anyone else having supplier and support problems?

[David Rowland]

well i have a JV3, we get print banding but that due to a nozzle deflection.. we need new heads.

head mialignments, this happens if you go from high to low head height, it does put them out slightly so we just run on ‘high’ all the time without issue of re-aligning them which can take ages.

Media Comp is overridable while printing.. press Function and up and down to alter it, but is it not an print banding issue?

Honestly, the JV3 is a great machine, good as any solvent out there, but it depends on how well it is hooked up with a RIP (we use Shiraz) and how to over come the issues. We get all those issues but its down to lots of factors that you will learn.

[Craig Brown]

We’ve now got close to 30 JV3’s in the group and have had very few issues that haven’t been sorted by AIT or Hybrid.

Couple of questions

Who did you buy the machine from, because Hybrid officially only sell through distributors?

and as a matter of interest which width machine did you go for 800, 1300 or 1600 and was it brand new when you got it?

sorry that’s three questions, but it’s just the 1300 width gave us a few issues at the outset.

Regards – Craig B

[John Childs]

Craig, Rick bought it from Robert Horne. It says so in his initial post.

[Craig Brown]

I didn’t get where I am today by reading posts (said in my best CJ "The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin " voice) 😳

Thanks for that John – at least it puts it back to a couple of questions 😉

[Rick Cousins]

quote CABROWN:

We’ve now got close to 30 JV3’s in the group and have had very few issues that haven’t been sorted by AIT or Hybrid.

Couple of questions

Who did you buy the machine from, because Hybrid officially only sell through distributors?

and as a matter of interest which width machine did you go for 800, 1300 or 1600 and was it brand new when you got it?

sorry that’s three questions, but it’s just the 1300 width gave us a few issues at the outset.

Regards – Craig B

Thanks for the quick reactions to my post Craig

We got the machine new, from Robert Horne. Its a 160SP.

The banding is not the usual white gaps or dark stripes which are easily sorted (on the fly if you notice them whilst printing). We have been getting magenta hues on portins of print which have very little ink layed down, on blue skies for instance. This has been at all resolutions at all pass rates and in both uni and bi-dir print modes.

I have asked for a direct swap-out of this m/c for a new one, which I understand has been done by Hybrid with other firms. They are obviously reluctant to do this!

I though I had researched very thoroughly all options before opting for the Horne/Hybrid route, but in 33 years of work in the trade it has become the worse decision I have ever made.

We have a new (to Hybrid) engineer coming to see us tomorrow (Wed) so I will let you know the outcome.

[Rick Cousins]

quote CABROWN:

We’ve now got close to 30 JV3’s in the group and have had very few issues that haven’t been sorted by AIT or Hybrid.

Couple of questions

Who did you buy the machine from, because Hybrid officially only sell through distributors?

and as a matter of interest which width machine did you go for 800, 1300 or 1600 and was it brand new when you got it?

sorry that’s three questions, but it’s just the 1300 width gave us a few issues at the outset.

Regards – Craig B

Thanks for such a quick response guys.

We got a 160SP brand new through Robert Horne.

The banding is not media comp or nozzle drop out. We usually get a magenta hue or sometimes just general "lightening" of the ink density at all resolutions, pass rates and in both unio and bi-dir print modes.

I thought I had very carefully researched both which machine to get and from whom before placing the order with Hornes/Hybrid. It now seems to have turned out to be the worst decision I have made in 33 years in the trade.

I wanted Hybrid to swap-out this troublesome printer as I understand they have done so in the past when confronted by similar problems. They are obviously reluctant to do so. I am paying £650 per month for a machine I can’t get out of the driveway!

We have a new (to Hybrid) engineer coming to us tomorrow (Wed) so I will let you know the outcome.

[Rick Cousins]

Doh!

My first reply seemed to have dropped out so I replied again – now it looks like I am spamming. I think I better stick to making signs from now on 😎

Regards
Rick

[David Rowland]

hm.. sounds like materials or materials not stored very well in a warm enironment.. is this banner material? I know dicksons needs to be looked after well and printed with lo-tempretures. Its all a learning curve to get the best results.

[Rick Cousins]

No Dave its not a temperature issue.

The biggest problems we are having are on med qual vinyls, such as Avery MPI200, Hexis V350CG, Mactac et al.

We print at quite low temp, typically 35 degrees. We also have a dehumidifier in the print studio and the ambient humidity is around 60 to 70%, which I am told is fine.

I have a theory that part of the trouble is the chassis is twisted. My reasoning being that we get acceptable prints for a short while after an engineer has visited, then after about 10 to 15 mtr the problem recurs. During his visit he will have usually reset the carriage support bar, which involves using a special gauge block to each and every fixing point (there are 8 on a 160SP) during his visit – this leads me to think that it is then "pulled" out of alignment by the twist in the chassis – so Hybrid MUST be aware of this quirk in our machine AND have it logged against out machine record.

Incidentally, in an earlier post when I mentioned that they had it for 7 weeks in the summer I checked the amount of printing carried out by themvia the Status print out and it came to 80 sq mtrs, so they had done a fair bit of "evaluation" whilst working on it! And this was with an engineer from Mimaki too.

Cheers
Rick

[David Rowland]

ok… well we print avery2000 on a jv3-160s almost everyday, if you have cariage alignment issue like that then your horizontal banding would be uneven, always up on one side.

I shall pop down stairs a mo…

The Pre-heater is set to 44deg, the print heater is set to 41deg, with overprinting 1, passes 8 and thats at 720×720 uni dir with hi-speed set to on. This is our Avery2000 profile, works very well.

[Rick Cousins]

Thanks for your input Dave.

I found similar settings on pass rate and res work well myself (when it works without banding!) The only difference being the temp on pre and post for us. The reason we use low temp settings of 30-35 is I found we get a better gloss on the ink, when we want it like for gloss material. I guess that the lower temperature won’t open the material "pores" as well, though we haven’t found this to be a problem regarding durability.

I am champing at the bit to get our troubles sorted as I can’t go out and sell with confidence until then.

Cheers for now
Rick

[Craig Brown]

quote Rick Cousins:

Incidentally, in an earlier post when I mentioned that they had it for 7 weeks in the summer I checked the amount of printing carried out by themvia the Status print out and it came to 80 sq mtrs, so they had done a fair bit of “evaluation” whilst working on it! And this was with an engineer from Mimaki too.

Rick

Hi Rick, it looks like between you and Dave that you have covered most of the bases.
One last question, when Hybrid had your machine for 7 weeks were they printing using the same RIP as you?

If not and they couldn’t replicate the fault it might be a simple conflict. We have experienced banding when nesting images but banding did not occurred when the same image was sent to print on its own. (Sorry if you have already tried this, but let us know what the engineer says tomorrow)

Good luck on getting this one sorted ‘cos for the price I still think this is one of the best pieces of kit on the market.

[John Childs]

Passes: 8
Direction: Uni
Overprinting: 1
Pre-heat: 35
Print heat: 35

No problems.

[alan flynn]

how did you get on with the loan machine, if you still had problems then its not the machine, if not and you had say 5 or 7 weeks trouble free printing then the machine would sound like the problem

[David Rowland]

john, so low? the tempreture is needed to open the material up and let the ink lay in correctly, i cant see why printing it cooler is a benefit. If it looks glossy when colder then thats going to be wet ink.

If you after more glossy output then get a sample of Metamark MD5-100 material, I really like this stuff, prints fantastically. Also the vehicle wrap Avery 1005 is a good print. To be quite honest we started to move more toward matt laminated prints, matt shows up better if the sign is subject to a lot of lights.

[Rick Cousins]

Hi again folks

V helpful engineer (Rob Platt) from Hybrid just left after 5 hours solid.

He seems to have fixed the trouble for now. Fingers crossed!

One or two points which may prove useful, which he raised during the course of his visit and this is how he left the machine set up.

1. Pre and print temps just right at 35degrees – best for SS2 inks
2. Refresh turned off (this is where the heads get a clean cycle during printing)
3. Print colour pattern on (thin band of each colour on rhs of media)
4. Auto clean on. Gives head wash before each print.
5. Sleep clean set to 12 hrs. Routine clean set at 3 hrs.
6. Mimaki recommend best print settings are: 360 x 540 6 pass uni, 720 x720 16 pass bi, 720 x 1440 8 pass bi

If I remember any more I will post them. It may help others in the future to avoid problems.

The engineer was very knowledgeable on the JV3 having recently worked for Mimaki direct in Amsterdam so I will heed his advice. He found that our machine is suffering from feed problems and that there were head misalignments (not user adjustable).

Thanks again for your help and support. I will now cruise the boards to see if I can repay it with some of my own.

Cheers
Rick

[Rick Cousins]

quote alan flynn:

how did you get on with the loan machine, if you still had problems then its not the machine, if not and you had say 5 or 7 weeks trouble free printing then the machine would sound like the problem

Hi Alan

Apart from a couple of minor quality issues, the loan m/c was fine. So it wasn’t our rip (or US!), it must be the machine we own.

Rick

[Rick Cousins]

quote Dave Rowland:

john, so low? the tempreture is needed to open the material up and let the ink lay in correctly, i cant see why printing it cooler is a benefit. If it looks glossy when colder then thats going to be wet ink.

Dave, as I heard from the horses mouth, so to speak, Mimaki recommend a low setting when using SS2 due to the reformulation of the ink.

We have too tried MD5 and also found it excellent. Mactac 5829 was good
for a 3 year calendered.

Rick

[Daniel Gillen]

Just for reference

My general setting for Mactac 5822R
Profiled with Eye-One
360 x 720
4 way pass
Pre-heat: 43
Print-heat: 40
Uni-directional

High quality needed for banner stands etc
Profiled with Eye-One
720 x 720
8 way pass
Variable dot-2
Pre-heat: 43
Print-heat: 40
Uni-directional

I too, did have a lot of issues, I would initially describe as ‘banding’ but it was not banding.. more of a beading issue in-between the passes (thick/thin lines of darker colour in between the passes). It took a lot of experimention with ink limits to get it correct.

Great that you are now happy with the machine, just takes time to get the settings perfect for your ink/media/artwork setup.

[Marco]

We Guys,
who knows the answer? Our JV3 with SS2 inks prints too much black. All other colors are good, but the black will make a sort of ‘balloon-effect’ on the film. We prints on Arlon DPF6000 with ONYX. We currently use the original Arlon DPF6000 ICC profile and the color output is perfect except the black. Who is familiar with this? How can I reduce the overdosis black?

Thank you and good business,

Marco Boyer