Hello Everybody,

We have a bending problem when printing from Psotershop 4.2 to Encad pro 600. When I plot 10 pass it's look reasonable but using 8 pass or less it's not good enough. When I'm trying to plot from another RIP (Accuprint, for example) in same conditions, everything looks fine. Is sombody notich this problem??? Thanks Efrat

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1998

Answers

We are running our PRO600e with the following settings: Bi-Di, 5 or 6 on speed and 6 pass 300dpi and have no banding issue. The only thing that may be different is we don't use Encad media! Please also make sure you have done the head alignment on the printer - this is vital for high speed printing.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 1998

We also have a banding problem. It is most evident at 300 dpi across a gray vignette, being forced to run at higher passes and slower is not on. I have tried QIS and it does not eliminate this banding problem.

Any solutions would be welcome.

Mark Kilbourn The Poster Works RSA

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

Banding

OK Mark, If you have been good in a previous life you may find the RIPing the final with FDRP hides the problem. (Print time is the same but RIP time slightly longer). I don't know what choices you have in your market for alternative media's but I can tell you the banding problem is greatly affected by the media you use, if you can, get hold of same samples of alternative paper and try these.

Simon

-- Anonymous, January 11, 1999

We also have a Pro 600e and had the same problem. Changing to unidirectional printing seems to take care of the problem.

-- Anonymous, January 12, 1999

We have been having a lot of banding problems using 50" material lately also with our 600e. We can print an image on 36" or 42" material with no problems. The same image on 50" material - paper, vinyl, and backlit will give us banding almost everytime unless we go to 10 pass, single direction at a head speed of 4. Even at those settings we are having banding problems frequently.

Are you having problems with all sizes or just wider media?

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

We also have banding problems with the 600e printer. One of the things we have done to help reduce the problem is to purchase a head alignment kit and service manual from Encad. With this kit you can not only align the heads but also check to see if there are any bows in the slide shaft( a real problem on the 60" printers and something most service techs don't bother to check). This kit is also good for Pro 50, 42e and 60e printers. At one point we had 4 Encad machines in our shop and all of them needed adjustment. The worst was a brand new 600e we received from Encad. If you are getting banding on one side of a 50" or 60" print and less or none on the other side it is definately an alignment problem. The other thing we have found that helps reduce banding (particullarly in blacks or greys which seem to be the worst) is to reduce the ink preheats (we have black set to -5)and maintaining a constant humidity of about 35%. I also agree that media plays a large role in the way the dots are dispersed.

-- Anonymous, June 10, 1999

We have an encad 6ooe 42 inch machine and also at 42 inch paper have serious banding probs. I solved banding on smaller media by 8 pass, user, unidirectional and print speed of 5. No luck with these settings on the larger media. All calibrations have been done via built-in features. Any suggestions or similar problems out there ? Joe

-- Anonymous, July 23, 1999

I have found if you turn off the ink pre-heating this will solve the problem printing any any speed or dpi.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Had the banding thing also, saw the worst on second surface, Poly 10 mil material. We tried many different fixes, and found that for the most part it was very much media related. Also, try turning the auto wipe off on the Encad, this does help to some degree, this is a problem called "wiper stripe." We use alt. photo base media, and have very little problem with banding. We found that it was related to the speed that the ink dried or cured between passes.

-- Anonymous, February 18, 2000