• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Why are my prints so grainy?

CBilkes

New Member
I'm running a Roland SG-540 on various types of media, using various profiles, but all of my prints come out grainy. I just printed some decals on Arlon to show as an example. Very grainy and and some banding as well. I checked my calibrations and everything seems fine. Any ideas why this is happening? Thanks for any help.
IMG_3334.jpg IMG_3335.jpg
 
Last edited:

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Jack up whatever dither algorithm you're using to the highest possible, likewise gradient handling, and check your heater settings.

That's the obvious stuff, from there it gets interesting and beyond a primitive back and forth on this sort of forum.
 

CBilkes

New Member
Jack up whatever dither algorithm you're using to the highest possible, likewise gradient handling, and check your heater settings.

That's the obvious stuff, from there it gets interesting and beyond a primitive back and forth on this sort of forum.

Thanks, I'll try your suggestions. For the heat settings, do you think my current heat is too low or too high?
 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
I would check your head alignments and fine tune them. Looks like you are getting some slight banding which could be the feed calibration as well. The nozzle check looks pretty good but the cyan is deflecting a little which could be causing some issues. You also have a little cross contamination in your yellow which tells me you may need to do some cleaning of the head and maintenance parts or possible the wiper and/or cap top are starting to fail.
 

CBilkes

New Member
I would check your head alignments and fine tune them. Looks like you are getting some slight banding which could be the feed calibration as well. The nozzle check looks pretty good but the cyan is deflecting a little which could be causing some issues. You also have a little cross contamination in your yellow which tells me you may need to do some cleaning of the head and maintenance parts or possible the wiper and/or cap top are starting to fail.

Thanks for the info! I run a manual clean on it once a week. Wipers were replaced a few weeks ago. I'll check my feed calibration and see if that helps the banding. What can I do about the Cyan deflecting?
 

2B

Active Member
what are your print settings?
* bi-directional / unilateral?
* how fast production / standard ?
 
then lower head and do bidirectional head alignment, step adjustment and make sure heater is on and working
 

CBilkes

New Member
Problem solved!!!

I lowered the head height, set the print to uni-directional and it's printing perfectly now. Thanks for the help!
 

2B

Active Member
Problem solved!!!

I lowered the head height, set the print to uni-directional and it's printing perfectly now. Thanks for the help!

Good to hear,
As suggested, would do a bi-directional head test & alignment.

unidirectional is a quick fix but NOT how the printer needs to operate for 95% of prints
 
Top