Ink color variation Hp L260

[frojasferrari]

Ok, I was doing some test with phototex and my L26500, everything was going great until I start printing my second wallpaper on phototex.
It was a wooden like wallpaper, gray wood. three tiles in total, the first one was perfect, gray wood... the second and third went .... well... PINK.
What started like a gray wooden like wallpaper finish as a pink wooden like wallpaper. The wallpaper was for my kids bedroom (two girls) so I was still able to use it, but I dont know what the problem was!

After the three tiles were printed, I reprinted the first one so I have three pink tiles, and used the gray one on a door.

Why did that happened? After the print I clean the printheads but havent done any test yet.

Some pictures of what happened.

 

[P Wagner]

If all of the tiles (3) were printed at the same time, there are two potential things that may have happened:

1) You lost nozzles in the middle of the print run. I would guess that perhaps the Cyan / Light Cyan heads would be a likely culprit in this case.

2) The other possibility is that you experienced a color shift caused by the printheads getting too hot and this overheating can cause a color shift in the output. In this case, printing the panels as separate jobs can help, by giving a short pause (several minutes or so) between the tiles. Adding an inter-pass delay and turning on Gutters can help with this issue.

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[ProColorGraphics]

I lost a lt cyan head once even with printing the gutters. The gutter still printed but the colors turned pink. Luckily I caught it at the beginning of the print.

 

[chafro]

I would also bet a head failed you in the middle of the print.

Even lights can give you color shifts in those tricky colors.

 

[AF]

Did you print a gutter? A nozzle test pattern would confirm if the head is clogged. There is an option for extra head cleanings on the front panel, it may help keep the heads cool and nozzles firing.

 

[neil_se]

I had the same thing happen on exactly the same printer and materials. I ended up replacing 2 heads and now print stuff like this with a gutter/color band.

 

[frojasferrari]

I´m Back!
After hours of fighting with the printer, I think I won... for a while at least.

I did the printhead cleaning 3 times, all the printerheads together, then one by one... after that alignment, etc... now its working properly.
For a moment i thought this was going to be a PIA, but finally it seems to be not bad as I thought.

So, after all that cleanin and alignment and reading and struggling with my frustration and fear of the pink ...... I print.

This is the results. It looks good when you are in front of it.

 

[Suz]

Nice! Good for you. You were challenged by the beast and YOU won!

 

[juf1an]

i Have had the same problem yerterday.
I print 5mt, and the grey color is grey. But when i start to print the second job, other 5mt, the color grey was brown.
In the print test, the cyan head was wrong, this is a typical problem?

 

[P Wagner]

i Have had the same problem yerterday.
I print 5mt, and the grey color is grey. But when i start to print the second job, other 5mt, the color grey was brown.
In the print test, the cyan head was wrong, this is a typical problem?

View attachment 102193 View attachment 102194 View attachment 102195 View attachment 102196

Not unusual to lose nozzles. First thing to do would be to run a cleaning from the front panel of the printer (Ink Menu) then reprint the test print. If the nozzles cannot be recovered (usually due to physical damage like a strike or simply use), it is time to replace the affected heads. This takes about 15 minutes, including the PH calibration.

 

[AF]

i Have had the same problem yerterday.
I print 5mt, and the grey color is grey. But when i start to print the second job, other 5mt, the color grey was brown.
In the print test, the cyan head was wrong, this is a typical problem?

View attachment 102193 View attachment 102194 View attachment 102195 View attachment 102196

You will probably need a new head, but I would run the head cleaning 2-3 times if the head is rather new to see if you get lucky.

 

[frojasferrari]

My printer is running perfect now. I did the cleaning 4 times, first each printhead then all together.

My printer is new and I havent print too much, just testing and looking for future products, so if the printhead were bad, I was going to have a long discussion with the people who sold me the machine, luckily with the cleaning was enough.

Good luck!