Color bleeding on L26500

[Redfield]

In the last week I changed the black/yellow and magenta printheads. This is only the second time in a year of owning the machine. We noticed a huge change in color, seems darker then before. Reds and blacks are bleeding together. See attached. Talked to HP and we got a new set of printheads to try. No change.We use Onyx Postershop 10.1.5.

Stuff I've tried that HP suggested.

Reloaded a new 3M IJ180 profile stock and recalibrated.
Increased the drying temp 10 degrees and heat airflow to max.
Brand new print heads.
Tried different rolls of material.

Saw this before when first got the machine on 10 pass. Switched to 12 pass and fixed it. But now 12 pass isn't working and 16 pass isn't much better.

Need help correcting this before I fall behind more. Thanks everyone.

 

[dypinc]

I would start from scratch on the linearization, ink limits etc. before profiling.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Do you hear static as the roll is unrolling in to the machine? That looks like static over spray... the static charge is pulling the droplets away from the target.

 

[HulkSmash]

too consistent for it to be static.

 

[jayhawksigns]

Are your heaters working properly??

 

[Dave1417]

What design program are you using ? I have had same issue while using flexi I changed to cmyk or spot colors and removed strokes and it went away.. Was in RGB mode Issue was when two deep colors touched like maroon and black... Good luck

 

[danno]

printer dude

I have recently had the same experience with a L26500. The final conclusion that I came up with was to switch back to running HP profiles and not the 3M or Avery profiles that have been provided by the manufacture. HP could not figure out the reasoning behind this other than to say that the saturation level in the non-HP profiles was slightly higher than the levels in the HP profiles. I had changed heat settings, passes, vaccum and uni & bidi. Nothing seemed to help. At one point 3M & HP asked me if the vinyl had discoloured from the high tempurature I was running (245° F). Good luck and I hope this helps

 

[P Wagner]

Is everyone who has seen this issue seeing it specifically with black/ darker red color combinations?

One more thing you can do on the L26500 (with current firmware v8 or higher) is to use the Inter Swath Delay (Ink Menu > Image Quality Maintenance > Inter Swath Delay) and set it to .5 seconds. This allows one print swath more time to set the dot before the next ink pass is applied.