Need Help Strange Patterns on Prints

[RustyNZ]

I have a customer who purchased some Orajet 3162RA from us, he is using a Roland SP540V with Roland inks. When printing he is getting some unusual marks. Not worried about the banding that is there that's explainable. He's using the Orafol profile for the media for his printer, strange thing is when he uses another random profile (for Mactac) he doesn't get the issue. Can't use that profile though because colours are wrong.

I thought it might be a media fault and that the Mactac profile just didn't show it up due to different ink levels etc but we swapped the roll out for him and the new roll is doing the same. He didn't bring back some blank media for me to test yet but really unlikely to get the same on two rolls I'd have thought.

Any ideas what might cause such marks? Seems pretty odd as the marks travel front to back on the print not right to left. They are not a uniform shape, not like a rectangle more of a oval blob type thing. They two images side by side are the same file just printed twice in one go and they marks are in different places so rules out the file.

Update (as I'm typing this): he just called to say my suggestion of trying a 3551 profile instead has fixed the issue.

How the heck would this be profile related? I still don't think it is but it's just not showing up on the others.

Looks kind of like a haziness, hard to get photos but have attached some.

Thanks.

 

[GAC05]

Don't use that material but when I see patterns like that the material is tunneling up over the platin. Not enough for a head strike but enough to change the color. So either too much heat or the material is tracking bad either off the roll or onto the take-up reel.
Could be the material - some stuff won't stay flat when printing but it is usually the cheap unbranded material.

 

[zopylote]

is the media for print purposes or for cut?
that media is contaminated/bad
can clean it and try again

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

If it was the first yard or two of material on a fresh roll of media, you'll almost always have that with Orafol print media unless you wipe the first yard or two down with alcohol and let it dry good. At least this has always been my experience with the 3651 and 3951 series. I don't know if it's caused by material handling in the factory or if it has something to do with the plastic bags they wrap the rolls with coming in contact with the media but it doesn't bother me too much because I like the media regardless and I don't really find it to be that big of a nuisance. Anymore, I'll just cut the first yard off the roll and save it for certain cut vinyl jobs.

 

[Kali539]

We just had this happen with the near-end of a roll of banner material... I can confirm the bad tracking. It wasn't until it was printing that we realized the very end of the roll wasn't secured to the tube when it unwound while feeding, and so we got this:

 

[P Wagner]

We just had this happen with the near-end of a roll of banner material... I can confirm the bad tracking. It wasn't until it was printing that we realized the very end of the roll wasn't secured to the tube when it unwound while feeding, and so we got this:

This is a plasticizer-contaminated print surface. Clean the print surface with Isopropyl Alcohol or replace with a fresh roll.

 

[Jim Hancock]

I would agree with GAC05 on this. It appears to be to be ripples or tunneling of the media. In bi-directional printing, the alignment is dependent on the head to media distance remaining consistent. This head to media distance changes in the area of the tunneling. When this occurs, the bi-directional settings are incorrect only for the section of the media that is tunneling, resulting in bi-directional misalignment in that area, resulting in an off-color grainy appearance. I would be curious to know if this pattern goes away when printing in uni-directional. In uni-directional printing, this head to media distance is not a factor. A uni-directional print test will confirm this. You can also shine a flashlight skimming the surface of the problem media to confirm tunneling, in addition to testing in uni-directional. It is possible there are different heat settings in the 2 different profiles that were used. If the media is tunneling, then reduce the platen heat until the tunneling disappears on that media.

 

[Kali539]

I would agree with GAC05 on this. It appears to be to be ripples or tunneling of the media. In bi-directional printing, the alignment is dependent on the head to media distance remaining consistent. This head to media distance changes in the area of the tunneling. When this occurs, the bi-directional settings are incorrect only for the section of the media that is tunneling, resulting in bi-directional misalignment in that area, resulting in an off-color grainy appearance. I would be curious to know if this pattern goes away when printing in uni-directional. In uni-directional printing, this head to media distance is not a factor. A uni-directional print test will confirm this. You can also shine a flashlight skimming the surface of the problem media to confirm tunneling, in addition to testing in uni-directional. It is possible there are different heat settings in the 2 different profiles that were used. If the media is tunneling, then reduce the platen heat until the tunneling disappears on that media.

Confirmed. No other issues printing on that substrate before that last print, and none on others before or since. Isolated incident, exactly when that particular roll lost it's regular tension.