Soljet Pro III gone haywire in a day - Cropmarks blurry Any Advise?

[stickasteve]

My Roland XC-540 Pro III was working beautifully, or as well as can be expected until this past week. Now all of a sudden - with NO head strikes - Now my cropmarks are blurry, and the cutcontour is off by a mile.

ANY ADVISE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED

steve@stwgraphics.com

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Is your head height set to high?

Can you post a scan of what they look like?

 

[stickasteve]

Give me a few minutes and I will.

 

[stickasteve]

Can you view the attached file? Let me know what you think.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Did you adjust any settings on the printer or did the just start happening out of the blue?

I was going to say that maybe the feed calibration was incorrect but I didn't see any banding in the print.

 

[Jack Knight1979]

Encoder Strip

Get a lint free cloth and GENTLY wipe off the encoder strip.
Walking prints like this is usually a dirt encoder strip.

 

[stickasteve]

Where is the encoder strip? I'll try that.

 

[stickasteve]

I adjusted everything and in all the tests it all looks good. There's something funky happening and It's hard to explain. A straight print is looking pretty good too. I'm using versaworks for the rip and I'm not sure if that's where the problem lies. I re-installed the program and everything. Strange and annoying.

 

[synergy_jim]

+1 where is the encoder strip....

 

[signage]

The encoder strip is the clear strip that runs behind the head to tell it its location!

 

[Jester1167]

Encoder strip is on the rail the print head runs on. It is on top of that rail and runs the length of the printer and it's clear. It has marks on it that the head reads to double check positioning. Pic below

 

[MachServTech]

nice explanation pic jester. Did you use Snagit?

 

[Jester1167]

Took a pic with my digital camera.

 

[stickasteve]

Thanks for the info... I'm going to try that now.

 

[stickasteve]

So far so good with that suggestion.

 

[Jack Knight1979]

Nice. Glad it worked.

Thanks for posting a pic of the encoder strip.

I was busy yesterday and could not get back to this thread with the encoder location.

 

[Pacific Coast Sign]

Use alcohol on the cloth to clean the encoder strip. Do NOT use the cleaning solvent as this will ruin the encoder strip. Then, after a gentle cleaning, do an environmental match to confirm the cleaning is good and to perform the Env match.