Ok… I have an Epson r3000 printer that is less than a year old. I purchased a set of ConeColorPRO K3 Vivid inks in September 2013. Things were working great until I made the mistake of letting the ink run out of the VLM and got air in the line. I read the user forums and downloaded and used the QTR flush using the calibration mode. After a few runs I got the a light magenta print sheet, and then got the VLM to print again, but in the process I was not paying attention and my Y ran out. So I opened the Y image and set up to do the QTR flush for Yellow. I got the same light magenta print sheet as with VLM, but when I went to do a nozzle check, no yellow at all. Tried some cleaning cycles and another flush, got the same pink print out. Tried printing a yellow swatch in Photoshop numerous times and all I got was a muted gray tone.
So I am stuck and needing some advise on what to do next?
Hi hineswhim~
I recommend you check the physical ink level of all the carts, and refill/reset any that are low.
If you’re printing the yellow purge image thru QTR calibration mode by following our instructions, then only the yellow channel should be printing. If you print a yellow image thru Photoshop, it will use a mixture of colors and not just print from the yellow channel. You can either print yellow purge pages using QTR calibration mode, or do an ink charge cycle using the adjustment program to purge air and refill the lines with ink.
I hope this helps, please let me know how it goes, if you have further questions, or if there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards~ Dana 
Thank for responding Dana,
I did make sure to check the physical level of all the inks, and even made sure to do a vacuum refill to make sure the exit chambers were full. When I did the yellow purge with QTR I get a magenta colored print page, is this correct or should the purge page print yellow? Then image that loads in QTR-Y is a magenta color and my printer is printing a full image that color. So I am a bit confused, because when I go to print a nozzle check after I still get no yellow, just some scattered dark print lines. I run a mac lab so I am going to set up a dual boot on my station to run windows so I can download and run the Epson Adjustment program, try that.
I got to say I like the price and quality of the ConeColor Inks when they “work”, but they seems to be very finicky and frustrating. I am seeing a lot of post with color printing issues.
Wes
Hi Wes~
All the QTR flush images are different shades of magenta or purple, but when printed thru QTR calibration mode, the QTR-Y flush image is programmed to only print pure ink from the yellow channel.
Are you saying the image on your screen is magenta, or the print is coming out magenta? You will need to print a few pages of the yellow flush image to purge air and refill the line with ink.
There are occasional issues with any product, a few are defects, but most are user error or the product not being used correctly. As you said, you’ve had great results with our carts and inks in your R3000 until two cartridges ran dry and air got into the ink lines. This is both avoidable, and fixable- and we’re here to support our products.
Please let me know so I can help you past this and back to happily printing.
Best regards~ Dana
Hey Dana,
Yes I am saying the printer is printing out on the paper the same magenta color image as the magenta QTR-Y image I loaded to do the flush. And you are saying that it is programed to only print out pure ink from the yellow cartridge correct? So I was assuming the flush print pages should come out blank till the yellow gets flushed through, not be printing a magenta color page.
I have tried about 7 times to do the QTR-Y flush and each time the printer prints out on the paper the same magenta print color. I have read the QTR instructions/settings carefully and think I am doing the correct steps. So I wanted to know if I need to do some more QTR-Y flushes till the page comes out printing yellow? Or are the settings I have wrong to cause the yellow flush to print a magenta page?
I do appreciate your assistance and support… I like others on this forum, have learned to keep a very close watch on the ink levels in these cartridges…
Wes
Hi Wes~
If the QTR-Y flush image is printing magenta, then I suspect you may printing thru the Epson driver and not QuadTone RIP Calibration Mode, though it may be specific to your computer (for example, Windows 8 doesn’t work correctly with QTR calibration mode). Are you printing from Mac or Windows? What operating system version? Please let me know so I can try to help.
~Dana
Hey Dana,
I am printing from a Mac OS running 10.8
Thanks
Wes
Hi Dana,
After reading your post I checked around but was not to find out how to bypass the Epson driver and just print through the QuadTone RIP Calibration Mode.
Any Advice?
Thanks Much
Wes
Hey Dana,
OK – I checked all the cartridges and made sure all were full.
I set up my iMac to dual boot to windows 7 OS, I then downloaded the PC Print-Tool QTR calibration set up and set up and ran a few yellow purge images. The first purge print on the paper printed a few dark lines then nothing. The following yellow purges all printed with no color at all. So then I downloaded the Epson adjustment program from 2manuals. I ran one charge cycle form it and then ran the QTR purge-Y and still got a blank printed sheets.
So I am frustrated and at a loss for what to do. Should I run more the one charge cycle from the adjustment program and how many QTR purge prints does it normally take to get the air out of the line?
As this is the only tech support you have for your cartridge system I could really use some assistance.
Wes
Hi Wes~
Provided your yellow cartridge has ink in the exit chamber, and air vent hole is open, then you should have good ink flow from the cartridge. Depending on the amount of air in the line, it may take printing several letter size sheets of flush sheets thru QTR calibration mode to purge air and get ink flowing thru the line again, though in a few instances when customers are dealing with air in an ink line after a cart ran empty without being noticed, the purge sheets didn’t remedy the situation, and they ended up injecting a small amount of ink into the ink line using our small format print head cleaning kit (connecting in the cartridge chamber, then gently injecting about 1-2ml of the same ink into the line, to help pass air). Although I didn’t discover or recommend this, uses discovered this on their own and reported success- I have concerns in regards to the amount of ink injected, and the pressure applied- and how it could effect the print head and damper membrane, so caution people when I tell them about it.
I hope this helps.
Best regards~ Dana
Hey Dana,
Success!! I wanted to let you know that I got my Yellow printing issue resolved. I did not have to do small format print head cleaning kit the you mentioned.
I did purchased and downloaded the full Epson r3000 manual and service adjustment program from 2manuals.com.(At first I tried the free WIC Reset Utility and the charge system in it, but this did not work).
Although the manual and service adjustment program is a window’s only program it is very comprehensive, well worth the $32.00
So in the service adjustment program I did the head cleaning utility and then the full charge utility. After that I did a nozzle test print and all the colors printed good. (Although the full charge utility uses up a chunk of ink out of all the colors, it was the ticket for getting the air out of the yellow line.)
So now everything is working and I would caution all uses of your refillable cartridges to be very diligent and always check the ink levels in their cartridges, and not trust what shows on the printer.
Thanks for your time…
Wes
Hi Wes~
I’m happy to hear you’re up and running again, thanks for the update!
I will update the R3000 instructions to make people aware the chips occasionally reset themselves (I still haven’t figured out exactly how/why, and the manufacturer is just as puzzled as I am), to help avoid accidental/un-noticed reset that could lead to carts emptying and air getting drawn into the lines.
Best regards and happy printing~ Dana
Hey Dana,
After getting the air in my lines cleared and all the ink colors to print I now find I am not getting the correct color print outs.
I am printing on Red River papers and have downloaded their ICC profiles for the papers. I open up an image in Photoshop (CS4) and set the settings for photoshop to manage the color and select the icc profile and when the Epson dialog comes up set up the settings for the paper. But my prints are coming out darker and my blues are printing a purple hue.
After looking over the forums I tried trashing the Epson printer software and re-installing it, but still the same color issues.
I read that duplicate printing settings can mess things up, but not sure how to avoid this?
So wanted to see if you could offer any advise suggestions?
Thanks for your time.
Wes
Hi Wes~
I’m glad to hear you were able to purge air and get all channels fully printing again.
Were you getting accurate output using the same papers and profiles/settings before dealing with air in the line?
Did anything change between that then and now: any updates to your computer or applications, etc…?
Did you refill carts from different/new bottles or the same bottles they were previously filled from?
Is there any chance that LLK was refilled with LK ink, or any carts were accidentally mis-filled?
Have you tried printing thru any of our CCP-R3000 profiles?
Are you printing from Mac or Windows? What operating system?
Please let me know so I can help sort this out and get you back to happily printing.
All the best~ Dana
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