Versant 280 colour consistency

[NorwoodPress]

I’ve noticed on all stocks, that printing the same jobs or a long run job the colours vary and it seems that on the left side of the sheet prints slightly darker to the right side. Also sometimes where the 3mm bleed I have it prints a different colour compared to the main artwork. Anyone know what causes this?

 

[SoggyWinter]

same issue with a V3100. Never got resolved.

 

[NorwoodPress]

same issue with a V3100. Never got resolved.

Do you think the 4100 will have that issue as well then?

 

[SoggyWinter]

Do you think the 4100 will have that issue as well then?

Probably. The 3100 and 4100 are almost identical.

 

[DYP]

I’ve noticed on all stocks, that printing the same jobs or a long run job the colours vary and it seems that on the left side of the sheet prints slightly darker to the right side. Also sometimes where the 3mm bleed I have it prints a different colour compared to the main artwork. Anyone know what causes this?

Have you ran the uniform density routine? The 3100 and 4100 have the full width array to do that while the 280 use the scanner.

 

[azehnali]

clean the ros before you do full width

 

[azehnali]

also if you have developer issues then the adjustment cant really help

 

[NorwoodPress]

Probably. The 3100 and 4100 are almost identical.

So I guess it wouldn’t be worth upgrading from 280 to 4100 then?

 

[pippip]

I’ve noticed on all stocks, that printing the same jobs or a long run job the colours vary and it seems that on the left side of the sheet prints slightly darker to the right side. Also sometimes where the 3mm bleed I have it prints a different colour compared to the main artwork. Anyone know what causes this?

On occasion I do get colour shift on long runs too, I find it happens more when a drum is below 50% but i'm only guessing on this as so many issues can cause it from machine to environmental.

We had our V280 installed last Jan and we too have the colour lighter on the non-operator side, when I run the Density Uniformity Adj it just seems to move it around rather than eliminate it but I have managed to get it to a point where it's fine after running it a few times. I keep meaning to get them back to properly address this problem but I've just been too busy. - BTW if anyone has instructions on how to manually run this Adj rather than the auto method I'd like a copy as it seems to be a Xerox secret with nothing online. I did find a pdf that explained the patterns used to adjust but nothing on how these relate to what's onscreen for adjusting.

The bleed issue I'd guess might be a CYMK v RGB issue. I find just using the eyedropper in inDesign can cause this. If i'm given a pdf I generally have to run a preflight and then manually get the cymk values into inDesign for the bleed and it doesn't happen.

 

[EdwardB]

Generally on our V4100 we rarely have those IQ problems. If we are having color variations like that, most of the time it is at a "wear mark" location. Where an image or a sheet of a particular size is constantly in use, vs an area not in use.

Assuming the color variation isn't file caused (eyedropper-colored bleeds are a common problem), some machine checks we go through:

• Paper typically cuts physical lines into fuser belts, pressure rollers, and IBT/2nd BTR (not so much for some reason).
  • depending on the severity you may need to replace these components
• Toner has a lubricating effect on drums, so the area getting toner applied will often show less wear than non-toner applied areas.
  • do your drums look like glass, or like a vinyl record?
  • do you know how to check the life on your Dev housings?

Common "wear mark" areas you are going to see are after long runs of SEF 8.5/A4, then LEF A4/11/SEF A3, and finally 12" (not sure of the equiv 'A' size?). Each affecting the next size up, 12" affecting the max size of 13". We rarely ever print larger than 12" wide, so we nearly always have IQ troubles printing 13" wide.

Generally speaking most of the image quality issues we look at drum wear, fuser wear, replace if necessary. Clean ROS windows. We've had bad 2nd BTRs and Cleaners, we'll toss a new one in as a troubleshooting measure. Lastly... it could be related to either a bad IBT belt or IBT backup rolls... sadly I am not qualified to properly diagnose/replace those, BUT backup rolls have been cause for issues you are describing.