Oki c911 colour registration

[Baz]

Hi all,

I'm hoping for some help with an issue that is driving me crazy..

Printing onto A4 Xerox Colotech+ 350gsm Silk Coated paper, long edge feed. The first two pages come out perfectly, pages 3 onwards all have a colour mis-registration which is only on the right hand side of the page.

I'm printing business cards 10 per sheet, the left column of five are perfect, the right column are junk. I've tried every setting I can think of, and thrown plenty of expletives at the printer, nothing helps. Which is odd, because usually swearing at a machine in frustration fixes it, right?

In the attached image, the top line is from the right of the page, the bottom line is from the left of the same page. You can see the magenta is out of registration.

Thanks for taking a look, any suggestions for what to try would be greatly appreciated!

Barry

 

[OkiTech]

Hi, what happens if you print on 200gsm? - just for example sake....
If you take few sheets of you 350gsm stock and put them on the table, do they lay flat?

 

[Baz]

Thanks for your reply..

So with 160gsm it prints fine, no problems at all. On 300gsm (Mondi Color Copy) or 350gsm(Mondi Color Copy uncoated and Xerox silk coated) this issue occurs.

I actually spent a while yesterday doing more testing, and discovered that the 'heavy media mode' that helps reduce the issue when on Ultra Heavy 5 (which is correct setting for 350gsm paper) is actually causing the problem when setting the paper weight lower. Not sure I explained that too well, so it's working like this:

Ultra Heavy 5 paper setting
Heavy media mode: ON
= Left edge of print ok, 3rd and subsequent pages out of printer = right edge out of register approx 0.5mm

Ultra Heavy 5 paper setting
Heavy media mode: OFF
= Left edge of print ok, 3rd and subsequent pages out of printer = right edge waaay out of register approx 2mm

Ultra Heavy 1 paper setting (technically wrong as it's for ~ 160gsm paper)
Heavy media mode: ON
= Left edge of print ok, 3rd and subsequent pages out of printer = right edge out of register approx 0.5mm

Ultra Heavy 1 paper setting (technically wrong as it's for ~ 160gsm paper)
Heavy media mode: OFF
= Bingo! All pages out are spot on.

I'm hoping it wasn't just a fluke, I'll run a set of business cards off in the next couple of days to see (not sure I can bear to see another print dialogue box right now lol). It was definitely the best quality that the 350gsm has ever come out, fingers crossed these settings will work long term.

No idea what these settings actually do internally, but the toner fixed perfectly and the quality is spot on even though it's supposedly set for paper less than half the weight going through it.

 

[OkiTech]

I have to say it is a little odd... As far as I understand, unlike it's predecessors (Oki procolor 900 series, CX3641, etc.) this printer uses an intermediate belt, i.e. forms the image on the belt end then transfers it on to media, rather directly from drums on to paper like older series. So fact that you're having color misalignment is a little strange.

 

[Baz]

I agree with you on it being odd for sure. You are correct, it does have the intermediate belt.

The really weird thing is that the first and second page out are always perfect, no matter what the settings. It's pages 3 onwards of a job that go out of registration, and weirder still the middle 1/3 of the page is fine as is the very trailing edge. The top 1/3 and last 1/3 are out.

I have attached an image showing three pages stacked on top of each other, where I had printed some reg marks in the margins. The left side of the image shows the top left of the pages, the right edge shows the bottom left (these were printed with short-edge-feed, so the bottom of the page was the last part to be printed).

You can see page 1&2 are fine, page three the colours go out of registration at the top, then in the middle (not shown) it's fine, and at the foot of the page it's out again before the last set of marks right at the end of the page which are perfect.

I've been too busy to test it again, but hopefully the setting I found before will continue to work. Given that it's a lower weight setting I can only assume it's something to do with the heat that is causing the issue, a higher weight means a higher fuser temp right?

If you have any thoughts on causes I'd love to hear them, thanks for looking.

 

[James123]

Hi there, I have a OKI C911 and it does the same thing.
How do you solved that? I have already talked with the Oki Europe Support a few times, but they didn't solved the problem.

Thanks!

 

[Baz]

Hi James,

I'm using the following settings:
Media weight: Ultra heavy 1 (even though my paper is 350gsm so technically should be ultra heavy 5)
Heavy media mode: Off
Density adjustment media: Special media
A4, short edge feed
Output to face up stacker
Fine detail (1200dpi)

Hopefully it will work for you, if not I'd say try changing one setting at a time. Oki support not solving the issue sounds familiar to me

 

[James123]

Hi Baz,

Thanks for your fast feedback!

I will try that, and I will post the result.