Strange vertical pattern on prints - Oce Arizona

[chinaski]

Looking for advice to identify what's causing this. I'm periodically getting strange vertical patterns on printouts, mostly noticeable in gradients on Alu-dibond.

Problem comes and goes. More common with certain profiles but not exclusive to any one. Tried changing various Caldera RIP settings, Uni/Bi-Directional printing, Lamp power settings, Changed UV lamps to no avail.

What could this problem be related to?

 

[Ronc]

Looking for advice to identify what's causing this. I'm periodically getting strange vertical patterns on printouts, mostly noticeable in gradients on Alu-dibond.

Problem comes and goes. More common with certain profiles but not exclusive to any one. Tried changing various Caldera RIP settings, Uni/Bi-Directional printing, Lamp power settings, Changed UV lamps to no avail.

What could this problem be related to?

 

[Ronc]

Lets troubleshoot by elimination. I want you to print until the streak starts. Then pause the printer for 1min. Print for 3 passes and pause. Repeat this until done or until you see the streak has gone away. After that, I can tell you what I think is happening. If this corrects it, I want to print same print in forward only, printing a single pass. Thanks, Ron

 

[ewded]

nevermind, I just realized this is a flatbed

 

[Bly]

Possibly needs calibration?

 

[chinaski]

Possibly needs calibration?

I've done head alignment very recently. Scanner alignment was done by canon tech last Spring. Is it reasonable to have scanner alignment done once a year, or what is to be expected?

Lets troubleshoot by elimination. I want you to print until the streak starts. Then pause the printer for 1min. Print for 3 passes and pause. Repeat this until done or until you see the streak has gone away. After that, I can tell you what I think is happening. If this corrects it, I want to print same print in forward only, printing a single pass. Thanks, Ron

Thanks for the tip, Unfortunately I cannot pause printouts on Oce Arizona. Forward/Reverse/Bi-Direction doesn't seem to make any difference.

 

[Ronc]

I've done head alignment very recently. Scanner alignment was done by canon tech last Spring. Is it reasonable to have scanner alignment done once a year, or what is to be expected?


Thanks for the tip, Unfortunately I cannot pause printouts on Oce Arizona. Forward/Reverse/Bi-Direction doesn't seem to make any difference.

Upper right of screen

 

[Ronc]

See the attached file. Do you not have the icon in arrow, or rectangle (upper right screen) when printing? It is the pause button. If the issue goes away while pausing, I can direct you to actions needed.
Ronc4773@aol.com
515-707-8344

 

[Bly]

I've done head alignment very recently. Scanner alignment was done by canon tech last Spring. Is it reasonable to have scanner alignment done once a year, or what is to be expected?

Depends whether you've had any head strikes. Sometimes even pushing too hard with suction when cleaning can move a head slightly.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

You can also pause by pressing the start button next to the vacuum gauge from memory. Haven't done it in years but think I bumped it once and that's what it did.

 

[chinaski]

See the attached file. Do you not have the icon in arrow, or rectangle (upper right screen) when printing? It is the pause button. If the issue goes away while pausing, I can direct you to actions needed.
Ronc4773@aol.com
515-707-8344

You can also pause by pressing the start button next to the vacuum gauge from memory. Haven't done it in years but think I bumped it once and that's what it did.

No pause button showed up for me on screen, Maybe Tech disabled it? However pushing black start button (next to vacuum gauge) did work.

I reprinted and paused halfway through —It may have marginally helped. I used the same print file as seen in my original post and from the original photo you can see it's not as bad as a couple days ago, for reasons unknown. The problem comes and goes.
It seems like it's more connected to my Fine Art profile than Quality, yet I've had the problem occur with quality mode as well.

The Fine Art profile is made for acrylic, which I've never had a problem with when printing directly to acrylic. Quality profile is for Dibond. Profiling specifically to media may help but not a cure-all.

Depends whether you've had any head strikes. Sometimes even pushing too hard with suction when cleaning can move a head slightly.

Something to keep in mind, haven't had any head strikes in the lead up to this problem. All nozzles are perfect. Heads look to be seated correctly from what I can see.

 

[Ronc]

Ok. Try to pause for a half min every four passes after you see the first streak. Doe this until you see new streak. If no new streak appears, please go to this procedure: if you have a service key, disable all heads but cyan. If no key, shut down snd unplug ribbon cables. Print the file and see which head is causing this. If only on one color, it is probably an issue with ink not filling the head up quick enough. If on all colors printed one at a time, it is losing meniscus from the vac. If unable to disable heads, make up a 100% color bar file for each color. For light colors, make up a 19% tint of that color. Questions? Call me

 

[Bly]

If we want to check for ink starvation we set an interpass delay of 1 sec and see if that lets the ink flow catch up.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

I'd be surprised if it were ink starvation... that print size looks tiny and coverage is minimal in affected areas. It's certainly a weird one though. Sorry I don't have any advice rather than commentary.

 

[chinaski]

I'd be surprised if it were ink starvation... that print size looks tiny and coverage is minimal in affected areas. It's certainly a weird one though. Sorry I don't have any advice rather than commentary.

If we want to check for ink starvation we set an interpass delay of 1 sec and see if that lets the ink flow catch up.

Size of printout was 28x21cm, so quite small. I've done full sheets without a problem so I think I can rule out ink starvation. Tested with interpass delay of 1 second —made no difference. Doesn't take very long for ink reservoir to fill up either. Pure CMYK printed nicely.

I ended up switching settings in Caldera RIP. From Caldera colour management to Adobe and perceptual rendering instead of Rel. Colorimetric. As a result, the gradients printed better I'll need to print more to confirm what the cause is exactly. I'm thinking it's more software related than hardware.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Just a thought... are the lines always perpendicular to gantry movement direction?
eg. If you rotate the job 90 degrees do the lines appear perpendicular to the horizon in the photo?
Wondering if could be a weird scaling/resolution issue. Does it happen with vector files?

 

[Mimi9271]

Looking for advice to identify what's causing this. I'm periodically getting strange vertical patterns on printouts, mostly noticeable in gradients on Alu-dibond.

Problem comes and goes. More common with certain profiles but not exclusive to any one. Tried changing various Caldera RIP settings, Uni/Bi-Directional printing, Lamp power settings, Changed UV lamps to no avail.

What could this problem be related to?

We have an Arizona 360XT and I'm familiar with anomalous banding. Are you using a white plate? Are you sure that all nozzles are firing? Just a thought, could it be in the material? This kinda thing drives me bananas!

 

[chinaski]

Just a thought... are the lines always perpendicular to gantry movement direction?
eg. If you rotate the job 90 degrees do the lines appear perpendicular to the horizon in the photo?
Wondering if could be a weird scaling/resolution issue. Does it happen with vector files?

If I rotate 90 or 180 degrees the lines still appear in the gradients. It's mainly my fine art profile. For the time being, I've just switched back to quality mode, which I've only had the problem appear once before with that mode/profile.

The photo has adequate pixels for small size 28x21cm, and has been proportionally downscaled in Caldera. No issues with vector files, so far —I believe vectors are using 16-bit rendering as default in Caldera while rasters I can select to enable/disable. Easiest thing is to trash the profile and keep using Quality mode as a work-around. Changing rendering intent to perceptual was what made the difference. I'm going to make a new fine art profile and see if the problem follows.

We have an Arizona 360XT and I'm familiar with anomalous banding. Are you using a white plate? Are you sure that all nozzles are firing? Just a thought, could it be in the material? This kinda thing drives me bananas!

I'm printing on Alu-dibond. I have only one magenta nozzle out that comes-and-goes. The profile I use is profiled for acrylic. I've printed with the same settings to acrylic this same photo with good results. So it could be material/profile related. As I've mentioned, the problem comes and goes so maybe I just got lucky or sub-surface printing to acrylic doesn't reveal problem in same way as surface printing to dibond.

It's always a constant battle figuring out what settings work best —I only switched profiles because quality mode can produce gloss banding in particular files, which fine art mode doesn't. So I've exchanged one problem for another.

 

[chinaski]

Here's acrylic, with all the same settings. Looks as it should

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

What ink/head setup is on your Arizona?
I'm wondering if one of our custom 360 ones would import/work on your machine.