Image Shift on bizhub C280

[Guest]

Hi All,

I have a bizhub C280 placed in an account where my customer is running labels.
The labels are glossy 10-up ovals.

The registration seems to shift on the labels ever so slightly between pages. I understand that Konica given an "allowable tolerance" of about 3mm for the image, but this is causing my customer's label design to shift TOO much.

Any ideas how to fix this? I have adjusted the fuser loop already and have experimented with the different trays.

[Stirton.M]

Simply put, I would discourage the customer from putting labels through the machine. Cleaning the belt of glue and other crap is a royal PITA. I am ok with certain labels being run, and only if they make a single pass through the machine. But many customers get the impression they can run those envelope labels through a dozen times or more, just because the machine is spec'd to do labels. I prefer they use inkjet, or better yet, those dymo printers, specifically meant for envelope labels.

That said, a few rules....thick 3 out of tray 1 is what I recommend. The specs indicate the bypass tray, but the issue is with the bypass tray, the paper must be loaded face down. In that position, the labels will face outwards as they make the bend in and up into 2nd transfer. That movement will have a higher likelihood that the label will peel from the backing.

And since it is glossy paper, there is little you can do about it aside from making sure the rollers are clean and fresh. There is little else you can do regarding registration adjustments that will more than likely affect all the other printing they may do with that machine.

Something else you can do, if they are printing 10 labels at once, according to your description, have them separate the job into single page prints, instead of multipage. This may be all that is needed. Also, paper orientation can have a major effect. Grain direction is important. Preferably short grain in the feed direction. Easy to tell, bend the paper into a curve in both directions. The easiest bend indicates short grain, the harder to bend, long grain.

[mo0651]

A lot of label paper will feed direction arrows. Definitely helps to follow them.