How do you deal with Solid area streaks? Options

[patrick]

Splitting this question off from jfermolye's question...

I am going to make the assumption that all Nexpresses suffer from solid area streaks, in the process "in track" direction.

So how do you deal with them?

We clean and replace ORCs to minimize them as well as buff out the donor rolls in the developer housings, also we add noise or patterns to pieces where the customer sees fit.

Do you reset your customers expectation?

We try to, but it is hard to do sometimes. We will sometimes add a pattern or noise to the flat area or use the FM Screening to minimize the streaking.

Do you clean or replace the ORC's that have the issue?

Mainly IC's and BC's get contaminated with fuser fluid, sometimes running the fuser cleanup app fixes that but sometimes cleaning the BC's off with some distilled water and letting them dry can help, or sometimes that leaves a haze. So we end up swapping out the IC's and BC's. Black seems to be the worst offender since it picks up the most fuser fluid.

What ORC's do you find cause the streaks?

Actually its usually caused by printing 2 sided with a stock that doesn't absorb the fuser fluid well, or a bad fuser sump that needs maintainence. Replacing the fuser sump, we have a spare for each press, will minimize the fuser related streaking since that controls the metering of the oil to the fuser roll. Replacing the fuser roll will help, but only if the fuser sump is working properly.

Any other tips for dealing with streaks?

[rugby148]

i agree with most of the tips patrick recommended. i am personally amazed by the ability of the press to resolve the streaking issue (or keep it under control) by running cleaner sheets between jobs or on long runs sneaking in some blank sheets of an uncoated stock.