I found out yesterday while printing on GF Photo paper that Seiko recommends NOT using the tension bars on the feed side of the 100S. I was getting some bizarre overprinting on the paper and was trying to adjust on the fly both forward and backward with no improvement in print quality. After removing the tension bar and just keeping slack in the material the machine printed awesome on the GF Photo paper using the Oce paper profile.
They want you to use the tension bars to keep a loop in the media from the feed side. The 100S has a totally different setup than the 64S. It takes a little getting used to, but works well. The problem that I had was that I had banding or overprinting with the tension bar in the feed side of the machine, when I removed the bar it printed perfect. Called Seiko and they said dont use the bars.
Well, the tension bar on the winding side in the 64s seems to work well, although 90% of the time we're in slack winding mode.
I haven't seen the 100s yet - does it really handle the heavier media rolls like they advertise it? I mean with the 64s you have those two funny screws or whatever that you just put in the roll and squeeze tight. Do you have a real metal bar in the 100s? Or maybe you could post some photos of that? :) That would be awesome, i'll message you soon with an email address :)
The 100S has a pretty serious media handling system! The actual tube is 2" thick and has a gear driven manual tensioner on one side, then a wedge-like cone for the other end of the core and then a clamp that tightens up against the cone. Takes a little longer to setup than the 64, but a much more robust commercial type setup. I can take pictures and send then to you if you like, just let me know where to send them to. I love my machine, still alittle bummed about the 2-up printing thing not a working option yet but Seiko promised it will be available real soon!
i've finally seen this unit and that media handling side is very impressive. it can take rolls upto 110kgs!! the unit i saw did have some banding issues running on any type of glossy medias. has anybody else seen or heard of this? when the bar was removed the quality improved but the banding became inconsistant, light then dark lines???
The banding is inconsistent with the bar in place because in the resting position there is NO weight or drag on the media being printed, as the media is drawn into the printer the bar starts to rise until the electronic eye tells the media handling system to feed more media and that is when the banding changes again either becoming wider or narrow bands! I figured this out by watching the darn printer for about 30 minutes:) I have'nt really had any real issues printing on 3M IJ-180C-10 and Oracals 3651 Glossy calendered vinyl. My settings are set to 100.25 and that seems to work nice for the most part.
while discussing the bar issue, let me know something about the printing speed. I mean, the new 540 mode is supposed to run 20 sqm/h which is actually what i would think the 720 mode would print on 250cm. So... is the carriage movement slower on the 100s vs the 64s?
I'm really not a fan of Avery, they seem to be very inconsistent and I am not comfortable using their products at this time. I have used 3M IJ 180C-10,Oracal 3651 Gloss, Oracal 3951 Cast, Ultraflex Banner, Intellicoat GFPHOTO SIJ paper, Clearfocus Window Perf, and experimenting with some other stuff daily. I really dont have any serious banding issues, but I know of another dealer who is having issues and waiting for a Seiko tech to diagnose their problem. When I find out what was wrong with theirs I will report back with an udpdate:)
I also have the 100s- just got installed last week- I tried running it without the tension bar on the feed side and would get a paper error. It would start to run, then the eye wouldn't see the slack any longer. Any tricks to getting it to work properyly. I've played with the feed adjust A LOT and still have some banding issues. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks! Michael
you still need to use the tension bars, but in a different way. don't use them to weight the media loop, but instead use a small section of one and position this in the middle of the slack media loop so you have some weight but not much. this seems to work realy well. i still have a few doubts over the sensor not seeing the media end but at least i'm getting consistant quality accross all substrates now.
Thanks F1 fan! Right not I'm using a cardboard core in there and finally got good results on my recent feed tests- much much better than before. I'm wondering if I should try your solution- sounds a bit more refined...
i started with the cardboard cores, but they don't offer the amount of weight needed especially to get the larger banner media off the core. it tends to stick to the core by the static and also the weight of itself during transport. the system i've ben using works really well, and my main point is that it's always consistant. at this point consistantly good i might add. let me know how you get on..
When you use just a section of the Seiko bar your not experiencing any banding? It definately makes sense what your saying about the banner material getting stuck on the core, i actually print very little banner but a boat load of 3M IJ-180C! On Friday I have to start a nice size job all on different types of banner material 33 to be exact! almost 10,000 sq.ft. and I would like to try your technique.
it wasn't just the bar that made the difference. we've honed our unit to perfection over the last couple of weeks, but the bar definately helped the inconsistant banding issues. the only problem i have on the banner is really dependant on the level of static involved coming off the core. you can easily see if this is going to be a problem by the sound it makes. normally the louder the "peeling" sound the more weight you'll need. otherwise you should be ok with the bar system. the way round this is a bit rough and ready. i tend to load a certain amount of the banner material rolled up, and keep gently adding this roll until it's just enough to peel the media off and still not cause banding. bit of trial and error but it works until seiko can sort out a better method.
I will give it a try tomorrow! Nige what are you doing about drying your prints? I purchased the Seiko 100s dryer without ever even seeing it! It will be delivered in a week or so.
We have built custom dryers for both Seiko and Oce. Simple welded metal frame, three sections of panel heaters and one or two sections of computer case 120mm or 80mm fans. Can you say "cheeeeeeeeeap"? :)
Sure it would be better with IR lamps, but more expensive.
yet to crose that bridge. haven't really felt the need as we've only just started to really run serious widths. we've got a couple of fans and also we're using or 64s dryer, haha cheapskates maybe but seems to work well.
i'll be interested what you think of the dryer as i've got the info to. seems less substantial than the 64s dryer, but offers a more focused jet of air onto the substrate.
I have a 54" Black Body Heater that is really worthless! I think I might bring it home to put in my bathroom to heat the cold tile floor in the morning :) It really does'nt do anything, so I'm going to sell it and put the money towards the big dryer. I cant print roll to roll because the prints are really tacky when they come off the machine. I'll let you guys know how it works out.
the only actual problem with tackiness of undried prints from seiko was with banner which was printed in 360 mode. but we use 53-51-55 temperatures for banner, which is ok in 4 pass, too high in 8pass, but too little in 2 pass. so for this we did need to create this kind of heater, which, btw, we have done also for any other machine that we have, bar Encad 1000i, which has really sufficient heating+evaporating system.
and please bear in mind that the temperatures in 64s and 100s should be a bit different, because with wider media being printed, the time of one pass is longer, therefore the heaters have more time to heat the media through.
now, i must say that the most impressive heating/drying system is the one i saw in case of Scitex Vision's XLjets... over 30kW of power for the 5meter long, over 50cm wide panel of IR lights... but when you print 124 sqm/h you need it :)
I've replaced a few heads and the last tech that was at my shop told me not to exceed 40 on the middle dryer! Now I know your saying that's B.S but I did notice I would loose nozzles with higher heat. I print on 3M IJ-180C-10 and it is always tacky when it comes off the printer, I cant even think of printing roll to roll at this point! So I'm kinda up against the wall, I have to be able to print roll to roll or unattended for large banner runs.
hehe... well - in my case whenever i go too low, i lose nozzles :) so it's kind of... to find the golden mean thing, right? :) but as i said before - this really depends on the thickness of the material and the number of passes. my serviceman has over 20 seikos under his supervision and so far most of them work this way and there are no problems with heads whatsoever. i can run a whole roll of vinyl (50 metres) and not even look at the machine.
i think that after elimination of the influence of ambient temperature and humidity, air flow towards the machine, proper cleaning and using the color stripe all the time with no exceptions i have reduced all the possibilities of clogging nozzles while printing.
I may try to go the other way with the heat like you suggest because I'm still loosing nozzles(they do recover most of the time) at the lower heat! And I'm under warranty so if the temperature on the machine lets me go up, then they have to cover me! I'll let you know how I make out with the temperature increase.
yesterday i had a situation that after cleaning it was ok, but after a while of printing (50cm) the black head would lose nozzles and spray around. what we have noticed is that the nozzle plate of the black head was covered with a lot of ink residue. so we actually have wiped gently that with a lint-free cloth wet with the capping fluid. worked!
but, actually, now every shift (3 shifts of 8 hrs a day) has to do the wiper clean and cap clean and slight cleaning in the beginning of work, as a rule. seems to work fine.
I've been doing the same cleaning routine as you. I had some issues with the black head spraying alittle! I would love to buy the jig Seiko uses to replace the heads. The tech told me I could not purchase it, which to me is not true. If I purchased the machine for 60K and I want to maintain my own machine, I should be able to purchase whatever is necessary to do so! Let me know if you know where to purchase the jig for changing heads.
EMR, we use the same 3m material and can roll onto the take up roll fine. It's fairly dry by the time it starts rolling. I think my temps are 45 40 45.
MichaelD, I'm using the same temp settings as you and my prints on 3M are definately not dry as they come off! Actually i've left them on them prep tables for days and the prints on the bottom stay somewhat tacky! I'm using Onyx 6.5 and the 3M profiles that came with the software.
because the heat is not enough :) you have to use fans. this is what is missing in Seiko as it goes out of factory - fans! heating the solvent-based inks won't make them dry.
