Roland TrueVis and Avery MPI SC-1105 issues

[Billings Sign Pro]

I am having issues printing on Avery MPI SC-1105 using the Roland TrueVis VG2-640. We have had this printer for almost 2 years now and so far the issue that we have is with the 1105 material. The darker colors seem to not be drying by the time the material is rolled up. The image that I have provided shows and example of what happens. I have the heater and the dryer on the printer at max, the head speed is at 1016, and the room temp is at a constant 68 degrees. I have it on a 10 pass, I did change it to a 9 pass at one time and that created another issue where in solid colors there would be a light banding. We have another Roland Printer that is older and we never had this issue with the 1105 material.

I did ask the person who services our Roland what it could possibly be and his response was "I've never heard of any issues with 1105 before. Turn the dryer to max." With the profile that I have all the inks are at 100% and when I go to Roland profiles, all the profiles that I can find for the material has the same percentage.

I am at a lost and would like any advice that you can give me. the Ink that is being used is TR2 ink for the Roland TrueVis printers.

 

[LarryB]

I'm going through the same exact issue and have tried bumping up the heat as well with no luck. Tried many different profiles and also reduced the ink levels. This is also happening on other materials and not just Avery. I tried Arlon SLX+ material with slide technology and it did not work. Vinyl was very tacky at initial install.

Right now we print a wrap and wait a couple of days before laminating. Once laminated the vinyl is still tacky while trying to install. Wraps take much longer than they used to. Thankfully my distributor is putting on a external dryer to see if that solves the problem.

I'm thinking they must have changed the ink formula because whatever they have done is not working for us. Roland says they aren't aware of any issues which is mind boggling and that I would be the only one with this issue. I'm almost at the point of buying a HP latex printer.

 

[Billings Sign Pro]

With ours it is only on the 1105 and it doesn't do it on darker colors and not the lighter ones. I am hoping to find a way to fix it before trying the $2500 external dryer. I haven't informed Roland yet because I wanted to see if other people were also having issues or if it is a material issue.

 

[White Haus]

The canned Roland profiles generally lay down a lot of ink. A possible (long term) solution would be to create your own profiles with lowered ink limits so you're not laying down more than you need. (Not what you want to hear, I know)

I have had issues in the past with our Rolands XC/XR's on this media, but just printed some today on our XR-640 on High Quality and it was fine by the time it hit the take up. (Used a 3M IJ180 profile FYI)

What solved the issue was adding a fan on the end of the take up so it's blowing accross the media before it winds up - we do this with 100% of our prints on our Roland. Once the job is done, we'll pull it off the take up and carefully loosen it on the roll so that there is a gap between each layer of vinyl, then we let it sit on a DIY "offgassing" station that has 2 small window fans sucking air downwards. This way it pulls the solvent fumes down and away from the media. I used to have it blowing up but it doesn't work as well and I read a hundred times here that solvent fumes are heavier than air.

I can post pics of our set up if it helps, not pretty but it works. FYI we had the dryer/fan option on our old Roland XC-540 and I'd personally rig something up before I spent however many thousands they want for those things.

 

[LarryB]

I’ve been in contact with Roland the past month. I also shot a video explaining the issues. They told me they were working with Avery to see what is happening but haven’t heard anything. Hopefully the dryer solves the problem

 

[bteifeld]

You didn't say in your message which media configuration/profile you are using.
If you are trying to use a media configuration/profile that does not account
for the unique inks on the VG2-640 such as light black, and orange-
you may see flooding. The profiles that are available on line are at:

Avery Dennison US MPI 1105 Series :: Profiles :: Profile Download Client :: Roland Profile Center

Welcome.This client gives you access to your account and allows you to setup additional printers and RIP software. You can also view already downloaded profiles or add profiles to your request list. To login you need an email address and password. The information entered in your profile will be...

rolandprofilecenter.us

Were you using one of these three profiles?

As an aside- If you are going to spend $2500 on an external dryer to solve what may well be a media configuration
issue in your RIP- why not get a spectrophotometer, do your own linearization and profiling, and make
your own media configuration for the 1105 and other media?

Assuming you are using VersaWorks, you would need i1publishpro3 from Xrite for about $2549.

 

[LarryB]

The canned Roland profiles generally lay down a lot of ink. A possible (long term) solution would be to create your own profiles with lowered ink limits so you're not laying down more than you need. (Not what you want to hear, I know)

I have had issues in the past with our Rolands XC/XR's on this media, but just printed some today on our XR-640 on High Quality and it was fine by the time it hit the take up. (Used a 3M IJ180 profile FYI)

What solved the issue was adding a fan on the end of the take up so it's blowing accross the media before it winds up - we do this with 100% of our prints on our Roland. Once the job is done, we'll pull it off the take up and carefully loosen it on the roll so that there is a gap between each layer of vinyl, then we let it sit on a DIY "offgassing" station that has 2 small window fans sucking air downwards. This way it pulls the solvent fumes down and away from the media. I used to have it blowing up but it doesn't work as well and I read a hundred times here that solvent fumes are heavier than air.

I can post pics of our set up if it helps, not pretty but it works. FYI we had the dryer/fan option on our old Roland XC-540 and I'd personally rig something up before I spent however many thousands they want for those things.

We have tried many profiles suggested by Roland and still have issues.

Yes we also have a set up with a fan which blows down. After a wrap is printed the material is uncoiled and rests on the fan. The wrap can sit on the fan for days then it goes to get laminated. Still tacky.

 

[LarryB]

You didn't say in your message which media configuration/profile you are using.
If you are trying to use a media configuration/profile that does not account
for the unique inks on the VG2-640 such as light black, and orange-
you may see flooding. The profiles that are available on line are at:

Avery Dennison US MPI 1105 Series :: Profiles :: Profile Download Client :: Roland Profile Center

Welcome.This client gives you access to your account and allows you to setup additional printers and RIP software. You can also view already downloaded profiles or add profiles to your request list. To login you need an email address and password. The information entered in your profile will be...

rolandprofilecenter.us

Were you using one of these three profiles?

As an aside- If you are going to spend $2500 on an external dryer to solve what may well be a media configuration
issue in your RIP- why not get a spectrophotometer, do your own linearization and profiling, and make
your own media configuration for the 1105 and other media?

Assuming you are using VersaWorks, you would need i1publishpro3 from Xrite for about $2549.

We are using the correct orange/light black profile and have tried many others. My distributor has been out twice trying to correct the issues but no luck.

I don’t feel it is an Avery issue as we are having the same problem using Arlon and their profiles.

 

[White Haus]

We are using the correct orange/light black profile and have tried many others. My distributor has been out twice trying to correct the issues but no luck.

I don’t feel it is an Avery issue as we are having the same problem using Arlon and their profiles.

What we're getting at is that the "correct" profile is obviously still laying down too much ink. The way I see it, there are 3 possible options to solve the issue you're having, assuming that you can't just stop printing on gloss cast media:

1. Lay down less ink (can only be achieved by creating custom profiles, with a spectro as mentioned.
2. Speed up the drying process (can only be achieved by increasing heat or airflow, which from the sounds of it you've already tried)
3. Eliminate spooling the media after printing (not exactly realistic/possible in any sort of production environment)

I feel your frustration and do hope you can get this resolved, but hoping and praying that Roland saves the day is going to be a long, frustrating journey. I would strongly suggest you look into getting a spectro and start familiarizing yourself w/ creating custom profiles. I'm no expert by any means, but we did pay for 2 full days of on-site training with a tech to create a few custom profiles for all our machines, and it was worth every penny. Cost roughly the same amount as the actual spectro but it was a good intro to how it's done. We took lots of notes, screen recorded the steps, and now we are able to create new profiles as needed. We are also using Onyx Thrive for RIP and profile creation but I believe the process is fairly straightforward in Versaworks.

Good luck, I hope you get it sorted out.

 

[Billings Sign Pro]

What we're getting at is that the "correct" profile is obviously still laying down too much ink. The way I see it, there are 3 possible options to solve the issue you're having, assuming that you can't just stop printing on gloss cast media:

1. Lay down less ink (can only be achieved by creating custom profiles, with a spectro as mentioned.
2. Speed up the drying process (can only be achieved by increasing heat or airflow, which from the sounds of it you've already tried)
3. Eliminate spooling the media after printing (not exactly realistic/possible in any sort of production environment)

I feel your frustration and do hope you can get this resolved, but hoping and praying that Roland saves the day is going to be a long, frustrating journey. I would strongly suggest you look into getting a spectro and start familiarizing yourself w/ creating custom profiles. I'm no expert by any means, but we did pay for 2 full days of on-site training with a tech to create a few custom profiles for all our machines, and it was worth every penny. Cost roughly the same amount as the actual spectro but it was a good intro to how it's done. We took lots of notes, screen recorded the steps, and now we are able to create new profiles as needed. We are also using Onyx Thrive for RIP and profile creation but I believe the process is fairly straightforward in Versaworks.

Good luck, I hope you get it

I did end up making my own profile for the 1105 material. I used the the specs from the profiles provided by Roland to help me with it. Since there was 3 profiles available through Roland I compared the three. All three had more passes than the one I made up. One didn't have the option for orange ink, the other had 100 percent for all ink, and all three of them have more passes than the one that I have been using, and the Dryer is as a lower temp.

If I lower the percentages of the ink wouldn't that essentially change the color that is being laid down in the long run? We will be contacting Roland and our sales person to see what we can do.

 

[LarryB]

We already tried lowering ink limits without any success. You have to copy an existing profile and rename it in order to change the ink limits. I think we lowered it by 20% and it was the same as before.

 

[bteifeld]

Whatever RIP you(LarryB) use, there are four elements to how ink is laid down:

1. droplet size(usually 3 per channel with epson heads)
2. relationship between light inks(LC/LM/LK) and full tone inks(C/M/K) as to where the light ink stops and the full tone begins
3. per-channel ink limits, meaning for example based on VG2-640 with no white, including orange- CMYKO
4. total ink limit

Your experiment(Billings Sign Pro) was with the total ink limit, which usually is involved only with CMYK, but may
also include extended gamut inks(O) depending on the RIP. It is likely that you would still experience
the excess inking. Changing the total ink limit will definitely affect color- any change to any one of the
four variables I mentioned does require making a new ICC profile.

In the end, someone- whether it is you(LarryB or Billings Sign Pro), Roland, a dealer staff person, or a consultant- is going to need
to make a new media configuration and ICC profile to solve this problem.

 

[Zach Starr]

This could probably be the ink as well, as its drying quick enough. thats the reason i like clean (stratojet) and latex (hp) inks as they are not solvent inks and don't need any waiting time to dry. As you have already tried lowering the ink limit, the next only way would be adding more fans or an heating element to give extra curing.

 

[Billings Sign Pro]

UPDATE: I did end up messing with the amount of inks that went down and it created another problem. The company that sold us the machine talked with Roland and they are addressing it case by case saying it has to do with the material Avery 1105. From what they believe the issue didn't start until March...

 

[LarryB]

UPDATE: I did end up messing with the amount of inks that went down and it created another problem. The company that sold us the machine talked with Roland and they are addressing it case by case saying it has to do with the material Avery 1105. From what they believe the issue didn't start until March...

I switched over to Arlon since everyone is out of Avery and have found the same issues with Arlon. I am having a dryer installed on my Roland on Monday so hopefully that will correct the problem.

 

[Billings Sign Pro]

UPDATE:

Our supplier of Avery 1105 got us into contact with a representative of Avery Dennison. On the 21st of June someone messaged me and we started to work together on a possible issue with the material.

On the 21st I did a sample print on our Roland SoloJet Pro 3 printer. I did 2 test prints on our Solo Jet printer. One was with the profile we used to use on it which had ink levels C=100, M=100, Y=65, K=100. The other had ink levels the same as the TrueVis quantities which is 100 all around. There are two dryers on the printer one is set at 40 Celsius (Max 50) the other is set at 50 Celsius (Max 55). Neither heater was at the max. The ink that is used in this is the Eco-Sol Max. On the 22nd I unrolled the test prints and had another employee also look it over with me. There were no issues found that we have had printing on the TrueVis Printer. The ink didn’t come up and there was no banding to be found.

The TrueVis Inks are all at 100% and there is only one dryer which is at 50 Celsius and that is the max that it can go. I have tried many different ways to figure out a solution to this problem myself and have yet to find a solution.

I am not entirely convinced it is just a material problem. Since giving new evidence to the people who sold us the printer I have yet to hear from them or Roland on the matter. It has only been a couple of days but I am hoping someone will contact me.

 

[Sean@CedarHouse]

This may sound dumb, but back in the day when inks didn't dry fast enough, we put an oscillating on the floor at the take up. It worked for us, especially on heavy black prints.

It's less than $2500....

 

[Billings Sign Pro]

This may sound dumb, but back in the day when inks didn't dry fast enough, we put an oscillating on the floor at the take up. It worked for us, especially on heavy black prints.

It's less than $2500....

I think in the end we are going to end up with an added on heater.

 

[Patentagosse]

I received my VG2-540 on December 17th so it's been on duty for the last 6 months. I really like it, it prints great and the add of Orange helps a lot. I have printed on various media so far w/o issue except IJ180mC-10 (prints were "smuggie", inconsistent, like a contamined surface. 'Returned that roll and asked for a refund. The material I use the most is Oracal 3751GPS. Results are awesome. Honestly. Maybe you should give it a try.

Other films tested (with success) are:

-3M IJ180SLS (cast for stainless steel)
-3M IJ180LSE (cast for Low Energy Surface)
-3M IJ180-114 (clear cast)

-Avery 2903EZ

-Oracal 3551GRA (high performance calendred)
-Oracal 3651-001 (clear calendred)
-Oracal 3751RA (8 years cast)
-Oracal 3951RA (10 years premium cast)
-Oracal 5400 (printable reflective)

-Arlon 4500GLX (calendred)

-Hexis HX20BSAB Saturn White (wrap film with coarse metallic flakes to create awesome metallic / candy colors)

All these films print great using VG2-540 / OEM inks (CMYKcmkO), Generic Vinyl1 v2 (True Rich Colors 2) w/o a single glitch.

 

[Billings Sign Pro]

I switched over to Arlon since everyone is out of Avery and have found the same issues with Arlon. I am having a dryer installed on my Roland on Monday so hopefully that will correct the problem.

Have you had any better luck with having the Dryer?