Xerox D125 Alignment

[jpfulton248]

We own a D125. Not on lease. Purchased used from the Xerox reseller (now I think just part of Xerox actually). We also have a service maintenance agreement with them. Pretty much everything we print is identical. 11x17, 20# bond, duplexed. We pull from one of the two trays on our oversized high capacity feeder. For the first couple years the alignment issue went unnoticed or didn't exist. Once we mothballed our offset press and started needing to do more auto-tray switching between the two oversized trays (more sheets per job since no more offset) the alignment issues became very noticeable. First we simply focused on trying to get the two trays to match one another, then it became clear that a single sheet printed out of any tray on the machine could not be set to align properly. The primary issue is skew and the D125 has no adjustment for skew whatsoever... just perpendicularity, magnification, and movements on the x and y axes. We've had their "best tech" work on this many times, their production analyst, our normal tech, their "even better tech". For months we just gave up on auto tray switching and pulled purely out of one tray. The issue actually isn't even bounce. The alignment is pretty consistent from sheet to sheet. The issue is that if you try to print a vertical line down an 11x17 sheet of paper, on one side it is centered and parallel with the paper path, on the other side it is diagonal. They have replaced a LOT already. Again, 14 months now. It has been escalated to Xerox engineering now but meanwhile the service manager is using every excuse imaginable for why we shouldn't expect it to be able to print a single sheet of paper properly. Custom expectations document states that from to back registration should by +/- 1mm. It doesn't specify where that should be measured, what size paper or what paper weight. Any tips?

 

[kslight]

I had two Xerox j75s which I believe are roughly the same family of machine, just the color printer version. Alignment was never its strength, the same battles you are having (trying to get the machines in spec with the techs and engineering)…still I could make a strong case when one machine was performing worse than the other.

The engineers ended up replacing parts of the scanner used to measure the skew, which didn’t fix it…but eventually a tech found some feeder portion of the high capacity trays was either bent or not installed correctly. Fixing that made it “within spec” (on a good day, the alignment even when in spec was still barely passable for some projects).

I normally only used the main high cap tray because as you’ve noticed, all of the trays are unpredictable for alignment…choosing one tray at least narrows it down.

I’m guessing the ~1mm per side spec the CED has is on an 8.5x11 sheet, 11x17 is probably going to be double that (at least that’s what Xerox always argued to me).

I’m assuming your machine has the same alignment utility the J75 had, I can’t remember what it was called but you print a sheet and scan each corner individually?

Based on what you are describing and my own experiences, I would look at the feeding as the culprit.

 

[TJPrinter]

Having no adjustment for skew seems odd. I don’t have a D125 so I can’t look at the console for custom paper settings but skew is mentioned in the Administrators Guide. So when you setup a custom paper setting for your 11x17 20# you should also be creating a custom alignment for each tray (tray 6 and tray 7) and you have no skew adjustment?

I had a registration issue on my Versant 280 that could apply to your D125 since they both use the same high capacity feeders but the whole no skew adjustment doesn’t seem correct. This may be a long shot but worth a try. My tech had no idea that this adjustment existed.

Copied from my post about the issue I was having.
Stumbled on a setting under maintenance on last page “Register Paper Feeding Positions”. I found very little information about this but it certainly sounded like something that may help. After loading 11x17 24lb stock in trays 5-7 and running the sequence for each tray the registration is spot on for all stock sizes. I did have to go through alignment again for my custom paper types but that’s not a big deal to resolve the issue.

When “Register Paper Feeding Positions” is run for trays 6 & 7 it will run the sequence 2 times for each tray. Each time it runs the trays will move in and out of position. My guess would be that the location of the positioning is registered somewhere to indicate a more precise location of where the paper is positioned.

 

[gregbatch]

Getting trays to mechanically align with each other requires a super service technician and the alignment of certain planets. IF you are using a Fiery, the Tray Alignment feature (Set up under Server > Align Tray) deals with the skew issue. HOWEVER, it is tray specific. So, if you turn on "tray alignment" in the media settings, you can't autoswitch. It is also sheet size specific and you adjust for simplex or duplex. I'm sure you know that running an alignment sheet and running a job with heavy coverage down one side of a page are not the same. You will learn to tweak the numbers to counter the skew of the sheet you are running. The tray alignment actually changes the rasterized image, so any time you change the settings you will need to remove the current raster image before checking the alignment again. I have countered heavy skew successfully. Caused mostly by the horrible paper we have been getting for the last year. The D125 is a workhorse, but it is expecting good paper. It doesn't have the sophisticated registration system of modern color machines and relies on even roller pressure, which relies on even paper. I am assuming when you refer to printing a line on one side and the other side you are referring to front and back, not left and right.

 

[jpfulton248]

Getting trays to mechanically align with each other requires a super service technician and the alignment of certain planets. IF you are using a Fiery, the Tray Alignment feature (Set up under Server > Align Tray) deals with the skew issue. HOWEVER, it is tray specific. So, if you turn on "tray alignment" in the media settings, you can't autoswitch. It is also sheet size specific and you adjust for simplex or duplex. I'm sure you know that running an alignment sheet and running a job with heavy coverage down one side of a page are not the same. You will learn to tweak the numbers to counter the skew of the sheet you are running. The tray alignment actually changes the rasterized image, so any time you change the settings you will need to remove the current raster image before checking the alignment again. I have countered heavy skew successfully. Caused mostly by the horrible paper we have been getting for the last year. The D125 is a workhorse, but it is expecting good paper. It doesn't have the sophisticated registration system of modern color machines and relies on even roller pressure, which relies on even paper. I am assuming when you refer to printing a line on one side and the other side you are referring to front and back, not left and right.

View attachment 291753View attachment 291754View attachment 291755View attachment 291756

Yeah, currently we are using Fiery Tray alignment to deal with the registration issues but, as you note, this restricts us to only feeding from a single tray. I definitely was unaware that the raster needs to be removed before printing again. I sure with our techs knew a single thing about this stuff.

 

[jpfulton248]

Having no adjustment for skew seems odd. I don’t have a D125 so I can’t look at the console for custom paper settings but skew is mentioned in the Administrators Guide. So when you setup a custom paper setting for your 11x17 20# you should also be creating a custom alignment for each tray (tray 6 and tray 7) and you have no skew adjustment?

I had a registration issue on my Versant 280 that could apply to your D125 since they both use the same high capacity feeders but the whole no skew adjustment doesn’t seem correct. This may be a long shot but worth a try. My tech had no idea that this adjustment existed.

Copied from my post about the issue I was having.
Stumbled on a setting under maintenance on last page “Register Paper Feeding Positions”. I found very little information about this but it certainly sounded like something that may help. After loading 11x17 24lb stock in trays 5-7 and running the sequence for each tray the registration is spot on for all stock sizes. I did have to go through alignment again for my custom paper types but that’s not a big deal to resolve the issue.

When “Register Paper Feeding Positions” is run for trays 6 & 7 it will run the sequence 2 times for each tray. Each time it runs the trays will move in and out of position. My guess would be that the location of the positioning is registered somewhere to indicate a more precise location of where the paper is positioned.

Unfortunately the D125 is much less sophisticated than the color machines. With our J75 we can adjust skew, perpendicularity, transfer voltage, etc etc for custom paper types. The D125 only allows for changing settings on the trays themselves and the only options are x shift, y shift, magnification and perpendicularity. The techs have told me that even in their lower level adjustments there is no skew adjust. I will look for "Register Paper Feeding Positions" but sadly I suspect it will be absent.

 

[gregbatch]

Yeah, currently we are using Fiery Tray alignment to deal with the registration issues but, as you note, this restricts us to only feeding from a single tray. I definitely was unaware that the raster needs to be removed before printing again. I sure with our techs knew a single thing about this stuff.

If you happen to do an XY adjustment in finishing it will force the job to create a new raster, otherwise the job doesn't know anything has changed and will keep the old out-of-position raster.

 

[Milo Wilson]

There are baseline registration adjustments that should be done in diagnostics

 

[TJPrinter]

Unfortunately the D125 is much less sophisticated than the color machines. With our J75 we can adjust skew, perpendicularity, transfer voltage, etc etc for custom paper types. The D125 only allows for changing settings on the trays themselves and the only options are x shift, y shift, magnification and perpendicularity. The techs have told me that even in their lower level adjustments there is no skew adjust. I will look for "Register Paper Feeding Positions" but sadly I suspect it will be absent.

I looked again and you’re absolutely correct. What Xerox calls skew for the D125 is the perpendicular adjustment. But this is confusing because they refer to skew again when referencing the skew levers. Doubt those will fix your issue though.

When you say all trays, do you mean that you get the same results from trays 3 & 4 when you duplex a 11x17 job (line down page not parallel)? If it’s good for tray 3 & 4 then have the tech look for the tray alignment feature in service mode if it’s not available for you in adim mode.

 

[jpfulton248]

I looked again and you’re absolutely correct. What Xerox calls skew for the D125 is the perpendicular adjustment. But this is confusing because they refer to skew again when referencing the skew levers. Doubt those will fix your issue though.

When you say all trays, do you mean that you get the same results from trays 3 & 4 when you duplex a 11x17 job (line down page not parallel)? If it’s good for tray 3 & 4 then have the tech look for the tray alignment feature in service mode if it’s not available for you in adim mode.

Yep, same result on all trays. Techs have already run the service mode alignment procedure many many times. I believe they did a full nvm reset at some point too. Still the same result.

I got a call from the service manager last week. He said that according to the engineer at xerox who finally was brought in the loop, the samples he has seen from us are all within spec. The day before, a service tech came out and said “it’s still not within spec.” The service manager also told me that maybe there has always been a problem with the printer. We bought it used from the company he works for. They are an authorized reseller and the machine should have been refurbished to whatever extent necessary and certified for service. Also, if it’s within spec then why mention it might have had a problem since it was sold to us? I pointed out that his company sold it to us. He said “I wasn’t part of that sale.” My jaw dropped. Conversation continued into absurdity. I’m not done with them but definitely seems that further escalation is needed.

 

[gregbatch]

Which side is skewed? Trying to establish if it's skewing on first pass or coming out of the duplex.

 

[jpfulton248]

Which side is skewed? Trying to establish if it's skewing on first pass or coming out of the duplex.

Side 2 every time. Zoom in on this. Same image is printed on both sides. Side 1 is the one facing up. You can see through to the 2nd side. Since this is being auto-duplexed, lead edge of side 1 aligns (attempts to align) to tail edge of side 2.

Oh, also, this is 11x17 paper so for the purposes of registration adjustments that axes are counterintuitive. X-axis runs vertically, Y-axis horizontally. Once we figured out lead edge and axes we've had no problem making adjustments to everything except skew. In this picture you'll notice vertical alignment is a bit off but that can be dialed in fairly easily. Looks like it actually needs a little x-axis de-magnification based on the registration of the horizontal lines at the top and the horizontal lines mid-way down the page.

One other note about the sysadmin level adjustments, on the D125 it is all done on 8.5x11 long-edge feed so the type of issue we are having will appear to be much less extreme. That's one of the disagreements we are having about what is within spec and what isn't. I'm going by the customer expectations document which refers to registration but doesn't specify paper size or orientation. They are going off of some alleged document available to system techs.

 

[kslight]

Side 2 every time. Zoom in on this. Same image is printed on both sides. Side 1 is the one facing up. You can see through to the 2nd side. Since this is being auto-duplexed, lead edge of side 1 aligns (attempts to align) to tail edge of side 2.

Oh, also, this is 11x17 paper so for the purposes of registration adjustments that axes are counterintuitive. X-axis runs vertically, Y-axis horizontally. Once we figured out lead edge and axes we've had no problem making adjustments to everything except skew. In this picture you'll notice vertical alignment is a bit off but that can be dialed in fairly easily. Looks like it actually needs a little x-axis de-magnification based on the registration of the horizontal lines at the top and the horizontal lines mid-way down the page.

One other note about the sysadmin level adjustments, on the D125 it is all done on 8.5x11 long-edge feed so the type of issue we are having will appear to be much less extreme. That's one of the disagreements we are having about what is within spec and what isn't. I'm going by the customer expectations document which refers to registration but doesn't specify paper size or orientation. They are going off of some alleged document available to system techs.

View attachment 291795

Is that as bad as it gets? I agree it isn’t great but at least compared to the j75s I fought with, I can see how this fits in spec. My recollection of Xerox’s registration spec is that it is all based on letter size, and 11x17 spec is double the printed spec. How noticeable is this when finished? At my old job we printed BW books all day and our old Xerox 6180s were certainly much worse than this on a good day. What does it measure as?

Can you fudge the alignment numbers to overcompensate and get it less skewed?

 

[jpfulton248]

Is that as bad as it gets? I agree it isn’t great but at least compared to the j75s I fought with, I can see how this fits in spec. My recollection of Xerox’s registration spec is that it is all based on letter size, and 11x17 spec is double the printed spec. How noticeable is this when finished? At my old job we printed BW books all day and our old Xerox 6180s were certainly much worse than this on a good day. What does it measure as?

Can you fudge the alignment numbers to overcompensate and get it less skewed?

I've been using Fiery Tray Alignment to get it to look that good but as you can see it still doesn't fully fix the problem. Since the ultimate goal of all of this is to be able to auto-switch between two trays, Fiery Tray Alignment isn't going to be an option and one of my big concerns is that if I don't have a good starting point on one of the two trays, getting them to come anywhere close to matching will be extra difficult. I think I have reasonable expectations. I know this machine is meant for speed and not quality. For me, if they can show me that the customer expecations document shows that our current registration is within spec, I'll have to just drop it.

Oh, but yes, I do think I could move it over the split the difference kind of. With that said, at some point along the way the horizontal shift was maxed out on one side. After they did another sysadmin level registration initialization, the tech got it back to having a little room to shift both directions.

And why am I so picky about it? The only thing we print is 5.5x8.5 booklets. We finish offline on a collator/booklet maker. The artwork has left and right margins of .375" and we take a face trim of about .125" so poor registration can become pretty noticeable. Again, I have reasonable expectations. I don't need perfection, just a good starting point and then it can bounce within spec from there.