Color printing Issue

1

I am printing with a 3880 and use Cone Color Pro Inks. My prints up until about 5 days ago were spot on. The prints now are coming out with the magenta color looking murky. I’ve cleaned the capping station, nozzle checks are good. Did three power cleanings. I printed a Macbeth color chart and the strawberries have a very brownish cast to them.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You,
Raphael

2

Did you add any inks recently? If so could you have put the wrong ink in one cartridge? A nozzle check might not show the colours correctly. Hard to see sometimes. Think of yellow and how hard it is to see on a nozzle check
Martin

3

Martin, Thank you. I did top off my black carts and magenta carts. Printing went quite well for a while then I got this issue. Perhaps I should empty the magenta carts and refill in case I did mix them up.
I did that once before. I did look at the nozzle check with magnifier. So if I do refill the magenta carts, will I have to follow up with 3 power cleanings.

4

See also :Reds now come out orange on P600

5

Hi

Yes, I think you probably put some black in the magenta while you were topping up. Easy enough to do. Been there… I now have a very strict, almost anal, routine I now fill with only one cart out and one ink ready to fill and re-read the labels several times.
Once you had topped up it would still take some time for the OLD ink in the feed tubes to get used up and then you would start to see the difference. To help isolate the “bad” cart you could take a a sample (on a Q tip or similar) and paint it on a paper and then do the same from your supply bottle. Let dry and compare. Once you have emptied the faulty cartridge, cleaned it and refilled with the right ink it too will take a while to replace the ink in the feed line. I do not know how long or how many nozzle checks would be needed. You then might try to print a sheet with nothing but a large block of the subject colour or as close as you could guess to same. Thus you would not be wasting as much of the ink in the other cartridges. Then, I would suggest, printing a picture you have previously printed and compare.

Hope this helps. As i said, I have been there…

Martin

6

Hi Martin,

Thank you for your response.
Your suggestions make a great deal of sense.
What do you suggest for cleaning the cartridge
and having no residual black ink remaining.
When I emptied my black carts a bit of the wrong shade of
black was not an issue.
I also like your idea of not having to
do power cleanings.

Thank you for input.
Best,
Raphael

7

Hi Raphael
I am not sure which is your “suspect” cartridge. Was it the magenta? Whichever, my own approach would be to rinse it out with water, use a syringe to suck out the rinse and then put a small amount of the real colour in and print that colour to clear the line etc. On the other hand Inkjet have a product just for that but maybe the time is a question (ordering etc.) Basically you wish to ensure the cartridge is clean and ready to go with the NEW ink. You will probably have to charge it as you would with a new cart.
Best of luck. Let us know how you make out.
Martin

8

Resolved. Sent a replacement bottle with new VM.

best,
Walker