Roland LEC2, UV printer, Lines in white prints

[RONIN]

Hi,

I recently acquired an LEC2. I've been having some issues with white lines showing up when I print white. Please see picture below - is this normal? or any suggestions what can be done to correct it. The lines can only be seen at certain angles and lighting.

Feed is calibrated but have noticed that on the calibration feed test print that there is sometimes a small change in the optimal option. If I repeat the test several times in a row, the previous optimal setting might show a very slight narrow gap between the top and bottom blocks, meaning it needs adjusting by at most +/- 0.1

So to be clear I kept going between this range: -0.1, -0.05, 0, 0.05, 0.1

I've adjusted media gap as best as I can, cleaned encoder strip and tried different media. Nozzle test looks good

Thanks.

 

[Roland Certified Tech]

Being that both white channels look like they’re firing perfectly, this looks like a feed calibration issue. Please perform the feed calibration on the media type you are running, you will find the instructions in the user manual.
then, make sure you send Versaworks properly under printer controls. Either put the number for feed calibration in and use custom settings or find the number, set it on the printer and use printer settings.

 

[RONIN]

Being that both white channels look like they’re firing perfectly, this looks like a feed calibration issue. Please perform the feed calibration on the media type you are running, you will find the instructions in the user manual.
then, make sure you send Versaworks properly under printer controls. Either put the number for feed calibration in and use custom settings or find the number, set it on the printer and use printer settings.

Hi

Thanks for replying back to me. I always do the adjustments on the printer itself and set Versaworks to use the printer feed settings. I would set the calibration correctly but noticed that they would drift slightly if the tests were repeated in succession. I have Roland care warranty in place and had an engineer visit me today. Changed out the pinch rollers and did a service mode adjustment. It's helped and looks much better now. However, the lines are still there to a small degree. He wasn't sure if this is as good as it gets on the LEC2 or not. I'm not sure if you may have an answer? I only recently acquired the machine from a dealer which was supposed to be fully refurbished so not really sure what baseline should be. If I print dark prints over it's fine, but light hues and white are a bit of a concern. I might just be looking for it now at this stage and it would just slip under the radar for most people.

 

[Roland Certified Tech]

You really should not have the banding that I was seeing in the pictures. Teach may replace the actual pinch rollers, but they really need to be looking at the pinch roller assemblies for cracks. A picture is attached.
This style of pinch roller assembly cracks easily if you are very rough with the pinch roller lever. Please be very gentle lifting and lowering the lever.
The printer is under warranty. You do need to get it fixed by Roland before your warranty is over. This should be fixable.

 

[Roland Certified Tech]

You can also try to minus the feed just a little bit extra to try and compensate for that gap.
Hopefully the tech did everything they were supposed to do: Checking the microdot test to make sure you really don’t have any head issues as they do not show up in the regular nozzle test, running feed aging and G-enc check.

 

[RONIN]

Thank you so much for your helpful advice. I'll take a look at the assembly with some care when I next go in and try the feed compensation you suggested. If it's still not 100 percent, I'll check with them about the other tests you suggested. Much appreciated.