Epson XP-970 Aftermarket Cartridges Colour Issues.

[PJV99]

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

At the end of last year I purchased a new XP-970 printer which I have to say has been good.

At the same time I purchased it I sent for some aftermarket refillable cartridges and inks.

The inks that were supplied with the printer so I'm now using the aftermarket cartridges and inks.

I seem to have a colour balance issue, or that is what I have been told by the supplier.

I'm reasonably technical and think I may need to make a profile to suit the new inks, I'm just not sure how to go about this.

I have attached a picture of the print results. The picture on the left was printed with the original cartridges and the one on the right with the aftermarket cartridges and ink. Below is a print of the the nozzle check which seems OK.

Both the prints were done on the same glossy photo paper.

Any input would be welcomed.

Many thanks

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Please post the nozzle check, I'm assuming that yellow is missing completely since the grass remains blueish and does not turn green at all.

 

[PJV99]

Please post the nozzle check, I'm assuming that yellow is missing completely since the grass remains blueish and does not turn green at all.

Morning

Many thanks for taking the time to reply

If you check at the bottom of the two pic's I've included the nozzle check. All six cart's seem to be working OK.

Interesting I was working on an Autocad drawing with some block yellow. Compared with the drawing printed with the earlier cartridges, although nothing missing the yellow seemed much lighter and less 'richer' if that makes sense.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Nozzle check - yes - you are right - it is printing, but the nozzle check does not give you an indication of the acctual density. There are 2 possibilities - the yellow is far to weak to print similar like the OEM cartridges - or there are incorrect settings in the advanced color adjustments. Do you have another yellow cartridge - either OEM or from another 3rd party manufacturer which you could use to swap and test. This is a kind of typical with 3rd party cartridges - colors are different. You can indeed correct/compensate that detrimental effect with a dedicated icc-color profile, but please consider something else - the durability of prints with such inks is much less than with OEM inks, the fading of such prints can be pretty strong. I'm not familiar in detail with your printer, if there is a refill option available you rather may use Epson original inks for the ET-18100 printer with better performance.

 

[ptprintfan]

Your results made me remember some 3rd party bottle inks I used to refill some cartridges in a Canon printer, I also got a very strong cyan cast; I made some testes between those inks and the OEM and the cyan was ok, the problem was the magenta and the yellow that had a much smaller density. With the same printer and Canon GI-53 bottle inks the color was perfect.

I think probably your best solution is to use refillable cartridges with Epson OEM ink bottles, with that you probably will get very similar results to the OEM cartridges, if not only profiling will solve the color problem.

As Ink stained Fingers said, some 3rd party inks are very poor and fade very quickly; I have used some inks that even in 1 week you could see the colors fading and many times it created a strong color cast.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You probably don't need long term stability for all of your prints but the problem with 3rd party inks and cartridges is that you don't know at all what you get. And yes as @ptprintfan writes it can be just a matter of days or few weeks that your prints change their color, I have seen prints even fading from day to day.

 

[PJV99]

Firstly many thanks for all the input.

I tried a simple thing of increasing the yellow in the advanced colour settings. Just didn't make the yellow any better just emptied the cartridge!

So taking advice I think I'm going for original Epson ink. Can anyone advise where the largest (say 100ml) bottles of genuine Epson ink are available from.

I did find some 70ml but I'm thinking that the larger the more economical.

Can I keep my replacement refillable cartridges or should I replace them?

Once again thanks for the advice.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not familiar with the refill options for your printer, you would need to check with a seller in your country, here is an overview of items - carts - chips which are available in Germany

https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/en/search?p=2&sSearch=xp-970

You have the choice of the inks - you may as well use 2 cartridge sets - one with a budget ink and another one with the Epson inks.

The Epson inks for the Megatank printer come in bottles - typically in the range of 65 - 70 ml, there is no other size available, black inks typically come in 130 - 140 ml bottles. You would need to compare the pricing per ml or l for the bottled inks vs. the inks in cartridges which typically come in 10 - 12 ml carts.

I don't know what typeyour refillable carts are - with an ARC - autoreset chip ? You may test them that they cause no other problems for the ink flow.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Please be aware that Epson is offering at lest 2 families of inksets with different longevity levels - one family of inks runs on the 'photo' printers like the ET-8550 or ET-7700 or ET-18100 which are all megatank printers with bottles for Ecotank inks. Another family of inks encompasses those for the universal home/home office type printers with lots of Ecotank and cartridge type models, with inks like the 664 or 102 or 104, some of these inks come with a pigment black, and the longevity of the CMY dye inks is not really better than inks from 3rd party suppliers like InkTec; those inks are not all alike but weaker than the 'photo' type inks. And Epson (like Canon as well) is using different numbers for the inks in different business regions around the world which is adding the confusion.

And there is another detail I need to mention - the longevity performance of an ink cannot be judged just on itself - the paper these inks are printed on have a significant impact onto the longevity performance of an ink, it appears as if some papers - actually the coating - provide a kind of protection for the inks.

 

[PJV99]

My XP-970 uses what Epson term as 'Claria Ink' in both standard 24 and 24XL.

I have aftermarket refillable cartridges that self reset.

If I search Claria on the Epson sight I get an option of the 114 range of inks in 70ml bottles.

I guess what i'm looking for is a product that has the same specification as 'Claria' ink available in the 6 colours ( B, Y, M, C, LM, and LC ) and if possible around 100ml bottles.