L800 - pigment inks - contamination?

Ink stained Fingers said:

I assume the L800 is a pretty new one, out of the box - or already running for a while ?

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It's brand spanking new with less than 50 prints and 3 power cleans (priming routines) to its name so it doesn't get much newer.

I'm wondering what Epson has done to the printheads since the R265 and similar starting with the Claria inks, I have used up a few printers, but never with this type of failure.

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I've seen de-lamination failures before and while this presents that way in part it's not consistent enough in the way you mentioned. This should be affecting the cyan in the same way but there's no evidence that that's happening which is odd.

If there is a connection between the ink channels in the printhead it should work both directions. Contamination in a darker color with a lighter color may not be visible, but when you swap the two colors assumed to be affected it should become visible. Or you fill cleaner instead of inks into the reservoirs - into all but one to test the effect.

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Obviously swapping around the buffers is a non starter as it's solid block but I hadn't considered changing things at the reservoir end... Good idea and exactly the sort of out of the box thinking I was looking for. Thanks!

Minor update on this...

We're still not 100% on this but it looks like the printhead build quality was poor from the get go and we're preparing to conduct an autopsy to confirm. So far we've ruled out the following:

• Contamination from leaking buffers.. The buffer/tube-connector block is made up is individual buffer units which are film sealed but they are not part of a single unit. Any leakage at this point would be indicated by missing nozzles (air ingestion through the leak) rather than cross contamination
  
  
• Careful examination of the output from the OEM/dye ink output indicates that the problem was already starting when we were doing our initial prints.
  Lesson learned: Be sure to run a few prints in text mode to highlight any issues like this. Unfortunately we did everything initially using Photo or higher quality modes.
  
• Contamination at cleaning/resting pad (capping station) also ruled out. The printhead is not stopping on the pad for any length of time and there is absolutely no puddling in the pad.
  
  
• Ink blobs forming and cross contaminating on underside of printhead. Nope... We've cleaned the printhead manually using a passive clean and also kept a sharp eye out for the tell-tale ink drops that soil prints none of which have been evident. So not that either.

So, in summary, as I'd suspected but hoped against, it's looking like the printhead has a gasket, seal or similar that has failed. I probably should have specified the technical dis-jargo-bobulation terminology (de-lamination) in my original post but to get something like that on a brand new printhead and printer is disconcerting to say the least! Basic quality assurance testing should have caught something at this level before it was installed.

We'll be pulling another L800 on to the workbench and filling with Pigment from the get go to see if the issue recreates itself on another unit. It's unlikely but the more I look at the Ecotank models the more I wonder what the design specification and lifespan/expectancy were set a tad low.

that's quite interesting so far, the P50 model was in production quite a long time since it got replaced by some XP model, and the original P50 hardware got its life extended by adding the tank system so the printhead production should not have been a problem anymore.

Ink stained Fingers said:

that's quite interesting so far, the P50 model was in production quite a long time since it got replaced by some XP model, and the original P50 hardware got its life extended by adding the tank system so the printhead production should not have been a problem anymore.

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That was my assumption as well but having looked at the L1800, L1300 and these L800 models I find myself wondering about the build quality compared to the equivalent CIS-less units. Reluctant to feed into a conspiracy theory on this but can't help but think these are not P50/Photo-1400 grade printheads. As I said though, we're putting another unit on the bench tomorrow so we'll see how we go.

Oh and if you dig around the L800 has a warranty of EDIT 3,000 prints
or 3 months (India), 12 months (EU) whichever is the sooner.

I searched and found this post because I'm having the exact same problem in my 1430 - cyan contamination in magenta. I've had the printer for a little less than two years and have been using Precision Colors inks with no problems until now. If I run a clean cycle the nozzle check comes out clean. The next day a nozzle check printout shows both cyan and magenta segments in the magenta section. Should I assume that the printhead has delaminated, or are there a few tests I can do to narrow it down? Would like to hear from Mikling on this. Thanks!