Revived 7880 with Selenium K7 set, but L values for individual shades look strange

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
1

i have not been using my 7880 dedicated for Piezography K7 for a while. Now, planning to try some new chemistry for Gum printing, I need to produce calibrated negatives.
Using QuadToneProfiler Pro and DN, software is very good.
The problem I have - after printing individual ink channels in QTR calibration mode I noticed that 100% patches are too close in tonality between some ink. Measured then with I1Pro 2 and sure enough, here are my L values for individual ink:
Photo Black 1 - 9.25
Warm Neutral Shade 1 - 14
Selenium Shade 2 - 11
Selenium Shade 3 - 21
Selenium Shade 4 - 26
Seleniu8m Shade 5 - 66
Selenium Shade 6 - 74
too many shades of ink print out at 100% with too close of a values.
Then i thought it has been sitting in a cartridge for too long - open bottles and smeared ink on same paper, tool spot measurements - pretty close to ink out of printer.
thought maybe those bottles are too old, opened second set of smaller bottles, smeared on paper, spot measure, same result.
Does someone knows what those L value numbers are suppose to be at 100% for selenium ink set?
Will really appreciate any help, as I dont know what to do next.
thank you,
Sergey

2

Hi Sergy,

Firstly, thanks for being an InkjetMall customer for sooooo long! It is appreciated.

I was looking at your Sales history and I believe that you last bought this ink in 2017 in 700ml form and in 220ml form in 2016. These inks are outdated not just due to pigment losing the ability to stay in suspension but also because of chemical stability.

These are often relative to print head but…
Selenium Shade 2 L24.67
Selenium Shade 3 L32.26
Selenium Shade 4 L41.62
Selenium Shade 5 L67.01
Selenium Shade 6 L77.41
Selenium Shade 7 L88.19

You should start with fresh inks… We do have some inventory of Selenium still. But I worry for your printer and pigment lining the ink lines and dampers… Your printer probably could use a good PiezoFlushing to rid it of stale pigment.

kindest regards,

Jon

3

Thank you for a fast reply, Jon!
Yes, I believe the first piezo prints I pulled in 2001 with first edition of your software, distributed via single floppy disk:))
i ordered some new ink, but not all shades are in stock. Will have to do it step by step. I can re-map channels, hope it will work for time being.

4

There is inventory of the shades you did not order. We are mainly stocking 220ml size. WN-1 was discontinued some time in the mid-2010s… We now offer new black shade 1s.

But it is all there!

Jon Cone, President
Vermont PhotoInkjet, LLC
17 Powder Spring Road,
East Topsham, Vermont, 05076, U.S.A.
email: jon@inkjetmall.com