HELP – Banner rippling and catches head leaving marks.

[Shane Drew]

from experience, it will be the economy banner material.

On my Roland I have to raise the head to ‘high’. That will stop the head strikes.

It helps to roll the banner out some, and not let the printer pull from the roll. This creates a tension too, so releasing that by rolling it lose off the roll will help.

Hope that helps

[David Rowland]

sounds like the materials too cold…

keep material in the same room as your printer

and i know its summer but if you have a cold room, put a little tempreture heater in there.. get it between 15-24 degrees in there… no ripples then.

ripples happen because of large tempreture change, if you make the room better, then less tempreture change in the material when it gets to in our case about 40-45degrees

we just started printing on Spandex banner.. not bad stuff… seems to wrinkle a bit

[janfranck]

hi there,

turn the printheater of… just use the dryer and front heater.. so no heat applied until the media passes the printheads…and head-hight up

know this problem from the regular rockhopper II also…

put in the media exact straight, go behind the printer and have the media moved forward for some meters… check at the back on the left side and right side, if the media "walks" to the left or right side… if this happens, you´l get wrinkls and get headcrashes again…

if that´s the problem, it´s because the media wasn´t properly winded on the roll and you should just give it back to your supplier… there´s no chance to get rid of these wrinkles … ( it happens, when the media is rolled not 100% straight, but then cut straight on both ends… looks nice but the media itself is slope and contorted and tries to get in it´s regular position when unwinded and feed through the printer ) …

yours jan 🙂

[Tony Stanwell]

Hi Mathew,
You’ve got excellent advice already…we have the same machine and all I could add is:
Make sure that your sponge (part no. KY-42889) is clean.
Clean wipers or change
Clean around heads
Clean around the "rubbers" on the capping station
Hope this helps to get you rolling 😛
Tony

[matthew Preston]

Cheers shane (and Jan) raising the head has worked a treat so far!

Also tried to loosen off the roll but it just wrinkled up even more when it loaded into the machine, but thanks anyway Dave.

Gave the heads and capping station etc a clean and changeds the wuper blades and spit pads last week and this printer has not been used since so I know its not this although this is my first port of call. Thanks tho Tony!"

Also thanks for the info about the roll Jan.

[elektrika]

We had the same problem with economy class (thinner frontlit). Now we use sioen frontlit for roll ups and flex displays (it`s chinese but prints excellent on solvent plotters) and thicker frontlit (starflex glossy) as a cheaper solution for banners and we don`t have any of those problems anymore. Lifting the heads up only help if material don`t wrinkle and it`s not temperature problem as some say, it`s bad friction with front plate and rollers are pulling one side more than the other so wrinkles occur,and from my experience you can`t do anything about that. Just try more materials and you will find better solutions

[eddie meadows]

You may also find that pre-heating the media from the back with a couple of small portable heaters before it actually hits the platen may help reduce the "shock", rippling. As said in previous posts, it’s also wise to condition the media to your print environment for at least 24hrs. Everything else I can think of has been said already.

[Karl Williams]

I HAVE FOUND ON MY ROCKY A SIMILAR PROBLEM.
THE FEET THAT HOLD THE MATERIAL DOWN HAVE A PLASTIC FILM ON THEM. THIS IS GLUED ON WITH CRAPPY GLUE THAT SOFTENS WHEN PRESSURE IS PUT ON THEM, CAUSING THE PADS TO MOVE. WHEN THIS HAPPENS LESS PRESSURE IS ON THE MATERIAL AND CAUSES AN UNEVEN PRINT. CHECK AND SEE ALSO IF THESE ARE FITTED CORRECTLY AS THEY CAN FLY OF AFTER A WHILE. MUTOH HAVE BROUGHT OUT NEW FEET THAT GET RID OF THIS PROBLEM.
AS FOR BANNER MATERIAL CALL D.C. HOULT ON 0115 9550808 (NOTTINGHAM) AND ASK FOR DAVE. GOOD BLOKE, GREAT FOR BANNER MATERIAL! AND I DON’T THINK YOU’LL BEAT HIM ON PRICE EITHER!

[Mike Grant]

Karl, PLEASE DON’T SHOUT on the forum, we will hear you! 🙄

[George Kern]

Make sure you check on the printer carriage too. As it moves across different materials sometimes the ink builds up with dust and scrim fibers from banner materials. This causes it to drag the build up across the print leaving head strikes. This is of course after you have done suggestions as mentioned above.