Stafford Cox
Forum Replies Created
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Andy, did you get this sorted out? I’ve been away for a couple of weeks and only just noticed this post. I can send it to you if you let me know your details.
Thanks also Peter.
Stafford
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quote Steve Warburton:We solved the problem once we realised we were working the worng way round for 3 years
The PDF would be great.
Good stuff. Well done to Peter on that one then. I’ll send you the PDF over this afternoon.
Stafford
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If you’re saying the yellow is changing colour, that would suggest you’re using a 6 colour SP or a JV3S, right? In that case, I would guess that the yellow is turning green where it’s being contaminated by the cyan. If so, I would suggest that the pump is running inefficiently and not clearing the cap out properly.
You say that the tech replaced the capping station and not just the individual cap. It does sound damper related if a colour’s not pulling through consistantly.
A picture of the test draw would be really useful at this stage.
Stafford
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I have a print and cut ‘how to’ PDF that I made a couple of years ago if you need it? It is based on the Mimaki CG-FX plotter and Finecut software.
Stafford
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Look for an option such as ‘mono print’. Shiraz has this option and I’m sure other RIP’s do too. It uses only the K channel to produce the job instead of trying to make a grey out of 4 colours. It is then impossible for the RIP to print any colour.
Stafford
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I would print a colour chart from a RIP and do it in reverse. Visually check what colour you are trying to achieve from the printed chart and then take whatever reference the RIP thinks it is and design around that.
I hope that makes sense?
Stafford
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Looking good!!
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Can you post a picture of the test draw?
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quote Stafford Cox::police: Please take a moment to look over our Board Rules.
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Sorry, honest mistake 😳
Stafford
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Excellent!!
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:police: Please take a moment to look over our Board Rules.
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It also depends on the RIP you are using. Most proper RIP’s will limit the ink, if you just use an Epson driver, the chances are it will use more ink and you will end up with just a dark mess when printing shadows and lose a lot of detail.
It’s an impossible question to answer exactly but hopefully this will help a little.
Stafford
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I ship Mimaki’s around the country quite a lot. If the printer is being left over a weekend or longer, I would empty it and flush it. If it’s only going to be unplugged for a few hours I would ship it with the inks in and strap it i the middle of the van with the head clamp attached and just be very careful.
Stafford
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quote John.Taggart:Hey all we did a partial wrap on a GT3000 recently. Attached some pics. The 3M Di-Noc is a nice material and is pretty forgiving 🙂
Looking good John!! Not sure I would go for a carbon look all over, maybe just a single colour. Did it take you long?
Stafford
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quote Dave Rowland:well we just started learning Wasatch, some nice little bits to it, its not that bad, its pretty good.
I tested about 4 RIPs so far, they all got plus points and bad points, I yet to find the perfect RIP 🙂
I think the above is about as true as it comes. There are many RIP’s out there but none of them are perfect. I am obviously going to be biased toward Shiraz but it is NOT without fault. v6.7 appears to be as good as it gets and the latest Signature is fantastic, but I’m sure I will be responded to with a multitude of arguments on that statement 😳
Nobody has mentioned Onyx on this post! That surprises me as for many years it has been our biggest competition. Wasatch (or Mimaki Raterlink as it is also known) is another big contender, then the others seem to follow up behind, so to speak. Troop, Versaworks, Colorgate, Colorchoice……
If there are any questions regarding the new features in Shiraz (and yes, it does handle PDF’s better now) just ask, but maybe in another post
Stafford
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quote Matty Goodwin:Hi Staff
Cant justify spending£200 to wrap your 3000GT? You must be mad mate!!!
Matt
£200!!?? I thought I’d be looking at 4 or 5 times that!!?? When do we start? 😀
Mod-edit please use the image upload facilities provided.
Staff -
As tempting as it is, I didn’t go for a roadster. I’ve always wanted a Mitsubishi 3000GT so decided to get one for the weekends. Bloody expensive in every way but well worth it in my opinion.
The paintwork isn’t great on it so I’ve been thinking of getting a wrap done but it’s just another expense I can’t really justify at the moment
Staff
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First thing to do is to make sure all the nozzles are firing on the test draw. How does it look?
Stafford
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Static is a good answer but have you definitely done the basics? Cleaning around the heads etc (you’ll be amazed at how many people don’t clean these printers properly).
My gut feeling would be a bad/worn/missing wiper.
Stafford
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Glad you got it sorted 😉
Stafford
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Well, it’s an easy job on a Mimaki and I’d imagine it’s much the same on yours. Just undo 1 screw, swap them like for like, then put the screw back in. Prepare to get flicked with ink though 😀
Stafford
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No probs Kev. Let us know if you get stuck and make sure you get the pump from a reputable source.
Stafford
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quote Stephen Morriss:I would suggest the pumps the main problem as well, used to have the same problem but not since fitting a new pump.
Don’t get them off Ebay though, you can get the pumps cheaper from Tech 8’s website.
Same with the dampers and capping stations.Steve
Agreed. There are definitely good and bad pumps. I hear that Tech 8’s parts are good, as are ours, and there are others too. Just make sure they are using the right pipework if you are using full solvent inks (I forget what the stuff’s called now).
Stafford
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This makes interesting reading.
Our non contract work must be paid for upon completion of the job, and more often than not people are happy with that and issue either a card payment or cheque there and then. There are of course the odd few that ALWAYS question it and then ‘don’t have a the cheque book here’ or ‘accounts have gone home for the day’ and then we’re left chasing the money for 60 days or in some cases more.
In the coming months, we might start asking people for the callout costs up front.
Stafford
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I think Steve wins this. What more can be said!? 😀 😀
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You’re absolutely right. Apple probably could do better in terms of things like the camera, and certainly the price. And I also understand why a lot of people won’t get the iPhone out of principle, but it’s right phone for me and I never looked back. The only thing that annoys me is the 18 month contract preventing me from getting the iPhone4.
Again, this is only my opinion and I’ve not had much experience with the others. Anybody who has bought an iPhone on my recommendation has not been disappointed though
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Sorry guys, I would suggest the pump rather than the capping station personally. The Epson pumps that are installed in most of these printers need to ‘lock off’ when not in use. If one of the rubber paddles inside the pump is snapped or worn, it can cause the ink lines to siphon the cartridge. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to replace both but I would suggest pump first.
Best of luck
Stafford
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The one I find most useful is Team Viewer.
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
For my support role at work, I need to be able to access PC’s and Mac’s remotely and I can run the server part of it here on my PC laptop and take control of any PC or Mac with an internet connection after talking a customer through running a very small and simple bit of client software.
And, of course, the latest versions of Shiraz have the client software installed by default 😉
Stafford
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I am an iPhone user and I will definitely be sticking with it. It’s by far the best phone I’ve ever owned for both work AND play but the competition is hot on it’s trail. My sister uses the Galaxy S and it does look very good, a friend of mine uses the HTC something or other and it too looks pretty good. Both of them are Apple haters and slate my phone but then show me all these excellent features that are ‘just like the iPhone’!! It’s like that VW advert where all the competition are quoting their cars to be ‘just like the Golf’.
I’m sure all the other phones are very good but for me, it’s the Apple that wins.
Stafford
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I’ve started using 7-zip. The compression seems a whole lot better than ZIP or RAR.
Stafford
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We’ve been supplying Mimaki’s for years now and the JV33 is, in my opinion, the best machine they’ve done to date. Great quality at a reasonable speed and pretty easy on the daily maintenance (using Mimaki SS21 or ColorSolve Classic 21). I don’t know the Roland range particularly well but I’m sure you won’t be disappointed in the 33.
The CG-FX/FXII is pretty much as good as any other drag blade plotter but what really makes it better is the Finecut v7 software that’s bundled with it. Very easy to use and can be run on Mac or PC or Illustrator or Corel.
Is the warranty with the local supplier or with Hybrid? Make sure they know their stuff if it’s with the reseller.
I’m a little out of touch with the pricing but it sounds like a good deal to me.
Best of luck
Stafford
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I too have heard that running CAT6 has no real benefit over CAT5e. It’s been a few years since I’ve done any really significant networking (actually more than a decade now I come to think of it) but running data and mains cabling along side each other has always been a big NO NO for me. My suggestion would be to seperate them to be safe
Do it right, and do it once!
I’m more than happy to be proven wrong on this though.
Stafford
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Looks great Jeremy, well done. I’ve been thinking of having a go at doing that on my weekend car.
Staff
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quote Dave Rowland:you may need to soak the head for a while
Agreed. If the pump is working well now, use the nozzle wash function and leave it on a 99 minute when you leave for the day, then do that for the next fwe evenings. Failing that, it’s print at double the pass rate or new head time I’m afraid.
Best of luck
Stafford
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quote Grant Dennis:quote Stafford Cox:Just did a search for Signus on here and spotted a couple of familiar names. Hi to GrantD and Jayne Marsh if you’re still on here…..?
Stafford
yo staffy baby – hows it hanging ?
All good Grant, thanks. How about you? It’s been a few years 🙂 Everything good at your end, so to speak?
Staff
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Again, I agree with what’s been said already. (Man, you guys are quick!!) The immediate answer to your question would be to scour eBay for a Gerber Edge. The problem with that is the cartridges are expensive and you are limited to the width of the printer which I think is not more than about 500mm. You will than be very frustrated if somebody asks you for a 600mm print and you have to turn them away.
The Epson 7600 is a fantastic machine, I still really rate them. The problem is the durability. Yes you can get a matte adhesive vinyl the runs through them but you will need to laminate/encapsulate everything before it recieves even a sniff of outdoors.
Best thing to do in my opinion is look out for a cheap second hand solvent printer. I know you can get Mimaki and Roland printers in about 600-700mm wide.
Best of luck
Stafford
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It’s not that unusual to get a faulty pump, we’ve had a few lately from one of our suppliers. As Julian said though, replace the pump with a syringe temporarily and see if you can pull through from there. Post the results and we can tell you which way to go from there.
Stafford
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Just did a search for Signus on here and spotted a couple of familiar names. Hi to GrantD and Jayne Marsh if you’re still on here…..?
Stafford
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If you’re stuck, I know a very good freelance engineer who will no doubt be able to help you out (that’s not a lame excuse to promote our own services I might add as we don’t work on Roland printers).
I don’t know if I’m allowed to give his details out on a public forum so I guess the best thing to do is email me….?
Stafford
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I have experience of many different 3rd party inks. We supply our own which I will not mention here as I am not trying to sell anything, just help answer your question.
Mimaki OEM SS2 ink is very good (apart from the obvious week magenta). But as a result is very expensive. No manufacturer will match the ink exactly because although, by law, any ink sold MUST detail what chemicals are in it, you only have to declare between x an x % of each part. You’d be very lucky to get any exact match.
There are many manufacturers out there and they are sold mainly in 2 different ways. The cheapest way to do it is to buy refillable cartridges and top them up with the 1 litre bottles that are supplied. The other way is to buy compatible cartridges. I have seen good and bad to be honest but I don’t want to start naming the ones I’ve had bad experience with, that wouldn’t be right. A customer of mine recently was using refillable inks by Inktec and he was very happy. They seemed good too. Another customer of mine is using Nazdar cartridges which he says are better than OEM!!?? Admittedly, they seemed very good but probably not as good as OEM in my opinion.
One thing to be careful of is profiling. These people who claim to have a much better magenta/red are telling the truth, but will your RIP and profiles already be compensating for that weakness? If so, you may end up with very red looking prints and need reprofiling. Which is fine but just be aware that it could happen.
So the 2 best I have seen lately (other than our own of course 😀 ) are Inktec for refillables and Nazdar for compatible carts.
I hope this is of use?
Stafford
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I’ve found this to be a big problem when people have media in a room that gets very cold over night and then put it straight on to the printer. The sudden change from cold to 35c will cause the adhesive to react in some sort of weird way (sorry to be so scientific) and make the media cockle.
Also, as everyone else has said, humidity plays a big part in it too
Best of luck
Stafford
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The pump is not ‘locking off’ when the solution just drains away. Personally, if it’s one of our maintenance printers, we would replace the pump regardless as they are a very inexpensive part and easy enough to fit (just replace it like for like and you’re done) and it’s far better to do that than having to replace a head later on.
Pumps are available from lots of different sources but make sure you get a solvent pump. Some are better quality than others.
Good luck
Stafford
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Hi Marcus. I have very little experience of this particular model but I believe it uses the same head as a Mimaki JV3. I have seen this before on a faulty head where it fires one or both sides of the head constantly. Have you had any maintenance done on the printer recently, IE head cables removed? It could be that the head cable has shorted out and caused and electrical fault on the head itself, burned the flex cable or even blown the channel on the slider board (head board) or worst case main board!!
If you are familiar with the workings of the printer, DISCONNECT THE POWER LEAD and try swapping the cables from one of the other heads. If the fault doesn’t move with the cable, try plugging the same head into a different position on the slider, that way you should be able to eliminate various parts.
Obviously, if you are not experienced at doing this sort of thing, leave it to an expert. And if you do try it yourself, these are only suggestions and you are doing so at your own risk.
Best of luck
Stafford
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Photoshop seems to have been the best way around things for some time now Dave. I would never advise people not to upgrade their Photoshop just because of their RIP, I’m sure there are far more plus points to the upgrade than there are negatives. And there are always ways around these problems, paricularly with the amount of knowledge floating around on the forums.
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Dave. As mentioned here:
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … ht=#381175
Shiraz v6.4 (depending on build number) is in some cases over 3 years old, and can’t be expected to support what is a constantly changing format. Adobe have changed the coding for their PDF format and we are constantly playing catch-up. You are right that the latest version is 100% Adobe and no longer has the JAWS engine running beneath it (a great move as you suggested).
Shiraz Signature now has the Adobe plug-in too (the last release was JAWS only) and is geared up as a standalone alternative to the ‘full-fat’ Shiraz Server version which, as you know, will run multiple printers from a single machine and supports input from multiple clients. Signature is a single user, single output application and is by no means a replacement for the full version. it has been developed by the same team and is a very good piece of software (even if I do say so myself 😀 )
What new machine are you getting and what software is tempting you away from your Shiraz? It might be worth getting a demo copy of the latest version and see if it’s any better than your existing copy? That way you can be sure if ditching Shiraz is the right move
On a much sadder note, I’m very sorry to hear about John Childs.
Stafford
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Hi Dave, I hope you’re well? The London and Kent offices are running quite separately these days but we are still right in there with the whole Shiraz thing.
Unfortunately, you will get the odd ‘quirk’ in Shiraz v6.4 when being faced with more modern file content. After all v6.4 is at best a 2 year old RIP now!! The first release was Jan 2007 and the final was Jan 2008. How time flies, eh!!?? 😀
Stafford
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This sounds like it’s going to be a tricky one to sort. It really is going to be a process of elimination.
First of all, your printer should still be under warranty if it’s only 18 minths old so make sure this fault is flagged to the relevant sources before the warranty runs out.
What RIP are you running? Are you measuring from crop to crop or the image boundaries? If measuring the image boundaries, you may find that the RIP will introduce a small amount of white space to the file, which of course will be magnified when scaling up to nearly 3m.
I have seen media slip on many different printers when using popup materials with the shiney backing and some people use heavy magnets stuck to the front of the printer on both edges of the media (remembering to stay clear of the head travel of course) to keep it running true. That combined with the trick you mentioed earlier from Hybrid by loading the takeup before clamping the media, should stop any wondering. It’s also worth looking at the side of the printed image for any stepping that may be the result of a dirty encoder strip/sensor?
Not much of a fix I’m afraid but could be used as a get around….?
Best of luck
Stafford
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I agree with what’s been said already. Shiraz requires the input in 1 of 5 filetypes. EPS, PS, JPG, PDF & TIFF (although AI and PLT’s work to a slightly lesser extent). My general preference is to use EPS from Photoshop and Illustrator for the best results. JPEG is great for portability but not as good for hi-res output.
Stafford
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Hi guys. I’ve been off the forum for a time and this post definitely makes interesting reading.
Shiraz v6.7, from what I have seen so far, appears to be very good with graduations, blends and transparencies. The way I have been led to believe it is that Adobe have changed the way that their PDF’s are made and have done so with out any warning to RIP vendors. As a result, Shiraz needed to have a plug-in that enables the Adobe language to be understood correctly. Now this, unfortunately, means paying a license to Adobe for every single version of Shiraz. Quite costly for Shiraz? You bet it is.
V6.7 has the Adobe engine as standard and as a result is slightly more expensive than v6.6. But is does appear to work very well. Anybody in their right mind would want to see it working before committing to the upgrade price so the best thing to do is to contact the vendor and arrange for a free demo version of v6.7 to be sent out. Once you see for yourself that it works, make your own decision on what RIP to use from there.
I hope this is of use.
Stafford