Help, 1204GA Can't print Red!

[David40]

Hi, I am trying to decide if this printer is a piece of crap or not. I got a new 1204GA and for the life of me I can not get this thing to print a bright red. Even when I print out the internal test print palette, with the printer set for it's highest quality, the red comes out more like a deep orange instead of red. I have a 60 dollar Cannon desktop printer that does a better job of color reproduction than I have been able to get out of this thing. Any ideas? Is it possible I got a bad set of genuine Mutoh ink cartridges, or should I have gotten a Roland instead?

 

[Stealth Ryder]

What media are you using? What profile are you using?

 

[Scott Reynolds]

Mutoh reds are good, if you have the right profile. I couldn't get Flexi 7.5 with the canned profiles to print a good red on my Mutoh, but Onyx would straight out of the box.

+1 on Media and Profile....

What RIP/profile/media are you using???? We need to know that, NOT about your Cannon desktop...

 

[David40]

My RIP is Flexi 10.5 Print and RIP. I am using Oracal 3651G which is a High Gloss bright white. I have tried the profile that was designed for that vinyl on this printer. I also tried several other profiles with the same results. But like I said, even the internal test print, without the printer even connected to the computer, red comes out a deep orange. On the test palette C = 0, M = 100%, and Y = 100% should produce a pure red on just about any white media. I don't understand how this could be happening.

 

[Davidford7]

Add some K, try 20%

 

[David40]

Thanks, I'll give that a try as soon as I figure out how to get past the layers of color correction and profile crap in the software. Can you believe Mutoh doesn't supply a windows driver for this thing? It would be so easy if I could just shoot an image directly to the printer from Corel Draw or Illustrator. Flexi, with it's main program and then the Production Manager, you never know which one is controlling everything. Way too complex.

 

[bob]

My RIP is Flexi 10.5 Print and RIP. I am using Oracal 3651G which is a High Gloss bright white. I have tried the profile that was designed for that vinyl on this printer. I also tried several other profiles with the same results. But like I said, even the internal test print, without the printer even connected to the computer, red comes out a deep orange. On the test palette C = 0, M = 100%, and Y = 100% should produce a pure red on just about any white media. I don't understand how this could be happening.

Your theory on producing a good red with 100%M and 100%Y will probably get you a passing grade in a classroom somewhere, but in actual practice, it doesn't make for a good red.

Each and every time someone pops up and declares that their printer, a model which seems to work for everyone else, won't print this or that or is just plain junk, the same questions need be asked:

What are your rendering intents?

Exactly where did you get the profile you're using?

Moreover, being a veteran wrangler of that very same printer, I can state with some authority that whatever it is that's not working for you, most likely you're the cause of it.

It's not a desktop printer on steroids, not by a long shot. Wide format digital printing is far more art than science and requires the services of a journeyman digital pressman to produce consistent and acceptable output. . Ir's not something you can go out and buy or a set of instructions you can download over the internet. It's a set of skills that must be developed over time, not something that happens merely because you run out, buy a printer, and start pushing media through it. There's lots of things they didn't tell you and you must learn.

 

[Scott Reynolds]

Can you believe Mutoh doesn't supply a windows driver for this thing?

Thats because Mutoh knows your going to need a RIP to run the printer correctly.

 

[David40]

Well, lets see, my intent is to have this printer print ANY object that's a bright fire engine red as a bright fire engine red. I'd settle for a red 4" square box that actually looks red and not orange. I mean there are only so many variations of color. When I print out a cmyk chart that has a 1000 shades of colors on it I would expect a real red to show up in there somewhere. I got the profiles from Fellers who got it from Oracal, and I even tried the one that is supposed to match this vinyl from Mutoh. No joy.
You are correct about the sellers. Both the dealer and Mutoh don't seem to know much about their own printers. The best that Mutoh support could tell me was to try some profiles for media from other brands of vinyl. I still think I may just have a set of bad ink.

 

[ProWraps]

if you think printing 100% PINK and 100% YELLOW will give you the perfect red, you have bigger issues than your printer.

i would highly suggest you research gammut and color theory specific to a 4 color cmyk digital printer.

 

[David40]

Well, that certainly is interesting. That mixture on every other printer I've ever had produced red, and every CMYK color chart I've ever seen shows an equal mix of M&Y as shades of red, with 100% of each about as red as you can get. So what you are saying is that all those charts are lying, and that every other printer where I have specified 100% of M and Y, and produced a great red, that the printer is not actually performing that mix? That leads me to an experiment I'd like to do. I'll take an equal size drop of each of those colors and mix them together and I'll let you know what it produces.

Update - I took equal parts of M and Y from some bulk ink I use on another printer using a set of medical syringes. I blended them together, and it produced a deep red. Spreading it out on a bright white surface I was able to create lighter shades of red, no orange. It would seem your theory is incorrect. I guess the next step would be to figure out how to get a bit of ink out of the Mutoh cartridges without screwing them up, and doing the same experiment. This should reveal if the printer is not mixing the inks in the correct proportions, or the ink itself is bad.

 

[P Wagner]

Well, lets see, my intent is to have this printer print ANY object that's a bright fire engine red as a bright fire engine red. I'd settle for a red 4" square box that actually looks red and not orange. I mean there are only so many variations of color. When I print out a cmyk chart that has a 1000 shades of colors on it I would expect a real red to show up in there somewhere. I got the profiles from Fellers who got it from Oracal, and I even tried the one that is supposed to match this vinyl from Mutoh. No joy.
You are correct about the sellers. Both the dealer and Mutoh don't seem to know much about their own printers. The best that Mutoh support could tell me was to try some profiles for media from other brands of vinyl. I still think I may just have a set of bad ink.

Yikes.
While it is possible that you have some bad ink, it is far more likely that your ignorance in large-format printing is at least a contributing factor to this. It is entirely normal that 100 percent of magenta and yellow will produce an orange red.
Try this: create a red swatch in Illustrator (not Corel) with the following build - Cyan 5, Magenta 100, Yellow 80, Black 0. Bring this file directly into Production Manager (not flexisign). Turn off color correction on the color management tab (disable the checkbox), and print.

Let us know the results.

 

[David40]

In Ai Process or Spot?

 

[Stealth Ryder]

Your theory on producing a good red with 100%M and 100%Y will probably get you a passing grade in a classroom somewhere, but in actual practice, it doesn't make for a good red.

Each and every time someone pops up and declares that their printer, a model which seems to work for everyone else, won't print this or that or is just plain junk, the same questions need be asked:

What are your rendering intents?

Exactly where did you get the profile you're using?

Moreover, being a veteran wrangler of that very same printer, I can state with some authority that whatever it is that's not working for you, most likely you're the cause of it.

It's not a desktop printer on steroids, not by a long shot. Wide format digital printing is far more art than science and requires the services of a journeyman digital pressman to produce consistent and acceptable output. . Ir's not something you can go out and buy or a set of instructions you can download over the internet. It's a set of skills that must be developed over time, not something that happens merely because you run out, buy a printer, and start pushing media through it. There's lots of things they didn't tell you and you must learn.

WOW, that statement is the smartest most prolific thing I have read here in a very long time... Thank You...

 

[David40]

It gave me an entirely different impression. For me it points out the fact that much of the digital printing industry is still in the dark ages. There is no reason why any wide format digital printer can't be as easy to use as a desktop or intermediate printer. As for me, I WANT a desktop printer on steroids. You would have to be crazy not to want your printing tasks to look that good with so little effort. It's like begging someone, "Oh please could you make my job more complicated and difficult? I love wasting my time on technicalities instead of just getting the job done."

 

[P Wagner]

In Ai Process or Spot?

CMYK = process color

 

[bob]

...Update - I took equal parts of M and Y from some bulk ink I use on another printer using a set of medical syringes. I blended them together, and it produced a deep red. Spreading it out on a bright white surface I was able to create lighter shades of red, no orange. It would seem your theory is incorrect. ....

Well doctor science, your printer produces colors other than CMYK via a process known as 'dithering'. I does not mix inks together such as you describe.

It prints individual dots of CMYK in various proportions and patterns to produce colors. In most cases the pattern used is just as important as the individual proportions of the 4 colored dots.

The frequency and pattern of dots used to produce this or that color is the job, one of them, of the profile.

Here's a word of advice: You'll get farther and be more successful if you start dealing with your printer and it's attendant software as it actually is, not what you want it to be or you think it should be. It is what it is, not what you feel it ought to be. No matter how you huff and puff, you won't be changing that.

 

[David40]

Thanks for that information. Castek, I did as you suggested and I must say that's not a half bad looking red, and I can see how the type of light makes a big difference. Under a white light is goes to the orange tint, but under warm or incandescent it's definitely looking red. By reducing the yellow, in theory, that should have made it more orange so I assume the addition of some black has something to do with that. It's a good starting point for me to play with, I appreciate it very much.
Now my big problem is one black nozzle is not firing, even after 4 strong cleanings, but that is a subject for a new thread.