Hoping someone can shed some light.I have a PV 200/600 and I am experiencing a strange banding effect on most medias and images especially flat clolours, I can only describe it as a wave effect almost like an inch of glossy print then an inch of matt print repeating throughout the whole image and really noticable in certain lights. I have checked all my directional and step calibration all seems ok, was wondering has anyone else come across this problem and if so how did you rectify it? Am quite a new operator so dont really want to start changing colour boards and other bits etc unless i have too.
Many Thanks
Spo
-- Edited by spo on Friday 7th of January 2011 04:57:26 AM
when it comes to the banding start by making sure all your heads firing correctly? I had a lot of fun solving my problem, if all your heads are good the first thing to do is create a block of true black ( 100% k is more of a grey ) try C 65 M 70 Y 70 K 100 this is roughly what give best black in the printing situation. its strange only to get it in certain colours, have a look at the head carraige and see if there is discolouring in the solvent lines as one of the solenoids may be passing slightly allowing solvent/ink mix this can cause smeary banding issues. Next i would suggest making sure your anti static bars are clean and functioning correctly you would be amazed how much they actually do. if that is ok access yor service/diagnostic mode in hardware screen and check all your jetpack temperatures and voltages are the same as a burnt out heater on a head can cause ****ty print quality.
Hope this helps, there are lots of things to try but this is a good place to start.
I did print 0,0.0.100 to see if the solvent is leaking into the black head, I print 60.70.70.100 so really close to yours =) I will do the trouble shooting first I do on monday morning! Thanks for trying eto help me!
Its a nightmare to solve, I still get it every now and then. When it was really bad it was a combination of several things N0 1 was burnt out heater circuits on print heads it causes inks to go down uneven temperatures and not cure at the same rate. N0 2 was My media drive motor developed a problem with the gearbox which caused un even feed rate and last was our belt and antistatic bars are old and tired. Do you have access to the Vutek support site? as there are a couple of bulletins on there with regards to heater circuits/testing heads etc. There is also there is a test grid floating around in pdf format to print and this shows if you are gettin even belt feed by checking if all the lines are the same thickness width etc. Have you checked your antistatic bars yet as my banding was more or less the same width as the pins on the bars and was told this can be a cause if they fail, a good way of testing these ( but take care ) is to run a screwdriver along the bar and if it sparks on each pin you know they are good, this was told to me by an engineer but should be done entirely at your own risk, do not touch any metal on the screwdriver with your hand it will do more than tickle!!!
If you do not have access to the vutek support let me know an email adress and I will try and send you some helpful bits.
Hope this sheds a little light it is a bugger to cure, are you runnig the old colourburst rip and is it a recent version? as with the advancement of the creative programs i sometimes wonder if this causes bad rip parameters?
this could cause an effect like that but you would notice a lamp out visually as well as on diagnostic aids, sticky shutter again would be noticable visibly? Its a toughy there are so many different things can cause similar effects its very much a process of elimination.
Lamps are new shutters are open and close correct Temp and Volt are same on all heads when I print (or really close) Antistatic bars are tested, all the pins sparks... Jet test: All heads are perfect.
I feels like that the belt feed can be something, the gearbox was broken, I did get this banning when it was broken (klicking sounds from it) I did open the gearbox and the metal "cylinder" that are in the gearbox that are connected to the bearing that are mounted on the motor was cracked in the metall. I have now a "new" (used) gearbox but maybe something have been change when the gearbox started to break??
I mail you spo and hope you can send my something to test feed rate...
I think I will go crazy with a XXXXL hammer on this old fat lady! Have printed a lot of diffrent test and have sent it to Vutek... Lets see what they say...
I take it the test prints didnt go well! what was the result between the single strike and double strike? was it same banding just spaced closer together? also how did the test grid work?
This is a common phenomena sometimes known as "UV banding or the Lawn mower effect" etc and can be caused by many different things or a combination of many things, most of which are previously mentioned but a good start is to make sure that the print heads are physically aligned, without a good foundation you can chase and create faults that may not of previously been there.
Many people swap or change out the spectra nozzle arrays and assume just screwing the heads back is good enough, to put it simply it is not.
Misaligned jets can't place the ink dots in the right place at the right time in relation to the other ink dots of other print heads this becomes more apparent durning bi-directional printing and emphasises any other defects that are normally hidden by correct dot gain & placement.
We have engineered low cost solution for this system as well as the UltraVu solvent printers, and comparison images can be be viewed here:
