Horizontal Lines / Veritcal bars on prints using Ricoh Printer SG7100DN

Hi everyone,


I've just started experiencing horrible issues with any prints that contain colour. They now have white streaks or visible bars running through them. I've tried everything i can think of to resolve this but i'm getting the same result everytime.


I'm using a Ricoh SG7100DN Printer (almost 2 years old) with brand new sublimation inks (Sublijet-R extended cartridges from xpres.) that i only just replaced a few days ago. The issues started occurring just before i swapped the cartridges and prior to that has only ever occurred occasionally, was temporary and never this severe.


The horizontal lines seems to occur the most on prints using colour ink (most noticeable on blue inks) but the bars (which run vertically down the whole page on every colour are perfectly uni-formal and spaced about 5mm apart. I have attached pictures to show this.

I have tried, flushing the head and cleaning the heads multiple times, paper feed adjustment, nozzle check, de-condensation, adjusting the head position (which made a slight difference i think but still shows lines), changing the paper type from plain to inkjet paper, selecting different print qualities on the printer preferences, uni-directional printing enabled and disabled, putting the old cartridges back in, replacing the waste tank, leaving the printer off for a day, leaving it on but nothing using it for a day but nothing has resolved the issue. It's horrible as i can't sublimate anything with these lines as they transfer to the substrate. All tests on the printer check out fine, nozzle check and head adjustment seems fine yet as soon as i print anything with colours in it the problem shows up. Black prints without any lines or marks.

Hope you can help. I'm desperate.

. http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4021&stc=1http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4022&stc=1http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4023&stc=1http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4024&stc=1http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4025&stc=1http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4026&stc=1

Our recent post on this should help resolve it:
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...t-and-dithered

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UK Printed Mugs

Our recent post on this should help resolve it:
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...t-and-dithered

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Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I've given it a clean with a lint free cloth as instructed and printed another test page. It seems a little clearer but there is still quite noticeable stripes on the print outs sadly. I have attach the ricoh test print page and also the piece i'm trying to print.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4029&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4028&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4030&stc=1

It is no doubt the same issue and read my post further which says that I suggest you take the top cover off and use some alcohol fluid on lint free cloth to wipe fully a few times from side to side. Initially we only wiped gently using a cloth and the problem got better and then worse again until we really cleaned it.

Ahh ok, that's interesting. I did exactly the same, just with the cloth. I don't have any alcohol fluid, what exactly is that? Do you know where i might be able to purchase it from? Sorry if it's a silly question.

You could just try some glass cleaner firstly on a cloth. It is only a plastic strip. The other thing to do is call Sawgrass support.

That's great, thanks very much. So i've tried tried cleaning it again, this time with the glass cleaner and microfibre cloth and wow, much more dirt was removed this time round. The print does look slightly better but i can still see the lines, especially in the blue shades i can barely see any in the Red, Yellow, Orange and Pink colours. Mostly, Dark Blue, Light Blue and Green.
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4031&stc=1

dunno if you can do this with the printer in question but try soaking some tissue or paper towel in nail poish remver and place on the bed of the printer move the heads over the tissue paper then leave over night the fumes will release any clogs

Have you checked all your alignments? You're paying a hefty premium for your inks so make SG & Xpres work for their money, have you spoken to either yet?

Hi purpledragon, thanks for the help. It might be a little tricky with this printer, its the Ricoh SG7100DN and the space looks a little tight inside. How would you get the printer heads to move over the tissue paper out of curiosity? Do you mean manually push it? Do you think the banding is linked to a clog in this case? Thanks

I don't think that's going to help with a Ricoh tbh. You have a warranty so be careful how much you do before speaking to SG etc. They will probably get you to align heads.

Hi Justin,


Thanks for the message. I have just gone through both the Adjust Print-head Positions and Adjust Paper Feed tests again. For the Print-head Positions i kept everything at 0 as these seem like the straightest. For the Paper Feedi also kept it at 0 as this again seemed the straightest.


http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4032&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4033&stc=1

I spoke to xpres earlier today and they were very helpful. They run me through some of the obvious checks and advised cleaning the encoder strip and although this has improved the quality slightly it hasn't stopped the banding which seems to be most obvious in the blues/greens or lighter colours. Black is perfect, no banding or lines at all. 1 week ago everything was working perfect and has been for the last year and a half. I spoke to Sawgrass earlier an explained everything to them but they couldn't really do anything. I was asked to email all of the information and photos, including everything i've tried to resolve the issue but haven't heard back from anyone yet. As always, these problems only seem to occur when i have a backlog of work. :)

Yeah for sure. The warranty for my Ricoh SG7100DN ran out on 08/03/15 sadly, never had any issues with it until now. :(

I realised there was one more step to try which also made our banding better. if you have "unidirectional" checked when printing then uncheck which makes print head bi-directional.

Thanks, yeah i tried that earlier actually, unfortunately it didn't make a difference to the print and still shows the same horrible banding on those lighter colours. I've also tried changing the paper input to inkjet paper and gloss paper but neither made it any better. No matter what print quality combinations are selected, the print doesn't seem to improve. The only thing that has made a noticeable difference was the print head alignment and cleaning the encoder strip but now that both have been done i'm at all loss as to what to do next.

Reading this thread I see that you have not tried deleting the printer & drivers and re-installing. Also worth trying Powerdriver. Long shot but I have seen many weird issues that are driver based.

Hi Wayupnorth, good idea, i haven't tried that yet. I'll give that a go now and post my results.

So i uninstalled both the printer and power-driver this morning and gave everything a fresh install and setup, including the photoshop colour profile settings. Sadly, this didn't make any difference to the print and the banding is still visible in the lighter colours (mostly the blues).

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4034&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4035&stc=1

I was however reading through the Sawgrass technical support and they advised doing a few full page colour tests on regular paper instead of sublimation paper and to my amazement, the regular page prints out cyan perfectly. There's no visible banding at all.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4036&stc=1

As soon as put the sublimation paper back in (TruPix Classic Sublimation papaer from Xpres A3) the banding starts again.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4037&stc=1


If i do the full page colour test on the sublimation paper i get banding. What a nightmare.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4038&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4039&stc=1

I have also tried full colour page prints of the Yellow, Red and Black. The Red and Yellow are absolutely perfect, not a single line out of place or banding of any kind, just solid colour.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4040&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4041&stc=1


When it comes to the black, printing a full colour test page from the printer itself instead of from photoshop renders the blacks brown but printing as i would do normally from Photoshop + colour profile settings produces black, i'm not bothered about this as it's only a for the test. I can see a little banding in the 'printers black full page colour test' but very little if i print black from photoshop.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4042&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4043&stc=1

I thought i'd install the printer and power driver on another machine just in case it was my own PC that was causing the problem but nope, didn't change a thing. Anyone ever experienced anything like this before? Its now started banding on lighter colours like red and orange also :(

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4044&stc=1

I think this is the printer, speak to Sawgrass and tell them it's under warranty and you want it sorting. These previous models have had banding issues resulting in replacement being required.

Its out of its warranty period unfortunately and so far it has taken Sawgrass 2 days to even respond to my initial request. They only just back to me today asking for me to send information that i had sent in the original email.

Oh dear, how far out?

Yeah i know, super sad times. 08/03/15 :( I feel physically sick that i spent so much money going for a Ricoh SG7100GN over a cheaper alternative because i was led to believe that they were good, reliable machines. I've only had about a years worth of use from it and its as good as useless to me at the moment...shocking. I can't afford to buy a replacement one either.

The A3 are an extensive outlay. Do you need A3 or works A4 suffice?

I've been testing an Epson Workforce and 3110 with cheaper inks, might be an option for you but I appreciate it's bloody annoying.

Yeah it's horrible. I use the A3 printer as i also print on to larger products.

The A3 work force is giving good results but is slow. Hopefully we can sort your Ricoh but if not, give me a shout.

Thanks Justin, i really appreciate that. I've spent the last 3 days trying to get thing working and i've wasted so much of the new extended cartridge inks i purchased on test prints.

You have had success printing to plain paper (non sub) so that shows the printer is working ok. Do you have sublimation paper available from another manufacturer ?. Can't rule out a paper issue no matter how unlikely and the current paper has been central to all the tests. I understand the frustration when things change overnight, presume this did not coincide with a new batch of paper ?.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wayupnorth

You have had success printing to plain paper (non sub) so that shows the printer is working ok.

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Not necessarily, different papers will give different results, some may show very bad banding, whilst others show none. The Truepix is recommended and used by the majority of owners so shouldn't show these problems. If course, there's always the possibility of a bad batch of paper. I used Xpres economy paper for years but had a few bad batches with a think line running right from top to bottom, didn't show until printed over so first assumption was the printer.

Yeah, i must admit i was a little shocked to see the plain paper come out perfect and without banding but i understand what you mean about different papers yielding different results. I've been using this same paper for the last year and never had any issues with it (TruePix Classic), including the most recent batch that i was printing fine with a week ago, i guess there's always the possibility that some of the paper in this batch is bad. Typically, i'm now down to my last 4-5 sheets of sublimation paper due to all the testing and bad prints and won't be able to get any from Xpres until Monday for delivery Tuesday at the earliest. What's frustrating is that, even after everything i have done, it still looks exactly the same, possibly even worse lol

Guys, i was so desperate to get my backlog of orders out of the way i purchased a brand new Ricoh SG7100DN Printer which arrived today. I've just moved the same Sawgrass ink cartridges from my old SG7100DN (Yellow, Cyan and Magenta from Xpres) into the new printer aswell as a brand new black ink cartridge that i purchased from Xpres on Sunday evening. To my absolute astonishment...i'm getting banding again. This time it's on most colours and although it seems to be a different type of banding (no white lines between, only slightly darker one, its still there. Sawgrass thinks its a dogdy batch of ink which they are investigating for me now. I can't seem to catch a break this year. I've performed a nozzle check, paper feed test and head alignment, all of which are perfect. This is brand new printer straight out of the box. It's got to be the inks right? The black is perfect and i haven't seen any banding yet
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4051&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4052&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4053&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4054&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4055&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4056&stc=1
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4057&stc=1

Did you change the paper as well ?

Hey, i haven't changed the type of paper but i have changed the batch of paper. I ordered two brand new packs of TruePix Classic paper which turned up this morning so i'm using paper fresh out the pack. It's the paper i've used since day one (almost a year and a half ago).

Threads getting long now !. Have you been using the same images throughout this "experience" ?.

Hi, yeah it is. I have been using the same images as I needed them printed for a job but I have also tested with other images just incase they were the problem. I just tried another paper feed adjustment from the machine itself and it's hard to be 100% sure but I think it may have made a slight improvement. I can still see banding but it seems a little harder to see it. I'll test with other colours before I get too excited.

Running out of straws to clutch, hope you get it sorted.

Hi, i've managed to get the image looking great it most areas on the new printer by tweaking the paper feed adjustment manually on the printer instead of printer options but since taking this brand new printer out the box i've been getting these horrible smudged looking vertical lines along one side of the page and its the same side every time. You can notice it on the lighter colours. Just as i get one problem solved another takes over. Any ideas what causes this? Its only on one side of the image and its on every print, no matter what i print. Anyone see anything like this before?
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4059&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4060&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4061&stc=1

I have just flipped the image round 180 degress and printed it out to see if the problem still occurs. This time the area in the previous attached photos printed out without the blurred lines but the opposite side has them now so its seems something on the front left side of the printer is causing this to happen.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4062&stc=1

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum...tid=4063&stc=1

Hi
I had a similar problem with lines, I change the print mode to inkjet plain paper high quality and this worked!

Hi Lebowski,

Did you ever get to the bottom of your printing problems? Because the banding in the latter photographs is the same problem I am having. Two bands are running across my prints, and I can't seem to get rid of them! Mine is a Ricoh SG3110dn, not the same model as yours, but still a Ricoh, and the exact same type of banding.