Color Gamut - No Blue

[Ironbar]

OK. I'll switch to a cheaper media run though a ton of ink and see if anything changes.

As a test, I decided to create a new file with Corel Draw to eliminate Flex from the issue list.

Obviously my white point is way off with my camera. From top to bottom this is my profile that is 16p/200, middle is stock profile 10p/120, and bottom is with no color correction 10p/120. I'm not sure exactly what this means but the blue on the bottom right is getting a little brighter but nowhere close to your blues. It seems to me that the printer is just not spitting out amount of blue that it should whether that is the profile or something with the printer itself.

Is there a way with these printers to turn LC/LM off completely? Does the picture above tell you anything?

 

[balstestrat]

It just feels like you have a issue with the ink but.... Can you print the nozzle map and take good pictures of it? Especially lets compare LC and C on it.
HP control print from the same menu would help us as well. We can rule out everything else and just check the printer.

You can turn off lights when you make a new printmode. But when you print for example over 20C it wont use light anyway.

Did you buy this printer new or used? I can't imagine professional installer not noticing this when new.

 

[P Wagner]

Print the Color Calibration chart and post it. It contains ramps for all 6 inks and makes it easy to see what is going on with inks - see attached for the chart.

 

[Ironbar]

I will post what you all requested above in just a bit. I am still running tons of ink through it.

So far I have ran about 33ml of magenta and 39ml of cyan (since both were expired and replaced) and YES it is making a huge difference. It does look like the problem was just the expired ink but I'm going to keep going to see how much I can get back.

I bought this printer new when the 115 came out. I think that was about 6 years ago. It was not professionally installed (long story). The colors have never been exactly right but probably due to my inexperience and not the machine.

 

[netsol]

or, perhaps draw through with a syringe?

It just feels like you have a issue with the ink but.... Can you print the nozzle map and take good pictures of it? Especially lets compare LC and C on it.
HP control print from the same menu would help us as well. We can rule out everything else and just check the printer.

You can turn off lights when you make a new printmode. But when you print for example over 20C it wont use light anyway.

Did you buy this printer new or used? I can't imagine professional installer not noticing this when new.

sometimes the installer is deliberately unobservant.
i think a lot depends on who he works for...

 

[Ironbar]

Here are the results of the different tests.

The yellow is extremely hard to see but it is there. All of the heads look like they line up perfectly. The color calibration chart looks fine to me but it did before, the cyan just was not near as dark now that I compare it to an older one.

I'm going to try and reprofile and see how close to that blue I can get now.

 

[Ironbar]

Wow. You all are amazing. This totally fixed my issue. I am able to print exactly the blue I was looking for and a red I have never been able to hit in the past. Thank you very much.

Lesson learned. If you have expired inks then replace them. If you don't then you will end up using 40 ml of ink to flush out the old stuff. Waste of ink and vinyl.

Again, thank you!

 

[balstestrat]

That's good.

In the future you could start shaking the inks say once a month as well as printing something every so often.