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Roland SP-300V Banding problem??

xxxmain

New Member
Hello everyone, I'm having a problem with my trusty old Roland SP-300V, hopefully the experts here can help. A little back story, the machine is 8ish years old and has worked almost flawless in that time. It runs maybe 10 to 15 hours a week. The only parts I had changed in its lifetime is the data strip to the cutter.

Just yesterday the printer started banding? (I think that is what it's called), picture attached. The printer may have been doing it a bit longer than I knew, but it was more noticeable when I was printing carbon fiber sheets so the color was all similar making the mild banding easier to see. I had just recently changed the black ink. This may get some angry people going, but I did switch to the cheaper "house" ink from my material supplier a few months ago. 3 of the inks in the machine were already the "house" ink, and I just finally switched the black ink the other day. To ensure it wasn't an ink problem, I put another brand new black ink in yesterday to be sure (but it was still the "house" brand).

The caps and dampers on the printer were original (I know, long overdue), so I changed the CAPS only last night. If anything, it got a little worse (now the banding also includes a bit of blurriness). I have a set of dampers, but haven't changed those yet. My other concern is the quality of the parts I have. I ordered off ebay and I would imagine they aren't genuine Roland (I think this will make more people mad!). If it matters, I ordered from solventpartsusa user on ebay. Now I'm afraid to change the dampers in case these are crappy parts.

When I installed the CAPS last night, I did the swap, all parts went in flawless. Used a small syringe to draw ink through heads and caps at y-connector, ran two cleaning cycles (and I think even a medium clean). The test print is the same as it's been for a while (pic attached), pretty good, but a bit messy in the black (which it's been for a while now, but had still been printing fine).

The banding seemed to come out of no where, as no other settings have been changed on the printer. That is why I thought it was the newly changed black ink, but unless it's just that black is more temperamental than the other colors, the swap to ANOTHER new black ink should have solved a defective ink I thought.

Before I changed the CAPS last night, the print would look great for about 6", then the slight banding would start. Does anyone have any ideas on what caused the banding to begin with? Or what I can do to fix this? Should I install the new (maybe crappy) dampers? Should I just order proper Roland parts and replace both Caps and Dampers?? Should I switch back to Roland black ink? Or, am I in left field and not even working on the correct area of the printer?

BTW, I'm not a Roland tech (as if you couldn't figure that out from reading), but I'm very technical and comfortable wrenching on these things.

Thanks in advance for any help everyone!

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Ragnabrok

New Member
Look at the edge of that print, notice the edge moves? Encoder scale is dirty, causing the print to shift. Clean the encoder scale with iso alcohol, you're likely good to go after that.
 

xxxmain

New Member
Ah!, Never thought of that! I thought that was just to control the cutting (as that is what I cleaned when cutting wasn't accurate). I'm off to clean it now... I'll post results. Thanks!
 

xxxmain

New Member
That was it Ragnabrok! Thanks so much for the help. I guess those caps may be ok after all. This forum is so helpful. Thanks again!
 

splizaat

New Member
That's a great looking carbon fiber pattern....can you send that to me?! First one I've seen that looks decent
 

splizaat

New Member
That was it Ragnabrok! Thanks so much for the help. I guess those caps may be ok after all. This forum is so helpful. Thanks again!

Those encoder strips on the 300V get dirty too damn often. Once they start to get real dirty your only option is to replace it. You can try flipping it upside down, taking it out and really cleaning it, but eventually just replace it and save the headache.
 

player

New Member
I would suggest not scrubbing them like crazy. A nice gentle cleaning with a swab or a micro fiber cloth and the alcohol.

The heads spit ink into the felt at the cleaning station every pass. This plus the general misting is one problem with the design.
My newer printer has the heads spitting into the caps at every pass, and the encoder strip is a little more protected.
 
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