z6100ps banding big time

[jonkovach]

I have never seen unidirectional printing solve any kid of banding. There are two different types of horizontal banding I am thinking of here.

One, if it is a blue background - it can alternate between blue and purple type colors.

Two, you can get actual light lights. This is NOT a printhead problem - I've been down that path countless times. I don't know what the solution is, but I know it is not printheads. Anyone who tells me otherwise, I will pay for their trip to my shop if they can solve it.

[andyplowman]

We supply Original HP inks for the Z6100 at £135. You can contact me on a.plowman@sourcemedia.co.uk if this is a saving to you.

[Eyal Gragir]

well the single direction was just a test to do. if you did it and there was no change I must refer you back to media. If media advances differently along carriage travel you will get this banding. So try a better media that is well attached to the rolls of the machine and does not slip during media advance. You should also verify that dot gain is sufficient. This is how much area a single dot covers. You need a larger dot gain . Two alternatives: 1. change media, 2.change ink. The more coverage you get from a dot the better you are in hiding media position artifacts. Hence less color banding!
EG

[Yttrium]

Perhaps your banding issues are solved by now but here are a few more ideas.
We bought a Z6100 a few months ago and it is now up to full production. I've also had some problems with banding and have also found a few solutions.

1. Print the "print diagnostic image"-image. This will tell you if there are any faulty printheads. Clean the faulty printheads or simply change them to new ones if they remain faulty after cleaning. Cleaning is easily done with the cleaning kit provided with the machine.

2. Check the maintenance cartridge. This gets very dirty quite quickly. I've changed the cartridge with the status reading as little as 50%. This can solve the banding issue in itself.

3. The printer seems quite sensitive to what media is being used. I've found that the built in media profiles sometimes aren't suitable for non-HP medias. Our service technician recommends making profiles from scratch for problem medias. I've had big problems with e.g. 120 gr. matte coated paper. Personally I think the printer is more suited to "thicker" media qualities. 140 gr. paper and thicker works just fine. Also canvas and glossy paper qualities seem to work with less problems.

As for the PMS-issue I would (as has been mentioned earlier in this thread) strongly recommend getting a rip of some sort (we use Caldera). A rip would sort this issue out more or less automatically. Sure, a rip can be a big investment (though quite small compared to what the Z6100 costs) but if you run a lot of PMS-jobs it would definitely be worth it.

I hope this was to some help!