-500 to get into making signage and decals but am having no luck atm. The prints have gotten better since first using the machine but i still can't figure out what is wrong. Had a tech check the machine out and had the pump replaced and the capping station cleaned up which after a few head cleans brought the quality up a little but as you'll see in the attached images, the quality is still quite poor. Regarding the black, the tech said to run some prints through as the solvent in the ink may clear it up but it hasn't enough to make the printing noticibly better. There are visible lines through the 6 colour test print, and other than black, i cannot obtain a solid colour at all. I tried changing eps versions all the way down to version 3 and changing between postscript 2 and 3 for all to see if it was a file issue but no luck with that either. The images i printed were all saved as CMYK, no rasters used. The sunset way a tiff i found online to try someone elses file to further check if it was my file settings but came out the same. All prints were done with the SOL Gloss White profile at either super or photo (min 720dpi either way). Could it be a problem with colorchoice? Or am i looking at hardware issues? The tech has a new head that he'll install labour free at cost if the black doesn't clear up but i need to make some quality prints to make some money back before spending even more money lol. Any help would be great.
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Poor quality prints. Trying to find out why
- Thread starter Rayder
- Start date
Does this help?
http://support.rolanddga.com/_layouts/RolandDGA/productdetail.aspx?pm=SC-500
I would get a close to perfect test print / head alignment before anything else too drastic. It looks like you are missing almost 50% of your black head. You're going to get banding when the test print shows nozzles are missing. Do you know how to do a head soak?
http://support.rolanddga.com/_layouts/RolandDGA/productdetail.aspx?pm=SC-500
I would get a close to perfect test print / head alignment before anything else too drastic. It looks like you are missing almost 50% of your black head. You're going to get banding when the test print shows nozzles are missing. Do you know how to do a head soak?
I assume you were talking about the maintenance pdf from that link?
Nope, no idea how to do a head soak.
Going to go back through the manual and do any test/calibration i can but. It was printing perfectly prior to purchase and i know that it was used often because it was the only machine the guy had.
Nope, no idea how to do a head soak.
Going to go back through the manual and do any test/calibration i can but. It was printing perfectly prior to purchase and i know that it was used often because it was the only machine the guy had.
@player was this what you meant by head soak? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjHdAv2ehE
2B
Active Member
when soaking the head, we found doing multiple soaks is ideal.
example you had black missing about 29 nozzles on one of our VS 640, let it soak for about 36 hrs. did a powerful cleaning then printed some test samples did another 36 hour soak and another powerful cleaning and the nozzles came back
example you had black missing about 29 nozzles on one of our VS 640, let it soak for about 36 hrs. did a powerful cleaning then printed some test samples did another 36 hour soak and another powerful cleaning and the nozzles came back
MikePro
New Member
even though you're not supposed to touch the bottom of the printhead (in fear of scratching/clogging nozzles), I've had great success using a swab to "lick the goo" off the printhead:
-overly saturate a foam cleaning swab and give a single-wipe across the bottom of the printhead in the direction the wiper usually operates.
-never re-use the same swab, to avoid scrubbing ink-clots into the nozzles, but a couple of clean wipes before & after a long head soak has always been extremely successful on my solvent printer to clean up deflected nozzles.
-overly saturate a foam cleaning swab and give a single-wipe across the bottom of the printhead in the direction the wiper usually operates.
-never re-use the same swab, to avoid scrubbing ink-clots into the nozzles, but a couple of clean wipes before & after a long head soak has always been extremely successful on my solvent printer to clean up deflected nozzles.
A safer way is to soak a swab and carefully just barely touch the bottom of the head, and hold it there with no pressure and no movement for 5 minutes. I have been able to get very good results like this thanks to Phototec for telling me about it.
Another thing is to do a cleaning or a soak, clean it up, try a test print, then leave it alone for a day or 2. Sometimes things clear up after on their own, and sometimes if you work too hard at it, things get worse.
Another thing is to do a cleaning or a soak, clean it up, try a test print, then leave it alone for a day or 2. Sometimes things clear up after on their own, and sometimes if you work too hard at it, things get worse.
Thanks guys. I'll see if i can find somewhere to get cleaning solution that's open on a weekend (today being Saturday). If all of the nozzles, or 90% of them, become unblocked, will the prints clear up and become viable sale wise or are there other issues? The print & cut alignment feed and scan was checked and set by the tech so it should be fine i assume.
So after soaking for 24hrs there was no visible change in print quality and seeing as i need to get jobs out that were already organised, i bit the bullet and got a new head installed. Now the nozzle test print looks fine, heads were aligned, scan and feed alignment done. Basically every setting that could be checked and changed has been done but i'm still not getting good quality prints. No matter what i send to print, everything looks terrible. Can't reproduce a solid colour or gradient and still has lines through the prints. Tech says he's checked everything hardware related that could cause print quality problems so it may be the rip settings but he doesn't deal with the software side of things. Roland doesn't support the printer or the software anymore so i can't even obtain new profiles to see if they will fix the problem and i can't keep getting techs out at $400 a visit. Any other advice before it turns into a $6000 paperweight?
No it was printing perfectly before we moved it from the previous owners shop to our place. The head carriage wasn't secured and the heads were still full of ink when we moved it. This is our first machine so i had no idea any of that needed to be done. We just grabbed a van, threw it in the back and brought it home.He said to call roland and speak to the guy that's in charge of software because he may have profiles even though roland no longer has them on their site. I tried to find some info on making/editing profiles but so far no luck.
I don't. He used colorchoice on an xp virtual image instead of having a second pc for it and deleted it after we grabbed the printer cause he has no need for it with his new XR-640. He was using 3M media mostly but i'm using avery media. MPI2000 if that matters. Just using the standard gloss white vinyl profile provided with the software. The black ink seems to be coming through too heavy after the new head was put in because there's bleeding into every colour it touches.
I think you should start a thread asking other members if they have any colorchoice profiles. Also check for different profiles on vinyl manufacturers sites.
So I Googled "SC-500 colorchoice profiles"
https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=SC-500+colorchoice+profiles
What's all this about converting them to ecosol max?
http://www.signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?45887-Colorchoice-4-5v2-CJ500-or-SC500
Is yours converted? What inks do you use? Do you have heaters?
Here is a link to some Metamark profiles:
http://www.metamark.co.uk/Pages_prof/rol_sc-500_cc.htm
3M?
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...raphics/ToolsAndSupport/ColorProfileSelector/
You should be able to get a few decent profiles that will work on most materials of that type. Banner, calendared, cast, reflective etc...
Keep us posted...
So I Googled "SC-500 colorchoice profiles"
https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=SC-500+colorchoice+profiles
What's all this about converting them to ecosol max?
http://www.signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?45887-Colorchoice-4-5v2-CJ500-or-SC500
Is yours converted? What inks do you use? Do you have heaters?
Here is a link to some Metamark profiles:
http://www.metamark.co.uk/Pages_prof/rol_sc-500_cc.htm
3M?
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...raphics/ToolsAndSupport/ColorProfileSelector/
You should be able to get a few decent profiles that will work on most materials of that type. Banner, calendared, cast, reflective etc...
Keep us posted...
The printer uses ecosol max inks and as far as i'm aware came from the factory setup for sol inks. Firmware is the last available 4.4. Has factory fitted heater set to 45c. Ive tried to use media profiles listed as Soljet Pro II but theres no way to install media profiles, only output profiles, and the media profiles are all versaworks profiles. If i select anything other than "other" for media profile i can only access one output profile. So i used other and tried some of the eco sol max profiles from the jp roland site. No real difference in quality but less ink being laid down so the bleeding is minimal. The metamark profiles printed really lightly, so black was grey etc.
I also spoke to roland support and they gave me a long list of adjustments to do. So i did them all and took photos of the printed adjustments and they're saying its spot on so it must be a software issue and if changing profiles isn't working then my only other option is trying another rip software.
The only software i have found that supports the SC500 is onyx and its not available for xp. I installed the demo on my other laptop to see how it'd go. The printer is connected to the laptop via a parallel to usb cable, windows installs a driver from windows update and then says no printer attached and onyx doesn't give me an option to select usb as a port for the printer.
I also spoke to roland support and they gave me a long list of adjustments to do. So i did them all and took photos of the printed adjustments and they're saying its spot on so it must be a software issue and if changing profiles isn't working then my only other option is trying another rip software.
The only software i have found that supports the SC500 is onyx and its not available for xp. I installed the demo on my other laptop to see how it'd go. The printer is connected to the laptop via a parallel to usb cable, windows installs a driver from windows update and then says no printer attached and onyx doesn't give me an option to select usb as a port for the printer.