SP-300 Headaches - Not printing clean and dropping a lot of ink.

[Maclovin]

Hi fellas,

My first post here so i might as well just introduce myself, I am a student living in Holland who is looking to earn some honest money doing printing jobs. A few months ago I bought a sp-300 which was upgraded to an sp-300V in order to work with versaworks. The owner explained that the black head wasn't performing like it should but it was not very noticeable when printing.

However now im having some issues on a job that I have to print for this restaurant.

Here's the deal, i get a lot of vague marks in between my print. It's also dropping excessive ink, although this can be fixed by using different profiles. Different profiles also lead to somewhat better prints but never really clean. Im using the original EcoSolMax inks, printing on Ritrama Ri-jet100 vinyl, the media profile I use for versaworks is the media profile provided by Ritrama.

I've added a picture of the test print and also added a picture of the sticker im printing for the job.

Things that i have already done :
- manual clean of the heads
- replaced wipers
- one medium clean
- one powerful clean

Is my media profile all wrong or is the head really causing this much trouble ?
Please advise, thank you very much !

 

[Asuma01]

looks like the ink limits are way off in the profile you are using. but your printhead going out sounds very possible.

 

[AylmerSigns]

Um

I've had a similar issue in the past. From the test print, it still seems quite good to me.

I would strongly recommend you try and print with either different profile, or on the other hand, try and print it with another combination for your black (On our VP, Black 6 PC seems to be the best result). Try perhaps a 60/40/40/100.

I would also try printing it in a different color (blue?) to see if maybe the material would have a strong static build up. We've had a defective material, that produced incredible static, which resulted in similar problems.

Finally, double check make sure your head is on the "lower" setting? Also, make sure there is no dust/hair on the printing heads, which can provoke leaks.

Let us know, and hopefully we can help on this one!

 

[Maclovin]

Thanks for the reply's guys, I am going to try out the suggestions you have made tomorrow. Wish I could do it today but my girlfriend sadly has other plans haha. The job has to be finished by monday. Will keep you guys updated.

Thank you !

 

[AylmerSigns]

Thanks for the reply's guys, I am going to try out the suggestions you have made tomorrow. Wish I could do it today but my girlfriend sadly has other plans haha. The job has to be finished by monday. Will keep you guys updated.

Thank you !

We all know the girlfriend is the real boss, in any business.

Please let us know whenever you have done the tests, we'll be more than happy to help as much as we possibly can. Don't be shy to PM.

 

[Maclovin]

Hi fellas,

I've done some test prints and they turn out much better with the pc suggested by alymer, I took another picture through the magnifier and zoomed in a little. It is noticeable that the borders of
the letters are not really accurate. However i am fine with that but now my black is not really black, as you can see other colors are visible in black. But btw the headheight on the sp-300 is not adjustable i only have one normal setting and thats it basically.

I guess i will have to tweak the pc a little more, maybe up the percentage of black ?

I also made another print with the exact same settings, it looks to me like there is some light banding in the print. But my question is, does this print look satisfactory to the trained eyes over here ? It is a 720 by 720 dpi print. If not could you give me some tips on how to improve my prints some more ?

Thanks guys !

 

[LFC911]

To rule out a static issue, you can wipe the media with isopropyl alcohol and print the job and see if it improves printability

 

[scuba_steve2699]

Hi fellas,

My first post here so i might as well just introduce myself, I am a student living in Holland who is looking to earn some honest money doing printing jobs. A few months ago I bought a sp-300 which was upgraded to an sp-300V in order to work with versaworks. The owner explained that the black head wasn't performing like it should but it was not very noticeable when printing.

However now im having some issues on a job that I have to print for this restaurant.

Here's the deal, i get a lot of vague marks in between my print. It's also dropping excessive ink, although this can be fixed by using different profiles. Different profiles also lead to somewhat better prints but never really clean. Im using the original EcoSolMax inks, printing on Ritrama Ri-jet100 vinyl, the media profile I use for versaworks is the media profile provided by Ritrama.

I've added a picture of the test print and also added a picture of the sticker im printing for the job.

Things that i have already done :
- manual clean of the heads
- replaced wipers
- one medium clean
- one powerful clean

Is my media profile all wrong or is the head really causing this much trouble ?
Please advise, thank you very much !
View attachment 95758

View attachment 95757

Your nozzle check looks like your calibration setting is off a bit - there is a slight gap in the two sets of nozzles. you can perform the calibration via the menu section fro calibration.

For your black not being a true black - try either checking the preserve primary color box under the settings tab if you are using 100% K channel or use the Roland spot color of BK-21A instead to get a good black. If you are using RGB try a value of 0,0,0 to get a good black.

 

[Maclovin]

I finished the job and the customer was really satisfied, thanks for your help guys. Checking the preserve primary really made a big difference.

About the gap in the test print... I don't know why but this calibration gives me less banding than when i calibrate the machine so that there is no gap.