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!
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!
