My PrismJet 1204 is Printing Black instead of Red???

[BSL Graphix]

I printed some 4' by 8' decals yesterday and everything printed perfectly. I did have to change the Black ink cartridge during print. Today I am trying to do some printing and all the reds are printing out as black. I opened the cover and I can see black ink mixed with my magenta in the lines. Can anybody tell me what the problem is?

 

[BSL Graphix]

I'm thinking I ran out of Magenta ink and the printer didn't tell me, and black ink has somehow gotten in my magenta lines....I put a new magenta cartridge in...and ran some cleaning cycles but it still doesn't seem to be getting magenta into the lines..anybody familiar with this?

 

[RG]

Definitely cross contamination. You should check to see if the tubing in your pump and the tubing under the cap top is plugged up. If ink pools that bad in the cap top, it sure seems like it is not going out of the cap top and through the pump as it should. If you see the wrong color ink in the ink lines, then the dampers are full of it, too. Running a few cleaning cycles and/or a "Little Charge" should get the colors back to flowing like they should. But, it will probably happen again, if the ink still pools in the cap top.

 

[BSL Graphix]

I just ran another clean cycle...and then moved print head out and checked maint. station...it seems to be draining out well....I put some cleaning fluid in it to be sure..and it drained out quick also. Is it possible that somehow if my magenta ran empty that I sucked black into the line some how? I'm trying to print solid blcoks of magenta right now, and they are coming out black.

I was looking back into the printer and I can see Magenta in the line coming out of the ink cartridge, but somewhere between there and the print head it turns black.

 

[BSL Graphix]

hated to do it, but didn't know what else to do and I have a lot of printing to get done...but I ran a set of cleaning cartridges through it, flushed it out, and re-installed my ink cartridges...seems to have done the trick...probably did good to thoroughly clean it all out anyway!