Troubleshooting a monster Latex 370 and three bad new printheads

[fiftyfourette]

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum, but I've been lurking for the last decade I've been in the business. Most of my previous experience was with a set of Mimaki printers, but I've been working with an HP Latex 370 for the last year. I had a director that I was working under who had purchased this printer which was sold as a "Latex 370 in a Latex 360 shell". I'm not sure how common that is, but that's exactly what it is.

This director had several personality issues, which led to the printer just sitting instead of being used, mainly due to the fact that she didn't get along with the IT Department who controls our computers and everything with the printers. They were adamant about getting Caldera to run on a slightly outdated iMac, but it just wasn't working so after she quit, I set up Onyx on an old windows pc and now it's all communicating just fine. For the first few months, everything looked great, but we don't have a constant workload so it doesn't get used everyday. In fact, we have an HP Designjet Z6100ps that we use for paper materials, and tyvek posters a few times a week, but I bought walk and wall as well as some Avery vinyl for use only on the 370 for the occasional project or decals.

Here's where I'm troubleshooting. In the last six months the grey and black went from having a magenta hue to now a green hue. The color isn't consistent and I need to print decals that color match. A few days ago I swapped every printhead and the maintenance cartridge, but one of the M/Y cartridges wasn't firing. I swapped the place with the one that was working and it then wouldn't fire out of the same cartridge one slot over. I figured it was just a dud and replaced it with a new one, but the same thing happened. Opened a third one and go the same result. Put the original one back in and it worked. Is it possible to get an almost entire bad batch? Only one new one worked.

As for the color profile issue, I'm not terribly familiar with setting that up because I've always had production managers to handle it, but I am on my own here and not sure where to start with the grey issue. Any advice is welcome. My background is more on the graphic design side with the aid of the production crew though.

 

[ikarasu]

The only difference between the 360 and the 370 is it uses bulk ink.

In USA / Canada they will not let you upgrade the 360 to a 370.... However outside of the country you can buy the bulk ink kit and install it, so it's entirely possible.

Are these three heads ones you just purchased? Or have they been sitting on the shelf for years? And did you shake them before putting them in?

It's odd for three to be broken unless they've been sitting Un used for a really long time. You can try to soak them in distilled water and give them a gentle wipe with a cloth...

I'd only.do that if they're no longer under warranty. Otherwise send them in for replacements.


You likely need to re calibrate your machine.

here is a video showing you how. You do not need to dl a new profile... Just follow the color calibration steps and you should be ok.


Edit - also...look at your Grey outside, not inside. Most lights will give Grey's a yellow/magenta look... In the sun it may look more like a Grey.