Wide Format Acuity HD Advanced Banding

Gregg Lazoff

New member
We installed a Acuity Advanced machine in May.. Has anyone experienced banding issues with this device?...We hired a very experienced person to manage this machine and have had great results except for the banding which appears off and on for no reason.We seem to have run into a Fuji fix our problem issue....

Thanks
 
We have an acuity and love it. Fuji support not so much. We periodically run into banding and it has always been one of three issues (Assuming your nozzle checks look good and you haven't had a crash of some sort).

1. Media. Believe it or not sometimes the media itself causes the bands, especially cheap PVC. Print the same file on something simple like poster paper to rule this out.

2. A print head has been dislodged. It's remarkably easy to push a print head up a little when cleaning nozzles or if you hit something with the print head. They're only anchored on one side which seems crazy to me. Take the cover off the print head and push gently but firmly at the base of the print heads with something non-conductive. This is a pretty delicate operation in a rather tight space. It's really easy to do damage to the print heads. We've have to do it every 3-6 months for whatever reason.

3. UV lamps are old. As the lamps age, they cure inconsistently. More frustrating is that the banding isn't present in all prints or on all media. Fuji was REALLY bad at diagnosing this problem the first time it occurred here. It took a week of hair pulling and a third tech interview before they came up with it. With the relative paltry experience we now have it seems painfully obvious. At any rate, this can begin to occur as early as 500 hours.
 
Thanks for the information.... I've had two different Fuji techs out here
working on the problem... Maybe the third will be the charm..


We have an acuity and love it. Fuji support not so much. We periodically run into banding and it has always been one of three issues (Assuming your nozzle checks look good and you haven't had a crash of some sort).

1. Media. Believe it or not sometimes the media itself causes the bands, especially cheap PVC. Print the same file on something simple like poster paper to rule this out.

2. A print head has been dislodged. It's remarkably easy to push a print head up a little when cleaning nozzles or if you hit something with the print head. They're only anchored on one side which seems crazy to me. Take the cover off the print head and push gently but firmly at the base of the print heads with something non-conductive. This is a pretty delicate operation in a rather tight space. It's really easy to do damage to the print heads. We've have to do it every 3-6 months for whatever reason.

3. UV lamps are old. As the lamps age, they cure inconsistently. More frustrating is that the banding isn't present in all prints or on all media. Fuji was REALLY bad at diagnosing this problem the first time it occurred here. It took a week of hair pulling and a third tech interview before they came up with it. With the relative paltry experience we now have it seems painfully obvious. At any rate, this can begin to occur as early as 500 hours.
 
Hi Gregg,

agree with kansasquaker, and here is one suggestion more from me - check everything related to lamps, especially the glass under the lamps - must be perfectly clean.

All the best
Kamil
 
Just last week I noticed banding on a plastic substrate, but the twist is the banding didn't occur where I had wiped the material with a cleaner. I wiped some junk off, then buffed the area with a microfiber cloth, and when I hit it with a print, the banding stopped on the cleaned area. Kansaquaker has great suggestions.
 
It's also good to mention that these machines will always have "gloss banding". You can't get rid of that. I assume you know this already, but then again, I hate to assume anything in this industry.
I have the Oce which is basically the same machine and the only time i get banding is if my lamp settings are incorrect, or I have deflected nozzles (very rare since I clean my heads at least twice a day).
 
It's also good to mention that these machines will always have "gloss banding". You can't get rid of that. I assume you know this already, but then again, I hate to assume anything in this industry.
I have the Oce which is basically the same machine and the only time i get banding is if my lamp settings are incorrect, or I have deflected nozzles (very rare since I clean my heads at least twice a day).
 

PressWise

A 30-day Fix for Managed Chaos

As any print professional knows, printing can be managed chaos. Software that solves multiple problems and provides measurable and monetizable value has a direct impact on the bottom-line.

“We reduced order entry costs by about 40%.” Significant savings in a shop that turns about 500 jobs a month.


Learn how…….

   
Back
Top