Why is this Happening!!?? Roller marks!!? CHECK!!

[Mainframe]

Make sure you have slack behind the machine while printing, I get this on heavy rolls, it goes away when I give the media some slack, not sure why.

 

[rushworks graphics]

to me thats an inside roller issue. we have a 54" roland and never use the inside rollers on anything.

we did when we first got the machine as i was worried about movement whilst printing heavy banner and noticed that we would get slight lines as you are getting so stopped using them.

we have run 16' - 20' banners just using the outside rollers/clamps with no problems.

 

[JoshLoring]

@ Josh, sorry I did not understand what you ment by head down? :Oops:

There's a white lever in the printer to raise and lower the print head. Maybe just on mine? Lol. Meant to help avoid head strikes or for thicker media.

 

[JoshLoring]

we have a 54" roland and never use the inside rollers on anything.
.

Use the rollers when doing cutting.. Will really help keep consistent cuts! Trust me

 

[rushworks graphics]

we have used the inside rollers before on long cuts, but its not needed on shorter runs.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

I'd always wondered about the extra rollers. I've never used em.

 

[Tony McD]

My vinyl cutter has a tag on top that says: "Only use the center roller for sandblast and paint mask"

 

[Erikka@Rainier]

Anytime I encounter this problem it could be a few things.

A) oversaturation of ink. if it's not drying properly, the rollers can pick up some of the ink.

B) on scrim vinyl banner material, having too much heat on the pre-heater can cause the vinyl to soften and the pinch rollers then apply enough pressure to squish the vinyl.

Possible solutions are trying a different media profile, sometimes the profile is built incorrectly and could be laying down too much ink for darker colors. Adjust heater temperatures. See if you can adjust the pinch rollers. I know some plotters have this feature so perhaps your printer does too.

 

[Jim Hancock]

Erikka is on target. What you are most likely seeing is the result of the banner material being slightly squished and flattened by the rollers. This is causing a microscopic thickness change in the media and changing the printhead to material distance. This results in a tiny variation in the bi-directional alignment in the areas where the rollers are, the result being a tiny variation in the way the print looks in that area. If you repeat your print with the only change being printing in uni-directional mode, you will probably see it minimized or disappear. Of course this isn't optimal for production. The key, as many have said, is to use only the outer rollers for printing. Using the inner rollers for cutting only will help with accuracy, especially on longer runs. Reducing your heat will also help, but isn't the best answer. Not sure which model you have, but a trick with heavy rolls is to remove the front media support shaft in the back of the machine and run the rear shaft (the one that has the weight brake) through the core of the heavy material, like a paper towel holder. This reduces the force required to pull the material through the printer by about 80% (a guess), resulting in less stress on your feed motor, less media feed variations as the roll gets lighter and more consistent printing through the roll.

Regards,
Jim

 

[alexmhurst]

We had a similar issue on our Roland, but only for the first foot or so of any given run. It occurred when printing on vinyl or static cling. Our tech said it was residue coming from a slight decay of the rubber on the inner rollers, and advised us to only use them when cutting.

 

[jhanson]

We had a similar issue on our Roland, but only for the first foot or so of any given run. It occurred when printing on vinyl or static cling. Our tech said it was residue coming from a slight decay of the rubber on the inner rollers, and advised us to only use them when cutting.

You can usually mitigate that issue (without replacing the rollers) by cleaning them with a lint-free cloth and rubbing alcohol.