Job Due Tonight! VP540 Problem

[grafixemporium]

I'm printing three 30x90 panels on Oracal 3651 Matte to be mounted to polystyrene for a pop-up trade show display. It's a last minute job that is due tonight! Everything was going fine as usual. I printed a small scale test to make sure my colors were good. It looked great.

So I ripped the PDFs in VersaWorks using the same stock matte calendared profile I used for the test print. I ran one of the panels and it started out looking great. The top of the print has a brushed stainless steel alien skin texture. I got about 2 feet into the print (still looking great) when I accidentally scratched some wet ink in a solid black area... ruining that print. So I canceled it, and started over.

The next print started out fine, but then 6 inches into the stainless steel, the print started looking a little purple. I've canceled, reripped, rebooted everything, cleaned the heads, cleaned again, reripped again and I cannot get it to print like it did the first time.

Take a look at the attachment and you can see the first print that looks nice a grey and the 2nd print where the grey fades to purple. Now the
prints are solid purple.

Help! Any ideas??

 

[Replicator]

Save or export print as TIF in RGB and try that.

 

[grafixemporium]

Gave it a try... unfortunately same results.

I don't get it... I didn't change anything... it just started fading to purple. I just reprinted my original small scale test... and it's purple too! Take a look.

 

[anotherdog]

Could be a heat thing.
Try shutdown, have a cofee then see if it's back.
That grey tone is so fine, just 1% red/cyan could tilt it.

 

[grafixemporium]

The printer is gonna get a long break if I have a heart attack

I shut it down... gonna grab some dinner and call my customer. Thanks for the tips. I'll be back in a bit.

 

[Replicator]

check ink levels !

 

[grafixemporium]

Yeah, I did that. Even pulled the cartridges to make sure the printer was reading the levels correctly. Black is a full new cartridge. Yellow is full too. Cyan and Magenta are at about half according to the printers menu and Versaworks.

 

[TNT]

It could be a bad damper wich would cause one of the CMKY colors not to make it to the one of the heads. You should be able to run the test print to find out.

 

[Border]

Sounds like you dropped, or ran out of, a color (Black) most likely.

 

[grafixemporium]

I did print this before I shut down... it looks fine.

BorderPatrol... look at the test print image I attached before and this one. Even on the purple one... a majority of the print is solid black... and that part looks great.

 

[Replicator]

If you want to send me the file I could go try and print a smaller version on my VP-540

and see if I have the same problem . . . marc (at) replicatorgraphics (dot) com

It would take just a few minutes to let you know what happens.

Let me know if you need this help.

 

[Border]

Did you run a test print yet to check that all heads are firing ok?

 

[grafixemporium]

file sent replicator... you're awesome. thanks!

border -- printer is cooling. haven't cranked it up yet. will post when i do. did you see my last post though? thanks!

 

[Replicator]

I'll go try and print now, gimme a few minutes . . . !

 

[grafixemporium]

Printed test... not all yellow is firing.

Yellow cartridge is totally full. Ran Medium cleaning... all yellow is now there in the test print.

Stay tuned...

 

[Border]

Well, if it's not showing low ink then I'd try cleaning first. If the cartridge ran dry then you'll probably have to run a cleaning after replacement anyways, to get the ink line filled again.

 

[rdm01]

Clean first for sure.

 

[grafixemporium]

You nailed it BorderPatrol. Thank you so much! The normal cleaning I did apparently didn't do the job. Guess I can't think straight when I'm panicking at 10pm.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

Andrew

 

[Replicator]

It's in your file . . . redo the chrome !

 

[grafixemporium]

WTF? That's odd. I'm printing a full panel now and it looks great.