[Paul Hodges]

can’t say that i would wholeheartedly recommend a versacamm to anyone right now, but then i’ve had a lot of re-curring problems with mine in the last six months or so.

when you have no problems and you’re not under pressure, it’s a very good machine, but just lately it seems the more we rely on it the more likely it is to develop a problem!

but then i like to keep the output to quite high standards so i notice when something’s off. some other printer owners never seem to get the same problems.

[Paul Hodges]

Mark, I thought that at first but I think it happens too often across the board for that to be the case.

So the dots are going down in the patchy areas, just not in the right places…I’m suspecting static charge from the roll media – particularly banner media – maybe causing this mis alignment of the dot pattern.

We may try to earth our printer and the media before it gets to the heads and see if that stops this problem once and for all

[Paul Hodges]

quote Ian Bingham:

sorry to hear it, would it be possible to post a pic of the banding?
Ian

probably not completely accurate to describe this as banding, most people would think of mechanical banding and it’s not defined like that it’s more like fuzzy lines in the scan direction that are maybe 5 or 10% lighter than the colour you’re printing so they show up as feint lines, sometimes you have to look closely to see them but in darker colours they are more obvious.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Ian Bingham:

would wiping the media with an antistatic cloth make a difference

maybe, haven’t tried that. the static theory may be right because i see this much more on banner media than i do on vinyl, or at least it seems to show more on banner media. i would assume banner media is more susceptible to static charge?

[Paul Hodges]

quote Peter Normington:

Paul, I dont think it is anymore expensive than others.
they do 2 and 3 day courses at a fixed price, but its the same if one or four attend, so if four go I think it works out at good value.

Whichever course you use, they will only use one product, but then the techniques are mainly universal.
For what its worth, Grafityp also hold an exam at the end, if you pass, a certificate is issued and you become an accredited Grafityp fitter.

Watch this space for more details.. Rob is attending, and I think he has a video in mind….

Peter

That sounds great Peter!
be surprised if they let Rob film it though lol

[Paul Hodges]

quote Peter Normington:

Grafityp do a course, and are well spoken of. 4 of us from the boards are attending in a few weeks, if you hang on I’m sure a full report will follow…

Peter

Peter, from memory that’s quite an expensive course? I’m sure it may be worth it of course…

They train you with their own product, are you planning to use it yourself or just employ their techniques to your own choice of media?

The reason I ask is that we’ve used a few wrap materials with varying results and are also on the lookout for a training course, so interested to see what you make of it.

Paul

[Paul Hodges]

quote Ian Bingham:

does it make a difference if the media is unrolled and not pulling through off the roll?
ive had similar to what was described but found it to be media too heavy to pull through

Ian, no it’s nothing to do with the media travel, all our media is rolled off loose enough so there is no issue with the motors pulling it through off the roll, it seems purely an issue with the density or consistency of the colour or amount of ink being put down. Either that or it’s flaws in the media not allowing consistent print colour coverage but I doubt it is because it’s happened to us at one time or another on every media we’ve ever used…from vinyl to banner to canvas, even the odd paper print.

Thanks

[Paul Hodges]

quote mark optimise:

its not just the roland that suffers from this, the jv3 is terrible for it.

the W-PASS profiles make life a little better. and pre-feeding the media before printing has been recommended. the frustration is that usually just as you are getting closer to a solution the problem disappears.

it does seem to appear at times of the year that are humid or warm, and then disappears for a while again. your situation may differ.

Its also difficult to pin it entirely on the printer as if this was the case then it would happen all the time and more often.

when examined with a 100x scope, the dots are all there, they are just misplaced slightly. in fact its harder to see the fault with a magnifier than just the naked eye.

sorry i cant be of more help.

Mark,

You’re pretty much on the money with those remarks because i have found that to be the case too, Roland also told me they get more complaints about it in the warm/humid weather, and of course, you can’t replicate the fault at will either, it’s unpredictable but i have found that it shows up in certain colours worse than others.
It just seems as though the heads don’t deliver the same consistency of ink throughout the whole flood coated job and you get very feint lines here and there.
So if it’s the case that other printers do it also, is this a common problem that we’re all just overlooking because no one knows the answer?

[Paul Hodges]

lol…could you be a bit more descriptive?

[Paul Hodges]

Chris, we’re using versaworks, think i’ve tried testing this at all speeds and never cured it. I think i’ve tried just about everything, we’re even levelling the printer up with spirit levels just so we’ve tried everything.

I think the guys at Roland are intending to swap some heads to see if it solves the fault.

[Paul Hodges]

well it sounds like you’re getting the exact same problem as me, and i’m currently still talking to Roland about resloving this but we still haven’t been able to determine exactly what causes it.

I’ve come to refer to this problem as ‘dropout banding’ on our eco sol max sp 540v, it doesn’t happen at regular intervals, just as and when and it has happened to me on every type of media.

on our machine it’s most noticeable with magenta and cyan flood coat colours. i’ve seen it happen on yellow print but you don’t really notice it as much

[Paul Hodges]

that’s a good price by comparison, but i still think they are over priced. they are great inks though.

i don’t think anyone would want to come down from the quality max inks give you but it does get confusing when other suppliers are telling you that their half price inks are actually better!

I’m still a bit skeptical on that claim

[Paul Hodges]

these prices are for eco sol max alternatives though aren’t they? as opposed to genuine max inks which are a Roland product.

I’ve had those kind of prices in from people, indeed some people are saying these inks out perform the max inks but they don’t on any of the samples i’ve had in so far.

maybe someone has first hand experience of the comparison?
the cost difference does make it a tempting proposition

[Paul Hodges]

quote Shane Drew:

this is an interesting topic. I have something similar, but only if I print on a particular brand of vinyl. A faint band of colour shift.

your problem sounds like a print head not firing properly though. If it is the head, it should be more noticeable on a 360×730 print resolution, but less noticeable on say, a 720×720 print resolution. Is that the case?

Roland are not very keen on changing heads under warranty tho. I’d had a problem with my black head from day 1. Complained about it for ages. When I upgraded to full solvent, Roland refused the claim. The ink distributor changed it FOC and everything has been sweet until recently when the head looks like it needs to be replaced (after 2 years)

I’d be interested to know how this is resolved.

Hello Shane,

The problem certainly shows up whatever print resolution you use, I guess you could say it’s more obvious in 360 than hi-quality.

They definately are not keen to replace any heads though

[Paul Hodges]

quote rick eade:

Hi Paul, I bought a versacam sp540 just over 6 months ago and am having the same problem. I flew the tech guy up from Perth to do its 6 monthly service as part of the warranty and he couldnt solve the problem either. I have had some expensive prints go into the bin and reverted to using my old vinyl cutter on more than one occasion. Hopefully we can solve this problem soon.

That’s interesting because you are the first person I have heard of with the same problem. It sounds like we are in a fairly exclusive club though!

Certainly this problem is not ‘across the board with all printers’ as has been put to me

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wool:

i have seen this slight lightning of the ink on my sc540 once or twice over 4 years but not had to do anything just put it down to hard use at the time.

i did hear that roland did have a problem on there larger machine simular to this but only under very heavy use dont know what cured this.

kevs idea sounds very posible a lot of care required with this strip.

my machine was swaped out when it was 5 weeks old for a cutting problem that could not be cured on the third visit.

will keep thinking

chris

Cheers Chris, anything you can come up with is greatly appreciated.

Our machine is used often but I wouldn’t say it gets heavy use, certainly nowhere near trade machines and such like

[Paul Hodges]

quote Kevin Flowers:

Paul
by the sounds of it your encoder strip is dirty, never done one on a versacam, but if its like the Soljet remove the top cover. You will find a thin transparent plastic strip use a soft clean cloth & lightly wipe it. You should find you end up with a black dust on the cloth. This is ink dust & it interrupts the signal that the head uses to know where it is. On Rolands it seems to cause a mis-print & mutohs it makes the heads fire different colors hope this helps. As always only do the above if you are confident to do it

Kev

cheers Kev,

I’ll check this encoder strip and see if we get any joy.
The problem happened on the very first print I did so I can’t see the encoder strip would have had time to get sufficiently dirty?

But I’ll check this any way. At this point, everything is worth checking!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Gavin MacMillan:

what can i say? 😀

Paul: Definitely take it further, is it still under warranty? If so get an engineer round, lock the door and don’t let him out till you can run of metres of solid magenta with no variations!

G

no mate, it’s not under warranty and it has no maintenance cover but i don’t care about that, this fault occured from day one and has never gone so they are obliged to fix it as far as i’m concerned. I’ve been sending in test prints and talking to them for absolutely ages about it they just don’t know what’s causing it.

I want to be able to post here and tell everyone how good rolands service is because they have either cured this or swapped the printer and it’s probably in their interest also that that is the conclusion.

[Paul Hodges]

quote GERT DU PREEZ:

I have never encountered this problem on our VersaCamm either. Didnt you post a thread on this a few months ago? Is the problem intermittent or does it happen everytime you print a large solid? Does it happen at lower speed / higher quality? Does ink saturation play a role? Is it only certain colours (If it does it on Y and not M, for example, it could indicate a possible problem with heads, ink lines etc.) If it was an inherent VersaCamm problem, I think more users would have noticed it by now!

Must add I use a SP300. What happens middle of print for you could be off the vinyl for me! So, smaller just may be better……?

yep, i’ve posted several times about it, thinking it might be caused by other things but i’ve exhausted all the variables now so i know it is definately the printer, just don’t know why. The thing is, i shouldn’t have to try messing with long shot ideas to make it work properly, surely it should work properly on it’s own?

There is no one thing you can do to replicate the fault, speed settings, quality settings…none of that gets rid of it so it’s pot luck if it shows up in the middle of a print. I’ve seen it in lots of the prints, just that sometimes it’s more obvious than others, depending on the colour. I think it’s doing it all the time, just not always been noticeable.

It’s at its worst on large flood coat cyan/magenta colour prints. Roland don’t seem keen to change the heads either.
I think i may try to take this further because obviously you guys are not getting this problem

[Paul Hodges]

quote Gavin MacMillan:

I’ve just printed 3 3x1m banners this morning on 720×360 standard option through signlab print and cut. These had solid black background and printed completely fine. The only time I’ve had anything like what you describe is on photos with a dull or cloudy sky, this seems to be something the versacamm struggles with. Can you post pics? I’m not the most experienced with this machine, but sounds like roland are talking crap to me. Printed loads of signs yesterday for the same job (same black b.g.) and everything was peachy. In fact the solidness (is that a word) of the background is something I’ve been the most impressed with on the versacamm.

G

Cheers Gavin

I agree, the print quality is great on the machine generally, except of course when my lovely feint stripes appear!

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wool:

hi
no it should not do this.
it sounds as if its running low on ink within the head & dampers when high use.
temp cure slow down the head speed tell the machine to do full scan printing perhaps only print in un-directional.

what rip are you using

chris

Hi Chris
The rip is versaworks.
I assume you don’t get this problem on your machine then? Using max inks by the way

Paul

[Paul Hodges]

are you printing your banners in hi-speed mode or 720?

[Paul Hodges]

quote coolinshot:

I know this isn’t clever (and certainly not something to brag about) but we don’t bother hemming them. The banner material is very strong and we haven’t had a single complaint. In fact I think the hem makes the banner look untidy (honest).

😳 Col

That’s an interesting approach…

surely you’re more likely to suffer a tear in the banner if the eyelet
only goes through one layer though?

[Paul Hodges]

had this problem recently…turned out to be a tiny hair stuck to the black print head!

once removed, back to normal…

[Paul Hodges]

The easiest thing to do in any business, is not make any money…literally anyone can do it!

One of the most soul destroying things is to have worked really hard for years and to have made no money. A few years ago i too would have got wound up over this sort of thing but i’ve developed a thick skin towards customers bringing silly quotes in with them, in fact, i quite often recommend they take up their silly quotes because you know somewhere down the line it will all come out in the wash (sometimes literally).

One thing i have learned is to always keep your margins as good as possible, keep the good work and let the bottom feeders do the shite work.

To be successful in this business I have to work hard, and I want to have a healthy business to show for it. If you have nothing to show for it at the end of the day, you might as well be working for someone else.

[Paul Hodges]

yep does sound excessive, we only empty our waste bottle on the versacamm maybe once every twelve months and we use the machine daily more or less.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Lorraine Clinch:

a year or two down the road with a printer, and it becomes a lot clearer as to what’s really important in your machine and what were just selling points.

Exactly Paul, that’s why I keep asking opinions, as those of you with machines will have the experience through use that I have not.[/quote]

hence why i mentioned the print/cut feature, which i think chris brought up first, as i was told quite a bit of rubbish regarding this, by various sales people.

someone even told me that a machine that printed and cut the vinyl wouldn’t work properly as a printer due to the fact that they weren’t designed to do both jobs lol…

[Paul Hodges]

quote Lorraine Clinch:

Chris, I think I am leaning towards separate print & cut facilities, I am a teeny bit worried about having a combined machine, although I can see the benefits of combined. I also want the facility to kiss/contour cut to make stickers, which the Versacamm can’t do.
Also if I want to laminate then the print has to come off the machine to laminate before cutting anyway.

Maybe I should ask for opinions of JV3 v Valuejet.

Lorraine, we have a versacamm, and the print/cut is something you wouldn’t want to be without once you’ve had it.

Most here would probably agree that the JV3 is a good machine, but as far as the print/cut side is concerned, i think you would have to be doing a lot of printing to make it necessary to have a stand alone cutter if you had an option.

a year or two down the road with a printer, and it becomes a lot clearer as to what’s really important in your machine and what were just selling points.

[Paul Hodges]

we actually remove the left over ink from each cartridge and deposit it into an empty one of each colour, thereby eventually gaining a whole new set of carts to use for nothing. you would be surprised how much is left over. whether this is ‘over fill’ ink or not i have no idea but it’s quite a lot.

[Paul Hodges]

Shane,

at the end of the day, meths is as good a de-greasing cleaner as any of those expensive cleaners.
We’ve used the Avery one also but to be honest, none of them are better than meths.

I think it’s more difficult to make sure you clean all the appropriate areas on the paintwork…so easy to miss parts!

[Paul Hodges]

Speedfreak,

what you need to do, is type your text
in illustrator using the open font, then send
the outlines over to composer

[Paul Hodges]

quote Peter Shaw:

It is probably worth having a word with your supplier and/or Roland and see what they say.

Peter

Cheers Pete, i’m going to do that now.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Peter Shaw:

I confirm I don’t have this problem. It sounds like an intermittent head firing problem. When I’ve had lines in the past its permanent and head related.

Peter

Hi Pete,

I have wondered about this. If it is a head problem what can i do except wait for it to get worse and then eventually change the heads?

[Paul Hodges]

I don’t have any photos at the moment but i will put one on here the minute i see it happen again.

Thanks

[Paul Hodges]

quote Lee Attewell:

Hiya…

Have you tried upping the print head temperature and the preheat temp yet?

What about slowing the print head down a bit…Even going to uni direction to allow the ink to dry between passes.

Also have you done a recent calibration with the particular vinyl you’re using?

Hi Lee,

I have changed all print temperatues back and forth, not really seen anything there that is consistent with this problem.
Running the print head slower has given better results but not 100%, having said that, the banner job we are doing at the moment is all at hi-speed and so far, no problems.
Have tried Uni-directional with no better results but haven’t done any calibration of the vinyl, we use a few different vinyls.

As you can tell, this is a very difficult problem to pin down because you can’t replicate the fault at will, it just happens randomly, although there is obviously a common denominator in there somewhere.

I’m leaning more towards the profile side of things, obviously some profiles work better with some medias and some head speeds etc.
What i find really interesting is that none of you guys have said you have the same problem…

[Paul Hodges]

quote GERT DU PREEZ:

Does it happen when you print slowly, i.e. best quality, as well? If there is a partial blockade in 1 of your ink lines, it could let through enough ink mostly, but when printing fast , and the requirement for that colour is high, it may not let through enough ink. Just my shot in the dark…

Sounds feasible…can’t say that i’ve tested any of these settings in direct relation to this problem (although i am doing that as of now), but from memory i would say it’s less likely to happen when using a slow high quality setting. I am currently doing a big banner job and am using strictly hi-speed settings and i haven’t seen this problem yet, but i have changed profile and banner media on purpose just to test the profile/media mis match theory, as opposed to a mechanical solution.

My understanding was that other printers were suffering with this, but so far no one has really confirmed that, so it’s starting to look like it may be specific to this printer (or specific to my printer, at least).

[Paul Hodges]

quote geoz:

Paul,

Have you tried unrolling the media prior to printing? I sometimes have this problem with banner material, as it’s quite heavy for the printer to pull direct from the roll, so I unroll some of it whilst the machine prints.
Also check that the brake on the rear rollers is not engaged.

Regards,

GeoZ

Thanks mate,

I know exactly what you mean there, but no, we always roll off slack material so i know it’s not to do with pulling on the media or the brake etc.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Dave Rowland:

cant speak of knowing your machine or eco inks, but heat and warm materials is a good starting point to printing well.. all our materials are kept about 18degrees at all time until print time… not had any quality problems since we built a small print room.

Cheers Dave, hadn’t really thought about temperature. I haven’t seen anything consistent to make me think the material should be warmer, some of the material stays on the machine for a while and you can still get the error. I might try heating up our store area and see if that makes a difference.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Kevin Flowers:

Paul
is the line upright vertical (|) or horizontal (-) if it is the vertical then try cleaning the encoder strip. On my Mutoh a dirty encoder causes it to fire the head but i was told by an engineer last week that Rolands are opposite an it causes it not to fire the head. Thus causing a white stripe showing through the print. If the stripe is horizontal then it is going to be profile or clogged nozzle

Kev

Kev, the lines are always produced in the direction of the print head travel, not down the linear length of the material etc, and it’s random, you just can’t predict when it will do this.

[Paul Hodges]

Karl,

The Arlon vinyl you are referring to I think, is a cast vinyl, not a wrap vinyl.
I used to use it a lot for our Edge, but it’s no good for anything else over and above your ordinary self adhesive vinyl.

[Paul Hodges]

isle of wight

[Paul Hodges]

cheers chris, this sounds like the way to go

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks guys,

is the welder quicker to use than the normal banner tape hemming method?

[Paul Hodges]

Chris, is your welder one of the hand held type? If so, what kind of money are they?

[Paul Hodges]

quote Stephen Morriss:

Doro tape do a banner backing tape that’s just for reinforcing the edges. Is that what you mean?

Steve

That does sound more like it…what i failed to mention is that it needs to be used for hemming mesh banners, which due to the nature of that particular material, leaves the tape partially exposed. I think there is a more suitable tape for this application than standard banner tape

[Paul Hodges]

Thanks everyone,

The hemming tape I’m thinking of is the stuff I’ve
seen on the back of banners from trade suppliers, I don’t think
it’s the correx tape, it’s more like a self adhesive webbing type of tape.

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wool:

the machine and the rip have media calibration settings and are there for you to print correctly on different thickness materials this only works over the length though the width should always be correct.
there are also several settings in the engineers mode.
with the print calibration set at 0 you should print 1 mtr length then measure and adjust the calibration to suit. that is the setting for that material only. also the rip should be set to 0 as well.

chris

Chris, just saw your PM! I will give you a shout if that’s okay, if this persists. Just had an engineer visit, he couldn’t explain it except to say that maybe the heater settings were on too high, so he turned them down and we’ve yet to see if that has cured it.

[Paul Hodges]

Rodney,

After the guy pays you and then places his order, even if he knocks the quantity down, can you not just tell him that you have to produce it in the quoted quantity anyway? I would just print the lot and even if he only takes them 100 at a time, you may well be left with a load of them in your workshop, but you completed the order and had the money, he might aswell take them all if you made them all.

If he is a bit of a chancer, i would imagine you might want that cheque to clear before commencing?!

[Paul Hodges]

for what it’s worth, i’ve always used corel and illustrator for sorting eps files, subsequently, we very rarely have any problems

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wool:

quote :

we make the OEM ink in China

you sure of that.

chris

Chris, you beat me to it!

[Paul Hodges]

Dave,

you can adjust the feed rate i believe, both on the machine and in the rip (versaworks), just depends whether the rip settings are set to override the printer settings.
The feed rate in the rip comes from the profile so i have been loathe to change that, i think it probably influences banding too, so you could assume that the rate set in the profile for the feed must produce the least amount of banding?

sounds like chris has more or less overcome this problem with his calibration methods.
If i’m honest, our workload has been such that i haven’t actually had time to print a metre length, measure it and adjust the calibration. I’m also a little concerned about overriding the profile setting as i mentioned.

[Paul Hodges]

Shane,

I’ve ended up doing a similar thing. Even on standard vinyl printing, i usually increase the image by a tiny amount just in case it falls a little short.

Not an exact science though lol..

[Paul Hodges]

not anything that is exactly specific to this, no.

this is why i went direct to the technical people at Roland, because if it were a known issue, they would have probably known what to do but they weren’t aware of this happening to anyone else, nor were they aware of it being a fault with the printer.

Paul

[Paul Hodges]

cheers for that Dave,

we’ve tried a lot of different things to stop this but the results do vary, sometimes the print is dead on, sometimes it’s up to 10mm short on the length.

I have been wondering if this is just to be expected with inkjets and that maybe we’ll never be able to get it bang on all the time

I have spoken to the guys at Roland about this and their opinion is that it should always print the document size accurately.

I’ll mess with the calibration some more i think

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wool:

the machine and the rip have media calibration settings and are there for you to print correctly on different thickness materials this only works over the length though the width should always be correct.
there are also several settings in the engineers mode.
with the print calibration set at 0 you should print 1 mtr length then measure and adjust the calibration to suit. that is the setting for that material only. also the rip should be set to 0 as well.

chris

chris, are you talking about the feed calibration in the rip? i have looked at the media calibration settings on the printer, but the rip settings override the printer settings, you have to change that to use the actual printer settings although the feed settings in the rip come from the profile you happen to select, is that right?

Thanks

[Paul Hodges]

cheers eddie, i’m trying out chris’s suggestion and if that doesn’t resolve it then i’ll need to ask you how you solved that problem.

Paul

[Paul Hodges]

cheers Chris, I’ll have a go with that and see what happens.

I’m pretty sure this has happened on all the different media we use.

[Paul Hodges]

Tim,

no i haven’t tried that. if it were to be the media stretching then the only soultion would be to turn off the printer heater?

in which case this must be happening on everyone else’s printers surely?

[Paul Hodges]

Tim, I think it’s fair to say that a small document is quite accurate but if you print a document say 915mm x 915mm or bigger, you start to get that innacuracy. If the file is of a linear length of say, eight foot or more, you’re paractically guaranteed to be short of the correct length, probably by 5 or 10mm.

It’s also worth saying that it doesn’t seem to happen every time, but it is frequent.

Obviously one of the variables is causing this but i’ve yet to be able to determine which one it is.

[Paul Hodges]

cheers for that Rod,

all the media is kept in the same room as the printer, which is of average room temperature, so the media wouldn’t be coming into a different environment exactly.

I can generally compensate for it by increasing the scale on the linear length by around 5mm, but it’s not an exact science of course. The problem then, is when you have to print a design exactly edge to edge, or if you have two or three prints that have to line up or be equal.

[Paul Hodges]

matt, no foil should do that however much it has been used. earlier this year i printed 9000 labels on my edge and you can bet i was ringing every last bit of foil out of those cartridges, on multiple colours so obviously some colours will last a lot longer than others depending on the design. as far as i’m aware there has never been an issue with foils not operating properly just because they are brand new or three quarters used etc, that would render the machine practically useless if that were true. you should be able to pop any foil in your machine whatever the remaining length is and expect it to work perfectly.

just maybe, spandex have had a batch of flawed black foils and it’s not impossible that you might have had a few of them. now i have known this scenario to happen in the past.

[Paul Hodges]

i agree it doesn’t seem to make sense, but i have had a few issues in the past where the problem has proved to be the most unlikely thing you can think of. sometimes you don’t need to know why it does it you just want it to work!!

by the way, i’ve never had any quality issues with gerber foils in the eleven years we’ve had the edge, but you will find the price of the print one foils a bit more favourable 😉

[Paul Hodges]

matt, there are actually three or four foil manufacturers other than Gerber, we get ours from print one, they are Renown cartridges i think.

[Paul Hodges]

ahh well if it’s only the one foil that ever does it then yes, obviously you need to swap it and see if this problem continues.
I’ve personally never had this problem, not specific to just one colour anyway, but then i don’t use spandex foils either…

[Paul Hodges]

Matt, if it’s literally a hairline gap in the print, then you need to overlap the colours to take that out. Either increase the thickness of the black line to literally ovelap the other colours by half a mil, or do the reverse and put the wider black line down first with the other colours on top and overlapped.

There are methods to overcome this but as with most of this type of work, the smaller the decal the less accuracy you can expect, so you have to compensate for that in your design.

[Paul Hodges]

sounds like a calibration problem possibly.

how big are the decals you are printing and how big is the movement in the registration?

would it still miss if you printed it as a 250mm square?

are you overlapping the print colours in omega etc?

[Paul Hodges]

I thought the most recent firmware upgrade sorted that problem out?

I certainly noticed the ink levels now seem to be correct in our machine anyway…

[Paul Hodges]

quote Tim Shaw:

I agree with Jason on every point. Any one who as only ever used Omega thinks it is great, but anybody who has used illustrator since v88 and 1 will find it hard work.

I struggle to add or delete a point some days!!!. And the number of click etc just to weld two things together drives me crazy, the person who designed the menu layouts and the icons has never had to use the program for any length of time.

Everthing seems to ars e about ti t for no good reason. Just my tuppenth worth. !!

Hmm…well i use mostly illustrator, coreldraw and photoshop and obviously omega, but i would say from some of these comments it comes down more to what you’re most familiar with.

It also depends what your output is

[Paul Hodges]

ahh, now i see your problem! these are not your average type of jobs really. I think i would try to rasterize that, but i think you said you tried that already?

[Paul Hodges]

Jason, not sure what the cause of your problem is, as i don’t have any of those issues with omega, in fact, i find it much quicker than illustrator for this type of work.
omega on my pc is quick, and really easy to edit, especially for edge work, i wouldn’t even contemplate using something else for that.

I suppose you may be quicker in illustrator if you’re used to it, then again you have to remember that omega is not a package intended to rival illustrator or corel, they are much more powerful of course.
Omega is a obviously very specific in what it does, but it does do it well (for me at least)!

[Paul Hodges]

Jason, what are you doing in illustrator that you can’t do in omega?

[Paul Hodges]

I have to say that I’m getting more out of Spandex now than I have done for a few years, things are definately changing.

As for Omega, well if you have the latest release, it’s pretty powerful, fast and accurate. I do alot of my vector work in Omega then send it over to illustrator because I find it quicker.

What you have to remember is that if you are out putting to an edge, you should be using software designed to do it. Drawing stuff up in Illustrator then sending over to Omega seems a long way around the houses?

[Paul Hodges]

quote Jason Davies:

Hi Matt, okay, finding the edge a little frustrating at times, having to set my mind back 10 years (easier these days than 10minutes) to cope with the technology, but still amazed by the work you can produce with it. Do you do large format work, have been asked about vehicle wraps??

Cheers
Jason

Jason, the edge shouldn’t give you too many problems mate, if you’re using Omega software with it you’re pretty sorted.

your registration problem for cutting cannot be cured by calibration of any type. assuming the plotter has been calibrated anyway, you would need to use the method already described…manually adjusting the position of the target. if you do that once, it should be good to go. I have actually cut entire 50m rolls using that method and the result is very good.

Problem is, there is a degree of accuracy and tolerance that is limited when you get down to really small labels and such like, however, there are usually ways around that, especially if you have some design input into what you’re doing.

[Paul Hodges]

Jason,

If you’re buying them frequently you should be able to negotiate it down to £32 per 45m refill ribbon. We’ve been buying them for years and that’s the price we have been paying for as long as i can remember now.

Good luck 😉

[Paul Hodges]

It’s funny how things things can get out of hand.

Thanks Peter for mentioning that it was (and still is) a valid point.

I was the first person to tell kevin to keep posting for those who can benefit from his advice, but hey, if someone stops posting because somebody else questioned something they said…..what’s next, we just accept everything we are told?

For anyone who is following this thread, I never said Kevin was a salesman, I never accused him of selling, I was merely pointing out that for someone in his position, he is likely to favour his own side in any type of disagreement, as you would expect, and that doesn’t always result in impartial advice or comment, it’s not personal, it’s just a generalisation, I’m sure Kevin is a great bloke who helps a lot of people, but i still think the original remark was mis-leading and innacurate…sorry!

and to just reply to John’s comment, I wasn’t actually trying to flame anyone, I certainly don’t have an agenda, other than to question things that i don’t believe are true, or accurate.

I suppose we can either all hold hands and be friends, or we can use these forums to try to find out what is really true in our industry.

Sorry for any offence…none was intended.

[Paul Hodges]

Andrew,

I agree with some of that.

Not really sure why you think people can’t make their own minds up though, they almost certainly will do that anyway, I’m only talking from my own experience, I don’t represent the opinions of anyone else on here, obviously.

All i actually did was disagree with one remark that Kevin made, even if he was quoting from something else, I just don’t agree with the original remark, on the basis of my own experience with different types of inkjet printers, that’s all 😉

[Paul Hodges]

lol, that wasn’t an insult Kevin, just trying to point out that you are still representing a company selling a product, be that technical, sales or otherwise, you are hardly likely to say something detrimental to your own company.

In my experience, someone in your position would probably say the complete opposite if their company was selling eco machines, everyone has some kind of agenda, that’s just business. It would be a bit like me recommending the local competition, it’s not going to happen is it?!

The only remark I challenged you on was the respective odour remark, which i stand by, I wouldn’t expect you to stop posting just because one or two people disagree with you on this. I’m sure there are many people on here who could benefit from your knowledge.

[Paul Hodges]

Kevin, sorry you thought my post was rude, let me just explain that over the years of being in this industry, I, like everyone else here probably, have been subject to various hardware and materials sales pitches which invariably turn out to be half truths at best, I just don’t have time for it these days I’m afraid.

What we have to take in to account with posts from people like yourself is that although I’m sure you know what you’re talking about and some of what you say is informative, you still have something to promote, like all salespeople or representatives, I understand this, I do it almost everyday myself in my own business to a degree.

Taking that in to account, I’m not surprised you’ve said what you said about the harmful effect of various ink, if I was selling your machines I would say the same thing, but at the end of the day we all know that full solvent machines are as good as they are because they are much more aggressive than their counterparts.

I don’t need any documents or research to tell me that working in the same environment as such printers, is far more unpleasant, therefore more likely, more harmful in the long run, that’s not scientific, it’s just common sense, and more importantly, it’s from my own experience.

[Paul Hodges]

quote :

Eco-solvents are subject to identical health and safety legislation as full solvent inks. Whilst the marketing claims (ours and theirs) make some bold statements, the HSE makes no distinction between the two.

In summary on that topic, I would say this, a properly vented active solvent is probably safer than an unvented eco-solvent.

sorry for being so abrupt, but that part of the post is rubbish. you only have to stand next to a few machines running the different types of ink to know there is a major difference, vented or otherwise.

regardless of the various merits between full solvent and eco solvent, it has to be worse when some people start to feel ill just because they are in the same room as a full solvent printer. some of us become used to the smell and it doesn’t bother us, but a lot of people hate it, that is the distinction that matters!

[Paul Hodges]

or just buy them from print one at around £32 a refill

[Paul Hodges]

Hmm…there are two distinct camps here, those who aim to get the most for their work, and those who aim to be more price competitive.

Peter is of course right in that we all shop around for the best supplier prices, we all do that until we get what we want, but that’s a slightly different situation from Rob’s point regarding what you sell your goods out at. in this respect, Rob is right, we should all get as much as we can for our work…if we want to stay in business and make our efforts worth while. Shane’s point about perceivable value is correct also, we all know roughly what a job is worth, as aopposed to what our bottom line on a price is.

In my experience working in this trade, we give far too much away for free, especially artwork, design and set up charges, other types of agencies all charge much more for this type of thing than sign makers tend to do.

So in my opinion, I agree with Rob on the price issue and i strongly feel that prices could do with going up slightly to give more value to what we do. I agree also with peter’s point about staying competitive on price, we all have to do that to an extent, although i have to say that in my experience, poor quality/inexperienced people tend to fall too much into under cutting others because they have nothing else to offer against the competition, so you have to be careful not to put yourself right at the bottom. After all, your typical small signmaker in a cheap shop or unit may think it’s wise to under cut all the bigger outfits, but they can also be under cut by the man in the shed at the end of his garden with a vinyl cutter!

For anyone looking at digital print prices, trade suppliers as a general rule sell out at between 15 quid per square metre to around 30. The cheaper end is usually done on the 300 dpi machines, so you need to be sure what they are using.

[Paul Hodges]

Jason,

I’ve been using the Edge, with Omega since they were released, I also use Corel and Illustrator for vector work.
You have to be a bit careful which you use, depending on what type of device you’re sending the output to etc.

Omega is such an easy vector package to use, I rate it highly, and now with the most recent update, it’s pretty powerful. I can zip through a job in Omega and even export it to another vector package and be quicker than using certain other programs.

Illustrator is a great piece of software, more powerful but more generalised too, some of the methods don’t seem to make sense after you’ve used something as specific as Omega, but i do like the program.

[Paul Hodges]

quote pshaw:

Steve,

You may be right if the new Versacamm inks have improved enough. Of course there’s nothing to stop Cadet or other Versacamm conversion owners from switching back. It’s only a flush and fill and new profiles. (Oh no not new bloody profiles!!!)

Peter

haha, quite right too….if you get a good profile, stick with it!!

What Steve said is exactly the point i’ve tried to make in other threads too…basically, that was the conclusion i ended up with i.e. once laminated, the advantage of full solvent is negated, so the new versacamm was an easy decision, bearing in mind this machine really is maintenance free.

Six or eight months ago, i probably would have gone for a cadet though, i still think it’s a good full solvent machine for a good price.

[Paul Hodges]

quote pshaw:

Paul,

I have a Cadet and can assure you that you can’t rub the ink off. You will destroy the vinyl first. This was not true of the original versacamm inks which rubbed off quite easily but I understand this is greatly improved with the Max inks.

Peter

Peter, that’s interesting….

With the max inks, you can’t actually get them off but you can smudge the print if you really rub it hard.
We used to do a lot of trade printing using output from the grenadier, the elan, the scitex and the arizona, to mention a few, and the prints could all be smudged if you tried hard enough to do it.

Maybe the Cadet uses improved inks then?
If the ink is really that resistant to abrasion, is it worth laminating at all?

[Paul Hodges]

The OrangeJet is a Versacamm, just re-badged or re-named is it not?
If so, it’s either an equivalent to the cadet or the original Roland machine.

That comment about using full solvent over eco is mis-leading. When i first started researching inkjet i was also sold on that argument until i came across the max inks which changed everything….
the decision is now more considered than ever before, and as a user of full solvent print in the past, i would tell anyone that you CAN rub off the print from any type of solvent/eco solvent inkjet if you try hard enough, neither version will ‘fall’ off but neither is totally abrasion proof either.

Laminating is the only real answer to that, as has been mentioned many times on here.

[Paul Hodges]

yes that does sound pretty much like what i was getting. So far we have the wiper suggestion, which I haven’t investigated yet, and obviously the ongoing suggestion from peter about the quality of the profiles.

what i can say for sure is that having experienced this problem again this week (on a large banner), i then swapped the profile for s different one and did another eleven banners with great results, and haven’t seen that issue since.

So i think it comes down to matching all your media to certain profiles (not necessarily the recommended ones), and sticking to it through trial and error.

[Paul Hodges]

that’s a good point actually, anything we do carries a 12 month guarantee, maximum. the only arguable point being that the customer could argue the goods were not fit for the purpose in which they were sold.

we’ll have to wait and see what Wayne’s conclusion is once he’s seen the work in question.

[Paul Hodges]

that’s bordering on being an unsuitable application for inket – in my opinion because the harsher the environment, the more likely you’ll get trouble, added to the fact that they’re not laminated….it’s not an ideal scenario.

You can rub off any un-laminated solvent print if you try hard enough, they’re not really up to the kind of treatment the chap is giving them, having said that, there’s no way you could easily remove the print without trying, unless an unusual situation has occurred with using the wrong substrate, but then your supplier would be the only one who could shed light on that

[Paul Hodges]

Cheers Peter, I’ll give him a call. It’s so much easier when people know what they’re talking about 😀

[Paul Hodges]

Peter,

That’s very interesting…it’s been my experience also, that the suppliers quite often come out with a ‘try this one, or maybe that one’ when recommending profiles.

Your profile for the pantone sounds brilliant, i’m trying to find a way to match them well too. Did you manage to do that by reducing the ink level in the profile then?

Paul

[Paul Hodges]

quote Chris Wool:

quote :

if the versacamm is eco sol max, you shouldn’t even need a service contract.

unless you are prepared to get down and dirty then you need a contract if you think you dont need one cos its eco sol then be prepared to have your eyes opened and wallet after a year or two use.

chris

hehe…that kind of reminds me of when we stopped our Edge contract, they said a similar thing…(and i saved a fortune)!

as for the Versacamm, our training person told us they don’t generally offer service contracts because we wouldn’t need one particularly, and he was right, they didn’t offer us one, although they might when the guarantee runs out.

[Paul Hodges]

the latest firmware update has cured that fault, the ink levels are now accurate when you read them from the printer (don’t bother with the levels on the rip…it’s useless)

[Paul Hodges]

Peter, i may try this and see what the results are like.

Do you generally reduce the ink level in the profile?

[Paul Hodges]

what sevice contract is this?

if the versacamm is eco sol max, you shouldn’t even need a service contract.
where did he buy it from and what caused the problem?

[Paul Hodges]

Marek, the name of the cut line has to be exact, including upper/lower case with no gaps.

if you loaded the palette straight into illustrator you shouldn’t have a problem. make sure there are no fills in the cut line shapes etc

[Paul Hodges]

Peter,
that sounds okay, i can try that. Have you done this to all your material profiles then? surely the manufacturers have already profiled for optimum ink settings…i thought that was the point of them spending all their time doing profiling?

[Paul Hodges]

I’ve got a Roland SP540v on max inks using Versaworks rip. Well i have tried dozens of different materials, ans switching to different brands has not really eliminated the problem. Having said that, in the last two weeks or so, i’ve not had a problem, it just seems to pop up every now and again.
So far, i’ve had material from Metamark, Victory Design, Spandex, Hexis amongst others and had good results on most. No one product repeatedly shows the problem, it’s very intermittent.

Editing the ink levels in the profiles is unchartered territory for me! So far, i’ve just been using the recommended profiles from each supplier. Is it easy to do?

[Paul Hodges]

Peter, thanks for the suggestion, although it’s not happening along the feed direction, as i mentioned before it’s occurring in the print head travel direction.
I’m inclined to think this problem is mostly about the media surface. Having spoken to a rep recently, it seems that although the suppliers claim their materials are free from surface defects, or reverse wound etc, they are in fact subject to different quality of finishes, within the same roll.

In fact, consisitency of some of the medias has proved to be a problem for the suppliers themselves, according to one person i spoke to recently

[Paul Hodges]

the only supplier of ‘genuine’ max inks that i know of is Roland DG, every one else is just selling an eco-sol type of ink, they’re not really an equivalent to the max inks, so that would be a backwards step if you’re currently using the max inks

[Paul Hodges]

Yes i know what you’re saying mate, but if you want the proper stuff, you just have to go to the right people who can do the job don’t you?

At the end of the day, our client’s are paying us for our expertise, and if that includes neon, then we in turn need to use the appropriate people rather than try to take on everything ourselves.

Customer satisfaction is so important these days and to be honest, most of our LED jobs have had a 50-50 response. Whilst people like it, i think in their mind’s eye they are expecting a similar result to neon. Whenever people ask me about LED signs now, i always over emphasise how much weaker they are in comparison, that way people are not disappointed with the result.