Ilumina heavy stock registration

[andy1]

Hi guys,

I've been a digital printer for around 4yrs (inkjet) and have just moved on to getting a Xante Ilumina, I'm going to try and work out as much as possible myself but if anyone has had the following issue, could you lend a hand please?

I've just bought a 2nd hand Ilumina that’s done over 500,000 prints. I got a great deal on it so am quite happy to improvise around a few issues, but something I can't seem to figure out - and that a lot of people seem to have issues with - is colour registration on heavy stocks. If anyone has an Ilumina can I ask for some help please?

I've tried running ColorCopy (regular) 350gsm, SRA3 through it for business cards (25-up) and the first 3 rows of cards are perfect, however the 4th and 5th get gradually worse on the coloured sections until they end up around 1mm misaligned. The alignment issue is vertical, that is if you were to hold the SRA3 sheet portrait the colour is misaligned vertically; horizontal registration is 100%.

I've tried ColorCopy Glossy 135gsm A4 and it prints well enough so far (on a very fine font 'Swiss 721' it's easy to see a misalignment of around 250microns...but certainly very acceptable). Other A4 prints on Navigator 120gsm and ColorCopy 350gsm A4 seem to come out well too. It would seem obvious that running A4 10-up would be a solution for business cards, but lots of customers will be asking for heavy stock A3 and registration is very important.

If anyone has had this issue and solved it I'd be greatful for some advice, or if anyone can suggest a good 350gsm card, and a good glossy flyer paper for this printer I would really appreciate it. I'm in the UK so a European or UK paper would be of great help.

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Andrew C

P.S. As I get to grips with the printer I'll contribute with help wherever I can.

 

[Keith]

Welcome to the forum Andy! I just celebrated 4 years in business last month and I opened my shop with an Ilumina. My Ilumina and I have a lot of memories together- good and bad. There's a lot I can tell you, but I've never had any color (I mean, colour. Ha! Ha!) registration issue. Except for the time I tried to print on .030 caliber magnet material (the stuff you use for vehicle magenets) and it went through the printer but the colors were out of alignment. Have you tried a registration adjustment in the machines display panel. I'm going off memory here, but I think you click menu (the up arrow) then scroll down to calibration and it may be the second one on the list called adj. registration.

Feel free to contact me through this forum. I'd be happy to call or email and talk about the Ilumina.

Keith

 

[andy1]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for such a fast reply!

At the moment I've got the printer sort of 'in storage' until a proper office is setup, and I ran a job off as a trial and got the dodgy results. The day after that, I was playing with the settings and I did run a "colour calibration" but haven't tried heavy stocks since. My thoughts were as the registration issue was vertical it was a transfer belt or general wear issue, rather than calibration, but I'll certainly give it a go if it isn't a common problem.

Can I ask how many clicks your printer did please? I know the belt, fuser, drums and toner are replaced but naturally some pulleys, bearings and mechanics are not and they will have a limited lifespan. 500k is extreme for a laser printer as far as I am aware, I'm concerned about the LED heads giving up but they're not showing any sign of quality drop.

Another quick question...the black drum is at 0% at the moment, and toner is at 10%. The printer isn't stopping me from printing but the black output has a marble effect on larger blocks of print. I've heard from various sources that image drums can often be chipped to run 2 cycles at 42,000 prints, so as it’s only just reached 0% I can’t see it instantly having poor results. Do you know if the "marble" affect occurs when toner is low, or could it be the drum? I'm naturally replacing both soon anyway but just curious for future reference.

Thanks again for your help,

Andy C

P.S. If you have time to email me, my email is acsweeney1988 at gmail dot com.

 

[Keith]

It has about 250,000 on it (I'm not at my shop right now, so it's not exact). I still have it, though, it has been relegated to envelope duty since I got a Xerox last July.

Toner at 10% and the solids are looking streaky? It's starving for toner. It'll still print with the drum life at 10% (you can change that setting in the menu so it will stop when consumables near end of life) but when you pop in a new drum, you'll see a big improvement in quality (the degradation in quality is hard to see over time).

I've heard about replacing chips in the toner cartridges but not in the drums. Running anything other than 20lb bond will shorten the life of the drums as well as every revolution the drum makes.

I'll email you tomorrow!

 

[John Green]

Having trouble feeding envelopes on Xante IIumina Digital Envelope press.
will not run 4 or 5 before the jam light come on. Brand new press.
Have tried everthing.
Thanks,
John Green

 

[John Green]

Having trouble feeding envelopes on Xante IIumina Digital Envelope press.
will not run 4 or 5 before the jam light come on. Brand new press.
Have tried everthing.
Thanks,
John Green

 

[Keith]

I've had the same problem with my Ilumina. It seems to come and go. It "jams" without any paper actually jamming up in the machine? It's been awhile since I had that problem but I believe it's a sensor timing issue. Envelopes aren't very square and they may be getting hung up on the side feed guides. Try spreading them apart so they are barely touching the envelopes. Also, try rebooting.

Again, it's been awhile and I'm not sure if that will fix it.

Keith

 

[andy1]

Hey,

I didn't want to make a new thread so as this is similar to registration issue I'll ask again here if anyone can lend a hand?

I'm getting some marks on my printouts that are making prints unsellable. They correspond to the colours in use (i.e. on a red print the marks are magenta and yellow) and are 5mm x 1mm in size, they are positioned exactly the same on every page but only appear to show on 60-70% of printed sheets, a select few have no marks at all. The drums all have over 35% life left on them although they are showing signs of heavy use (slightly streaky on light block colour), but the marks are 100% toner (pure cyan, magenta, etc...).

I really am stuck on this one, I tried the PCL6 and PS driver, cleaning the LED heads and this has happened over several weeks and several restarts of machine and computer. One exception was a job I did recently of 288 A4 pages, the coverage was moderate at 30% each sheet and full CMYK was in use, but no marks appeared.

I'd appreciate any help that can be provided, I can't really run at 30% output.

Thanks again,
Andy C

P.S. I'm still asking for help but things should be up and running after this, and I can put back into the forum once I get to grips .

 

[Keith]

Hey Andy! Try taking a look at the drum. Pull one out, flip it upside down and move the cover out of the way. See if there is anything physically on the drum. It doesn't sound like you're describing a hickey but that is the first place I look if there are spots appearing in the same spot. It could also be drum failure. Remember, the drum life percentage is only an estimate. 30% - 40% is where I usually have to replace my drums because of all the heavy stock I run on my Ilumina. Remember, they're photosensitive, so don't have those drums exposed to light for more than a couple minutes.

 

[andy1]

Hi Keith,

Thanks, I'll give it a go next time I have a job to run off. The fact it's happening on all CMYK only when they're in use would appear, if it is physical damage that something has been fed through by the past owner that's damaged it in a specific place. I've got a full set of replacement drums anyway so I'll give that a shot failing the removal and clean.

Thanks,
Andrew