Irregular banding on VersaCamm when printing PVC banner

[Karl Williams]

Have you tried reducing the heat settings? I had similar problems so reduced the temp settings. Didn’t cure it fully but it was acceptable.
if you have a take up system maybe it’s pulling to tight.

[John Dorling]

Yes I tried putting pre heat down to about 30 and post down to 35. No better unfortunately. And it starts banding before it even gets to the take up reel!

[Russell Huffer]

Have you checked the linear calbration as i find on my sj740 this is the most likely thing to cause banding.

Regards

Russell.

[John Dorling]

Hi Russell

The feed settings and Bi-directional calibration are spot on if that’s what you mean. Not familiar with a specific linear calibration setting on the VersaCamm. What exactly does it do?!

Thanks

John

[Paul Hodges]

John, if that’s what i think it is, then join the club – in fact, get in the queue lol…

Is your problem that the print leaves a feint band in the dark areas of the banner, then jumps back to the correct colour, and so on…not ‘mechanical banding’ as is widely seen with inkjet, but more of a random ‘dropout’ of colour?

[Colin Crow]

I have experienced similar banding to this on our mimaki with some medias and like you, tried various settings to correct. The stripes are irregular and not like those caused by a defect in the print head so I have been looking at the environmental conditions. We have a air-conditioner in our print room which blows in the general direction of the printer and it occurred to me that depending on whether someone was standing/moving around in front of the printer the temperature across the platen could vary giving this subtle striping effect?

I mean to do some more experiments on the suspect medias but its interesting that I never had this problem with our valuejet which had a fully enclosed platen when printing!

Do you have anything in your print room (a/c, drafty window, fan etc) that may be causing similar effects?

Colin

[Chris Wool]

if you only get this with banner material my guess is that static is playing a part. and can cause just that effect.

chris

[John Dorling]

quote Paul Hodges:

Is your problem that the print leaves a feint band in the dark areas of the banner, then jumps back to the correct colour, and so on…not ‘mechanical banding’ as is widely seen with inkjet, but more of a random ‘dropout’ of colour?

Yes that’s exactly what I’m seeing. Very interesting what Chris has said about static as it’s not something I’d thought of. The banner material doesn’t seem to be any more static than any other material though.

Colin the machine is near a window but there is no draft. The print room has the most consistent temperature of any room in the building and the banding happens the same wether it’s a humid or dry day, winter or summer. Does anyone know if there is a platen cover available for the versacamm?

It’s fine on photographic type work and small areas of colour but very noticeable on large blocks of colour. Of course with this type of printer if you look hard enough you will always find bands with any media, but these are not ‘mechanical banding’ caused by the way the machine prints, but an irregular ‘drop out’ of colour like Paul described. I even had the Xerox rep out but they don’t do ICC profiles for VersaWorks. I think I can just about get away with the latest batch, but I’d like to resolve the problem asap!

Thanks for all the advice so far and any further info gladly received!!

Thanks

John

[Chris Wool]

also are you using the roll holders ?

[Paul Hodges]

John, the reason i know about this fault is that i’ve been complaining to Roland for over 3 years about it, it’s a known fault although they quite often tell you they haven’t seen it before.

It is specific to Roland printers which is why you won’t really see it on the bigger full solvent trade machines, i’ve tested all the banner materials i can get hold of and it isn’t really down to profiles or different banner suppliers, it seems to come down to the thickness of the media you’re using.

In a nutshell, the machine isn’t really man enough to put down a consistent solid bank of colour on a heavy media type, which is why you will more often than not, see this on your flood coated banners, trust me, I’ve been through all the variables and you still end up with this.

Eventually, a chap at Roland admitted to me that it is a flaw but Roland Japan either can’t or are not prepared to do anything to solve it.

It’s interesting because your machine is newer than mine, some Roland sales guys have recommended i look at upgrading to that machine, they promised me it doesn’t do the dropout flood coat effect that mine has done since day one

[George Elsmore]

And i thought it was just me this happens too….so in essence dont bother doing banners on a roland if printing a block colour as it even does it with spot colours 😕

[Paul Hodges]

quote George Elsmore:

And i thought it was just me this happens too….so in essence dont bother doing banners on a roland if printing a block colour as it even does it with spot colours 😕

it was explained to me that our printer (SP540v) wasn’t really designed to handle banners or heavy media, vinyl printing of course is fine but when you go outside of this with different medias, you hit the limitations of the machine – of course, I, like all of you no doubt, were sold a machine which could do this, and i suppose it can, if you can live with the inconsistencies.

Something in the ink delivery/eco sol max setup is just not powerful enough for really good flood coat results.

[John Dorling]

quote Chris Wool:

also are you using the roll holders?

Yes.

I’m (sort of) glad that I’m not the only one with this problem as I was beginning to think that I was doing something wrong. The best results I have been able to get are with both heaters turned down to minimum. I’m sure with a lot of time and patience and a lot of banner material I could tweak a profile to minimise this effect, but usually I design my own banners and just don’t put large areas of colour in! Thinking on… If I find any other ways to minimise the effect I will let you know.

John

[Russell Huffer]

My Roland SJ 740 does not have this problem as it is a print only machine so has more rollers than a print and cut. I have heard say before that print and cut machines struggle with banner and some people will unwind the roll as it prints. Mine will happly pull through a 1.9 560gsm banner even the ones from my supplier that are reverse wound.

Having said all that if the fault is consistant it could be cured or at least minimised by linear calibration forget printing the roland "T" i always print a 250m/m box and measure.

Regards

Russell.

[Paul Hodges]

It’s not the weight of the roll that causes it, or the pinch rollers or any of that, you should always have banner media unwound as slack on the back because the versacamm motors aren’t really powerful enough to pull it through properly anyway.

The way to stop the dropout effect is to substitute your average 550gsm banner media for 440 or 450 – i have virtually eliminated it using lighterweight materials, it just doesn’t like printing on thick media.

[Mathew Gibson]

I have just printed 50 metres worth of banner material from europoint on my VP540 solid green and never had a problem i know this might not help but it can be done without the banding!

[John Dorling]

quote Mathew Gibson:

I have just printed 50 metres worth of banner material from europoint on my VP540 solid green and never had a problem i know this might not help but it can be done without the banding!

(:)

So what’s your secret???

[Richard Urquhart]

I only have a small sp300v but we dont get this problem either using APS Banner 550
Rich

[Paul Hodges]

quote Mathew Gibson:

I have just printed 50 metres worth of banner material from europoint on my VP540 solid green and never had a problem i know this might not help but it can be done without the banding!

What weight banner media is it mate?

[Martin Oxenham]

I’ve had this problem too….Which Europoint material was it ?

[Mathew Gibson]

I tell a lie it was SPVCG 440gsm from grafityp the reason i thought it was the europoint one was because it seemed to be exactly the same material as the europoint media i will find out which one that was. I printed the media with
the generic banner 1 on standard quality pre press europe with the head
in the low position hope this helps

[Gary Birch]

We have suffered the same issues on some banner materials too. I have also used the Ability banner from Europoint and to be honest cannot recall having any problems with it. From memory I think it is a 500gsm media(couldn’t be certain though). I don’t think we have had the problem with the Metamark FL500 either apart from when it is feeding against the weight of the roll.

An engineer told me that the problem is better on non reverse wound products too, which in theory makes sense as the media is not in contact with the back of the printer as much.

Seems to work for us.

Cheers

Gary

[Chris Wool]

quote Mathew Gibson:

I tell a lie it was SPVCG 440gsm from grafityp the reason i thought it was the europoint one was because it seemed to be exactly the same material as the europoint media i will find out which one that was. I printed the media with
the generic banner 1 on standard quality pre press europe with the head
in the low position hope this helps

i do hope that you meant to say you printed with the head in the high position.

chris

[Mathew Gibson]

yes i did chris silly me

[Paul Hodges]

just to follow on with this topic, i’ve just printed 14 banners more or less back to back on a few different weights of banner, all flood coated purple and black, and every single one of them has left some light coloured dropout stripes in them.

Whether the end user notices it or looks for it is arguable, but it isn’t a desirable situation when your printer does this especially when under a bit of pressure. Head height adjustments made no difference, heater adjustments made no difference.

Printing on vinyl the following morning in high speed and it’s doing the same thing on a monomeric 3-5 yr vinyl, changed it over to our spandex polymeric 2503 vinyl and it isn’t doing it, or at least isn’t as noticeable.

My feeling is that it’s a combination of the eco sol max ink and certain medias, or the coating on certain medias, whereas full solvent trade machines appear to be able to flood coat onto just about anything, our eco sol max ink is not quite aggressive enough to achieve the same.

This problem has plagued us since we bought the printer in 2005 and i still don’t know the definitive answer to it. Whereas at one time i would have stuck with Roland for any future printer purchases, i think i would be more inclined to buy a mimaki next time