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Marks on right side when printing decals

Anyone know what would cause me to get streak marks on the right side of the material when I'm printing decals?  I don't usually, but I'm printing a hugh job and it is ruining the right side.  I am using the profile from the decal material vendor, I have cleaned the machine several times and I still get them.  I have attached a picture of what I'm seeing.

 

Any ideas?

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Permalink Reply by CYW on March 3, 2011 at 3:43pm

Debbie, was it only in that one spot?

Or all up and down the side?

 

Was the vinyl lifting where you were getting those marks?

If the media hits the head, stuff like that can happen.

I had something similar looking with Quick Print once.

My media skewed a little and I got some streaks like that

 

 

 

 

 

 

Permalink Reply by Roland R. Irish III on March 3, 2011 at 3:43pm

It's your print heads striking the material...I have gotten some of that also.

Usually it means the material is 'tunneling' (lifting off the carry sheet) or heat is

causing it to lift off the platen. Check and see if your 'vacuum hold down' is set

to maximum, and watch it while it is printing and see if the material is curling in

the heat as it goes onto the platen area. Static cling, reflectives, and chromes I

find are the worst for this...although just this morning it did it on banner material

which is very rare for me. I use a paper rag and spritz the RAG with adhesive remover and

gently clean it right off...alcohol probably will work the same, for close to decal area use a

Q tip. I have no idea how to prevent it from happening other than playing with vacuum hold-

down and/or heat settings.

Permalink Reply by Admin on March 3, 2011 at 3:54pm
Roland has it - Printhead dragging on the material! Make sure it is laying flat like he has pointed out. You can usually watch it and see where it is buckling up.
Permalink Reply by Debbie Turner on March 3, 2011 at 4:48pm

Thanks everyone for the ideas.  I had a call into tech support but hadn't heard from them for a couple of hours so I posted this.  In the mean time, they called me.  It wasn't striking the head, but they had me take the heater temp down from 40 to 38 and the dryer setting down from 50 to 45.  They said that sometimes the humidity can affect it.  We have almost no humidity here, but they still said how these settings affect the media can change from day to day.  They thought that since it was always doing it on the last one, it was overheating and causing problems.  Sure enough with these new settings.. it is printing perfect.

 

Thanks again.

Permalink Reply by Admin on March 3, 2011 at 5:22pm
I still stick by it being a head rub. There should be no reason that heater settings would make it not have an effect like that. Hey if it is working then I guess it is allright!
Permalink Reply by CYW on March 3, 2011 at 5:32pm

For what it's worth......................I'm sticking right by you, Steve.

 

Heater settings make absolutely no sense to me unless the heat was causing the buckling.

Bottom line, the media was lifting, one way or another.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Admin on March 3, 2011 at 6:12pm

Thanks! but my name is Charlie

 

Permalink Reply by irving donaldson on March 3, 2011 at 5:36pm
Hmmm!
Permalink Reply by Ken Wagner on March 3, 2011 at 9:17pm
I have these occasionally too. When I first notice it happening I put on the small media clamps and it clears up. I too cannot see the heat settings making a difference. It could be your issues cleared up when the roll got past the imperfection (slight as it may be) and there was no more lifting or buckling.
Permalink Reply by Debbie Turner on March 4, 2011 at 10:37am
Not sure what was happening.. it put the marks on for a couple of hundred decals.. as soon as I changed those heat settings, I have run over 500 more without a single mark.  I didn't make any other changes to the machine/material.  I have been running with the small media clamps on the whole time.  Maybe the extra heat was causing the buckles?  Anyway.. I'm happy now because they ran all afternoon yesterday and this morning without a problem.
Permalink Reply by Ken Wagner on March 4, 2011 at 11:03am
I'd like more input from some of our other members about heat settings and differing materials.  The only time I change my heat settings is when we put heat transfer material in.  Otherwise we set the temperature to what we were told in our training.  104F for dryer and 98F for print.  These temperatures seem to work for us.  Anyone else have some advice?
Permalink Reply by Admin on March 4, 2011 at 11:07am
I personally set it to the default media settings. The media profile contains the heater settings for optimum performance on that specific material. The only time I would change them is if I see an issue with the print that i can attribute to the temperature.

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