Color Shifting...

[SellersSign&Design]

So, today was a great day. I ran 10 yards of 680CR through my L25500 and then realized the colors were off from the same job I did a few months ago. A picture comparing the two is below. I went back in the job log and compared the settings, and as far as I can see they are identical. All the rendering intents, profiles, etc. match. It's almost like it's washed out, or not getting enough yellow. The yellow ink is still over 25%, and all other colors are higher than that. I know issues like this can be hard to find, but does anyone have any ideas??

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

3 things that I can think of that I know is a factor:

Reletive Humidity in the Print Room... Causes drying issues.

Run a linearization to bring your calibration back.

Change your printheads.

Some other things to consider is printing color bars down the sides to make sure the heads are firing.

 

[Pauly]

nozzles clean? no ink starvation?


Colour drifting happens with some printers. You can print a small test patch, measure them and compare with your original results after a calibration. There's programs like colorthink pro that can compare measurements.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Humidity does fluctuate slightly but I run a dehumidifier to keep it within an acceptable range. The printheads are basically brand new, but I haven't ran a linearization or test print so I'll do all that. I was printing the color bars and then I ran into issues with them confusing my cutter, so I stopped. I may have to work on that. I'm back at the fire department tomorrow but I'll run all the tests Friday and report back to let y'all know what it's looking like. Thanks for the quick responses!

 

[Devon19515]

The white area looks different. Are you using the exact same material?

 

[SellersSign&Design]

The white area looks different. Are you using the exact same material?

Yes same material, one has been cut and weeded and the other was not, so you're seeing the white reflective. I should have mentioned that in my first post.

 

[XtremeXccessories]

I was printing the color bars and then I ran into issues with them confusing my cutter, so I stopped. I may have to work on that.

I run into the same issue with our Summa and running the gutters. Just slap a piece of white vinyl over an inch or two of the gutter next to the first mark and it should find it just fine. Never had any issue with all the others once it finds the initial mark.

 

[peavey123]

What % of warranty are your printheads at?

 

[SellersSign&Design]

What % of warranty are your printheads at?

I'm about to pull that up on the printer now. I ran the test plots and print alignment this morning, and one of the C/LC print heads is printing Cyan on both sides, so I guess that means something happened internally in that print head?

 

[SellersSign&Design]

And after looking into it both C/LC print heads are out of warranty. So I have two new ones on the way. But I'm having a hard time believing that printing regular Cyan through one of the light Cyan channels would cause the washed out looking color shift I was having in reds and yellows?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Didn't you recently change your printhead cables?

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Didn't you recently change your printhead cables?

Yes I did, but I have ran quite a bit of material through it since then with no color changes until about a week ago.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I was just trying to run through the scenarios of why it would double print cyan. The Heads are split internally and the ink lines are split, but the data cable has joint data.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

I was just trying to run through the scenarios of why it would double print cyan. The Heads are split internally and the ink lines are split, but the data cable has joint data.

Gotcha, that makes sense. I replaced both heads today and all test prints are back to looking great. No yellow starvation or missing nozzles that I can see. However, my prints still look just as washed out. I tried to run a linearizarion, it printed the pattern and made it all the way to the "scanning" message on the screen, but then I got a "cancelled" and the computer had a pop up that said "scanning cancelled on printer".

 

[SellersSign&Design]

The more I've thought about this, could it be a Flexi issue and nothing to do with the printer? If all the test prints look great, then technically the printer is doing what it is supposed to do. What has me leaning towards Flexi being the problem is the fact that I can change to a completely different profile that used to cause a major color shift in the past, and my print still looks exactly the same as it did on the other profile. Everything appears to be right in Flexi and I haven't changed any settings, but something is wrong somewhere.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

The rip could cause this, has flexi had any updates since the last time you printed these and to that effect has the printer had any new firmwares?

 

[jfiscus]

Different pass counts?

 

[SellersSign&Design]

The rip could cause this, has flexi had any updates since the last time you printed these and to that effect has the printer had any new firmwares?

No updates on either that I know of, unless it did something automatic which I don't think either will do.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Different pass counts?

No same settings for both prints, 12 pass/40 speed/low ink.

 

[jfiscus]

Ours was always inconsistent. Even on panels printed the same day in a climate controlled environment. Couldn't trust it.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Well, it's almost fixed. I ended up building a completely new profile from scratch. It was my first time doing a custom profile, but it went fairly smooth. In the picture below, the middle sample was printed with my new profile. The right side was the original print I was trying to match, and the left was what I had been getting with the original profile. So I guess this shows that nothing was wrong with the printer, it was all in Flexi. I'd still like to get my original profile back working, but for now at least I have something I can work with.