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Need Help Dark colors = greasy spots on my HP latex HELP!

depps74

New Member
My HP 315 is great, however whenever I get a dark color job I get these greasy spots all over. I have been told this can be fixed by increasing the interpass delay and heat. I've tried these and it seems to help, but it doesn't feel fully cured. Wondering if it may be the ink % is at 120. The media I am using for an upcoming job is 3M IJ 35c. any suggestions????
 

kanini

New Member
Could be the ink limit, have you tried a canned (downloaded) profile if available for that material?
 
My HP 315 is great, however whenever I get a dark color job I get these greasy spots all over. I have been told this can be fixed by increasing the interpass delay and heat. I've tried these and it seems to help, but it doesn't feel fully cured. Wondering if it may be the ink % is at 120. The media I am using for an upcoming job is 3M IJ 35c. any suggestions????

Had this issue on one of our HP 110 units that was in a small print room at the time. Answer was twofold: Increase the interpass delay we did 800-1000 milliseconds, AND make sure there is excellent airflow and circulation all around the printer to allow the latex to escape that is evaporating during heat/cure. Otherwise it can dwell in the print zone and cure zone and remain on the print. After a thorough cleaning by an HP tech, we added simple box fans around the printer to move air around and away from the printer. Problem solved.
 

Superior_Adam

New Member
I would say its not curing because the ink density is at 120%. That is pretty heavy on the ink its putting down. If the ink needs to be at 120% I woudl run more passes which slows the printer down to give it more time to cure and possibly increase the heat. I run most of our profiles at 90% on the ink.
 

Christian @ 2CT Media

Active Member
These machines get alot of build up in the curing tunnel, it may be time for a smk3 and a good cleanout to bring the heat efficiency and airflow back
 

AGCharlotte

New Member
sounds like your optimizer's not curing... more heat/more passes yes. I run IJ35 at 110%., 16pass, 212F and I'll still occasionally get uncured ink on the lead edge on the first print.
 

Jb1983

New Member
Since its a Calender film its not going to like too much heat, so raising the interpass delay will slow the speed down and allow more time under the heaters to dry.
You can take a heat gun to it when its between the heaters and the take up reel to dry those "greasy" spots.

On the cheaper films run less ink since they don't like the heat, then on the higher end cast films like 180 you can run full heat and not worry about it.
 

bannertime

Active Member
I can not change my pass count. IT is always greyed out. I don't understand why its always greyed out because this seems essential to getting this problem fixed.

You can't change it on an existing profile. You'll need to copy the profile and make the change at that time.
 

bannertime

Active Member
sounds like your optimizer's not curing... more heat/more passes yes. I run IJ35 at 110%., 16pass, 212F and I'll still occasionally get uncured ink on the lead edge on the first print.

You do you, but 16p on ij35 seems like overkill. Even for color accuracy.
 

stxrmxn

New Member
These machines get alot of build up in the curing tunnel, it may be time for a smk3 and a good cleanout to bring the heat efficiency and airflow back
100% accurate ours wasnt curing down 1 heating element, HP swapped elements circuit boards you name it. In the end a damn good clean inside the chamber fixed it.
You can adjust your profile on the fly whilst printing but we use a backlit profile which throws down a ton load of ink and run our blacks 100 20 20 20 so i cant see it being that
 

ikarasu

Active Member
Get rid of the hp and upgrade to an Epson or OkiData printer!
I know your company sells and services oki and epson so you have a vested interest in switching people over, but it's not helping anyone when your go to latex solution is to buy a new printer that have their own problems.

As to the problem at hand... Is it not curing properly in all spots, or just one section? We had the issue and took a thermometer gun.... One of the elements/ sections wasn't as hot as the rest.. A tech swapped it out and the problem fixed. I'd make sure you have constant temp across your whole heater platen. And if it's just a recent problem, give it a good Cleaning. Or you could increase the pass count...it's really easy to do. Just YouTube hp latex create new profile...their tech shows you simple steps on how to do everything. You'll actually get better colors not using a canned profile also.

Of course you can do what Bruce suggested. Throw it out, buy a printer that's twice the price that can print on half the materials, and has a massive head repair cost. But then at least you won't have to spend 10 minutes to learn how to create a new profile and increase the passes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

iPrintStuff

Prints stuff
Get rid of the hp and upgrade to an Epson or OkiData printer!

Don’t think I’ve ever seen Bruce actually try to help on a thread like this. It’s always “throw away your expensive machine and buy my expensive machine instead”.

Don’t you need to be a merchant member for that sort of stuff anyway?

As far as the OP goes. If this isn’t the case with all media’s, it’s definitely the profile that needs looked at. A lot of this stuff is just trial and error, and a whole load of wasted media!
 

MAXXink

New Member
My HP 315 is great, however whenever I get a dark color job I get these greasy spots all over. I have been told this can be fixed by increasing the interpass delay and heat. I've tried these and it seems to help, but it doesn't feel fully cured. Wondering if it may be the ink % is at 120. The media I am using for an upcoming job is 3M IJ 35c. any suggestions????
My HP 315 is great, however whenever I get a dark color job I get these greasy spots all over. I have been told this can be fixed by increasing the interpass delay and heat. I've tried these and it seems to help, but it doesn't feel fully cured. Wondering if it may be the ink % is at 120. The media I am using for an upcoming job is 3M IJ 35c. any suggestions????
 

KH t's n Signs

New Member
These machines get alot of build up in the curing tunnel, it may be time for a smk3 and a good cleanout to bring the heat efficiency and airflow back
May I ask what a smk3 is? I have a 315 and I love it so far (1 yr) but haven't really had many issues other than learning curve.
 

RandyDe

New Member
My HP 315 is great, however whenever I get a dark color job I get these greasy spots all over. I have been told this can be fixed by increasing the interpass delay and heat. I've tried these and it seems to help, but it doesn't feel fully cured. Wondering if it may be the ink % is at 120. The media I am using for an upcoming job is 3M IJ 35c. any suggestions????
I have this same problem.
 
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