c900 weird pattern on prints

[msaeger]

Issue is when the customer prints there is a pattern that looks like denim over the whole page if you look close enough but it stands out more in half tone areas.

So far we have taken files from the customer and printed them on our demo machine and we do not have the issue. Then we tried setting all the printing options the same on the customer machine as the demo machine.

Then I reloaded the Fiery with the latest system software 4 and updated all the firmware on the printer.

When we print internal test prints with 2109 we do not see this.

Here are links to examples

Customer machine:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Demo machine:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

(click download to get the full res photo)


Thanks
Matt


Yes I posted this same post on the new TSC forum if anyone sees it there too

[Shadow1]

Archive the job off your C900 and import it to the customer's machine and vice-versa - this looks like it may be something from the computer sending the print job.

[msaeger]

What do you mean by archive ? Copy it off the fiery from the demo one ?

[salesux]

Had a 5560 produce a pattern like that when the video board went flaky in the E7000 Fiery.

[msaeger]

Someone is going out today with the Fiery and the IPU from the demo machine so hopefully it gets fixed today.

[msaeger]

So here's what we swapped today:

Fiery
IPU
Controller with ram and fiery interface and fiery cable

Did NVRAM clear
Formatted HDD's

We were thinking it had to be something outside of the engine because the IPU test prints do not show the problem but I think we replaced everything outside of the engine.

[KenB]

Hi, Matt,

Did the prints look better after swapping components today?

Your post didn't really say.

Ken

[msaeger]

Oops nope they looked the same.

One thing we noticed was on the Fiery PS test page it has scales for RGB,R,G,B and CMYK. Only the Colors that have Magenta showed the issue. So you would think that's an engine thing but why do we not get it on the IPU test prints.

Here are examples:

Picasa Web Albums - Matt - Omega examples

[Shadow1]

What do you mean by archive ? Copy it off the fiery from the demo one ?

You can use Command Workstation to archive a job to a folder on you HDD or better yet a memory stick and import it on the other machine.

I suspect the computer printing to the fiery is to blame. I've seen certain versions of Acrobat put really odd artifacts in the print stream, and I'm not even going to get started on the print stability of Microsoft office apps.

[stephend]

Shadow 1 is right. I saw weird PDF files too. Sometimes during the conversion from the source format the converting apps is generating artifacts. The best way is to use as a est the file in it's genuine format.

[msaeger]

When we swapped the Fiery we printed jobs from it that were sent to it in the Ricoh office. Also we get this on the Fiery PS test page. I have a sample of one in my link to examples.

[msaeger]

So the fix ended up being a laser unit.

We took both laser units from the demo machine and swapped them with the customers and the problem went away.

I don't understand why we did not see the issue on the IPU test prints but we had tried everything before the engine so it had to be something in the engine.

The issue was only with the magenta. We looked at it with a loop and could see the individual pixels. When we looked at it that way the other colors would have pixels in a diamond pattern and on magenta they were in diagonal rows.

Always feed stupid after a problem like this but now I know we can not trust the IPU test prints.