Humidity problems

*edited for format / update

1. Getting a mottled transfer for all colors, Magenta is worst, Black looks acceptable (assuming due to timing from charge station to transfer)
2. Technicians have all agreed it's humidity-related and not much can be done other than adjusting transfer settings for each media.
3. Relative Humidity has been averaging around 6% in the machine. It peaked at 8% within the past week.

-Adjusting transfer settings does help for some stocks but causes other problems too. Other stocks just look bad. I have my transfer settings @ A:65,65 B:65,65 in order to pass Color Maintenance --quite low! Looks ugly, but only way to prevent mottling and get it to pass.

-10 years of igens in same environment and never seen it this bad before.

-We tried buying a small humidifier and tarping off the back of the machine to help it suck in some moisture, but no improvement after 48 hours. Company doesn't want to spend money for an industrial size one.

-We are going to escalate to see if there are other things that can be done, but I wanted to reach out here and see if anyone knows any tips + tricks to improve the situation. We have higher quality jobs piling up and no way to make them look pretty.

Thanks!

 

Wow 6% is remarkably low. I'm battling humidity issues here at 14%.
Perhaps you don't have to go as far as an industrial grade humidifier. We have two units here that ran us about $200 USD. (each)
The units are good to run for about a weeks time before the need for refilling. However, our shop is a bit on the smaller side. I imagine these may not be too effective in a large facility.

If you could get yourself back in the double digits at least.

 

6% is jungle weather compared to me sometimes HAHAHAAH

65 is REALLY low for transfer settings though! down around the 70-80's it starts causing major pains in the stacker, and visible arcing

its been explained to me, that a LOT of the problem, is keeping the paper conditioned...not JUST humidity within the engine. Build a tent with plastic on the back of the feeder. keep it humid in there. It worked for me...but I just dealt with it after awhile...


textured stocks can be bad for me.

 

Thanks guys. Back to 20% today. I guess it was just a long streak of cold/dry weather that hit us. Nothing we could do.

We used a couple phone-a-friend lifelines and nobody had a great way to combat the bad humidity (without spending ridiculous amounts of money). I guess lots of places were having same problem. I found an old post by MarkD that explained the transfer current settings in more detail, which was helpful. Can adjust pretransfer by setting B thru D to zero, and then using A for pretransfer current. 300-500 range is usually good. Xerox should really add that to the manual since transfer settings are quite useful at times.

Another snowstorm heading our way this weekend. Joy. I'm ready for spring!

 

It's monsoon-ing out for days here. Now I have more humidity than I could ask for. You can never win.
*weighs the streaking and rippling stock in one hand - and poor transfer, static, and curling in the other*