Hp L260, Printhead gone bad? (The butterfly effect)

[frojasferrari]

Hi there,

We do a lot of stickers on phototex here in Chile, something like wallmonkeys. We do have a library with images on our web page, I added a new images, butterflies, and just printed a test, the thing is that the printer is printing OK other things, but with the butterflies, the light blue ones, it look just wroooooong, a week ago or so, the machine told me to change one of the printheads... I was printing and like in a hurry with a couple of jobs, so i just change the position of the printhead (lc/c 1 to lc/c 2 and lc/c 2 to lc/c1) and the machine was ok, and the prints too.
Just ordered two new lc/c printheads to replace, my brother is on his way to pick them up, but, will that be the solution?

A couple of pictures, here you can see the "butterfly" effect.

 

[MachServTech]

Thats an issue caused by the RIP more than likely, not the heads. Does the pattern change when you change printheads in cyan?

 

[frojasferrari]

Im using Caldera, how can i fix this?

 

[P Wagner]

I would agree that this is not likely to be a printhead issue as much as a problem with the media profile that is being used. Are you using a media profile that is specific to the media (Phototex), or is it for a different media?

I would guess that the media profile needs to be relinearized (re-calibrated).

 

[frojasferrari]

The profile was custom made, everything else prints great! but those butterflies dont.

 

[J Hill Designs]

seems like its having an issue transitioning from C to LC - agreed, probably linearization

 

[Rydaddy]

File Type

What is the file type? If it is an .eps try saving as a .pdf and printing that way. I realize that may sound ridiculous but occasionally that can solve print anomalies.

 

[DougWestwood]

Material Profile corrupted

Yeah, gotta agree with the profile comments.
This looks like a corrupted profile or another type of RIP problem.

Faulty print head would die on ALL the blue colors.
I have had a corrupted profile mess up just ONE color in a print,
and even then, some of that color would print OK, while other patches
look awful.

Good Luck!
Please post results/fix method.
- Doug
Vancouver

 

[frojasferrari]

Was using the original .ai file on caldera, as usual, everything else print good.
Saved the file as pdf, and told caldera to use the "embedded color profile" (i think thats how its call in English, our RIP is in spanish) on the image, and use our custom made media profile for phototex on the l260.

With those two changes the print was a little better, but for me and my brother (who were looking for the problem) the print was still not perfect.

Anyways, we decided to go with that, and already delivered the stickers to the costumer, so now he will write to our client to see how she liked the stickers, if everything went well, etc...

Thanks for all the help. I promise I will be back soon with more problems :Big Laugh