DSF

I did not know that about Roland inks and that is very surprising.

To improve the black you could try upping the temperature on the printing and drying in Versaworks. I did this to improve some printing on my Roland when it was misbehaving (turns out that was out of date ink!).

With regards to an engineer, if you do not have a warranty plan with Roland you can use who the hell you like. I have also found that Roland engineer's will just take one look and say "this needs replacing at a cost of £XXXXX" where as an independent will actually look at the problem and see if they can fix it first. Regardless, an engineer will not be cheap, it is worth hunting around for that sort of thing, I will only recommend Sean Taylor above for Roland as I have dealt with him and I know he is a good guy, but that does not mean to say that the other independents are no good. Ideally you want to find one local to you.

By the way, your capping station is considerably cleaner than mine

I'm going to email over a nozzle check to Sean after i've cleaned it a bit more. He said a head wash might help and will talk me through it. He said he sees problems with black a lot, as it doesn't get used much. i have black in a lot of my designs but I guess it uses a mix of colours and not pure black. He mentioned the range of ink that he sells and that it includes a warranty on the machine if i change to their ink, which seems too good to be true.

He mentioned the range of ink that he sells and that it includes a warranty on the machine if i change to their ink, which seems too good to be true.

Its not, pretty much all third party ink manufacturers on large format printers have to offer a warranty otherwise no one would buy their inks. I use his inks and I have never had an issue with them at all.

He is super helpful so hope you get it sorted.

I emailed over the images to Sean who then emailed them over to an engineer. Sean seems to be a sales guy and just guessed at things I think, as the engineer said not to bother doing a head wash with the carts as it doesn't work and to not bother trying to soak the head in nail varnish remover either, which is also what Sean suggested. The problem with the black will likely happen again in 3 or 4 years, so will need a new head. I can't keep paying £2k for a new head every few years, surely printers should last longer than this, especially when they self clean. The engineer said the bigger printers like Versacamm aren't any better and i'll have the same problems. I've managed to get the other 3 colours to come out perfecly in the nozzle check now, but the black shows little improvement.

You didnt say which inks, there are 3 versions of Rolands Ecosol, 2 & 3 dry quicker and have more reported problems than the original version 1 which is still available and the only one I'd use out of the three. You could bite the bullet, replace the head with it flushed through to then take the original ecosol inks, I think your less likely to have the same problem again if you did that but only my opinion. The head is DX7 a much higher quality than the bigger models with DX4, it might be slow but quality wise they are hard to beat.

Sorry, I'm using the original eco sol max inks, worried they'll discontinue them and I will be forced to change. I've nearly run out of cleaning solution that came with the printer, where do you all buy more from? I've found some large bottles, which say they are for flushing but then the engineer said not to bother doing that. I was going to see if I can put some solution in a container or lid and sit it under the head for a few hours, so soak it that way? I'm likely filling up my waste tank too by pouring solution is the capping station and they cost a lot to keep replacing.

I don't know about flushing never done it. Regarding the waste containers, I remove the screws, throw away the insides (in a strong plastic bag without holes) and either install a refill pad or cut up foam washing up sponges from lidl and line with them. The original inks are the best, you could try replacing your capping station, that might help with cleaning process, certainly wont hurt and if it's never been done it would be needed after fitting a new head anyway. You could try the soaking idea after that as there is then little to loose.

Cleaning fluid, I bought a bn-20 cleaning cartridge and cracked it open, pierced the bag and poured it into the bottle it was better value than buying bottles.

I know on the Bn-20 you can use it as just a cutter and I do this for one type of vinyl, but can you put off cuts in rather than the full roll everytime to avoid wastage? I will be researching cutters more at the weekend, as there seem to be a lot of desktop type ones out now with the Cameo, Cricut and brother and Roland do ones too, but would rather not buy more equipment. I would like to offer some of the fancy vinyls though like glitter etc.

You can cut your media down into thinner widths/ strips but it doesn't do offcuts like some other cutters. It cuts glitter okay if necessary but again not offcuts.

Mark