Vivid Magenta Ink issues,

I currently have a Epson SP 9890 and Epson SP 3880 (plus a little Epson 4020) I use your Vivid Magenta in. I have notice this for about the past 6 months of order this VM ink. In all three machines it always seems that it clogs bad on VM, usually something along the line of a nozzle check and the VM is completely missing or just no where near where it needs to be so it is printing nicely. All the other Conecolors work great I dont have clogging issues at all, some notches here and there are missing (typical Epson printer head) but thats it. I wanted to know if this has been an issue for you or anyone else. I print a lot with all three machines, I definitely know its not from ink settling.

Any information or a possible fix would be awesome.

Thank you,

•Dae

When something goes completely missing, it is often a dry head rather than a clog. Clogs show up as nozzle lines in the same position - yet even those can sometimes be wiper marks. I do not know where you are in the universe, but here in Vermont we need to put about 25 liters of water into our air a day in the studio to just keep it at 35% rH. Epson states that 35% is the minimum humidity level for their print heads. VM, M and Yellow are the heaviest of our inks.

Unless it is some other maintenance issue - you may benefit by buying an inexpensive digital hygrometer and keeping the humidity between 35% and 65%. If we stop our humidifier the heat in our studio will dry the space to single digits and our printers behave the same way. If we keep above 35% rH then the printers are happy. This has always been our experience with both the Epson inks and the ConeColor inks.

We’re really vigilant about rH because it also affects color management. We try to keep it uniform between 35 - 40 rH.

Let me know what you find out about your ambient.

Jon,

I’m in Southwest Harbor, Maine. I’m not that far from you (well we’re state neighbors) and I’m sure that is problem than, because this started about the time I moved up here (in June). This is Dae from Two Crows Printing. Thank you for the new knowledge on this. It has definitely become way dry since late Fall. I was in Philadelphia before this and the humidity seem to be at the right levels. Looks like I will be picking up a humidifier in the next week.

Hi Dae,
Welcome to New England!
We use the large Honeywells that are pictured on this blog posting.
Best,
Jon