Epson 1500W - Borderless Printing Issue

carlosantoniolopez

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After a long gap, I recently decided to make a few prints. After refilling the carts (I'm using Precision Colors ink), I was pleased to get a perfect nozzle check pattern.

However, the prints have a thin, fairly faint, purple line down the left-hand side (i.e., the edge that comes out of the printer first), followed by a broader, somewhat fainter, yellow band parallel to it, and another yellow band on the right-hand side. The rest of the print is fine. Paper is Epson Premium Glossy.

Previous borderless prints I have made, using the same inks and paper, have not had this problem.

Printing with a border seems to be OK. I attach a test image which I hope illustrates the issue (rotated 90 degrees so the left-hand side is at the top). The right-hand panel in the image was printed with a border and looks fine to me.

Any advice gratefully received!
 

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Ink stained Fingers

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I'm not clear yet about some details of your problem - what is the size of the papersheet in your image and the orientation in the printer - is the yellow band in direction of the printhead movement or vertically to it ?
Did you try other driver settings - another glossy paper - another quality setting - if not please try
 

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Any advice gratefully received!
From what I can tell, the colours are supposed to be there because they are helping to make the light blue colour, and where these colours are visible it means the cyan itself is missing and that’s the issue, run a nozzle check and examine the cyan output carefully..
 

carlosantoniolopez

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Thanks, Ink stained Fingers and The Hat, for your replies.

My first prints were on A3 paper. When I spotted the problem, I tried a print on 5"x7", which was the same size as I used for the sample I posted. I used pale blue patches in the sample as that shows the problem quite well, but from the other prints, it affects any coloured background.

The yellow bands (and the purple line) are in the same direction as the printhead movement.

At Ink stained Fingers' suggestion, I dug out some A4 United Office (i.e., Lidl!) Premium Inkjet Photopaper, and tried a couple of prints on that. I used the 'photo quality inkjet paper' setting in the printer driver - it might not be quite right for the paper, but it's different from the 'Epson Premium Glossy' setting I used with the Epson paper.

The first of these was borderless, and that had the purple line and the yellow bands. The second was the same picture, but with a border, and that had no issues.

After that, I ran a nozzle check, and while there were no missing lines, there were some cyan lines amongst the magenta lines. I then did a head clean, and a nozzle check after that was perfect.

The last thing I have done up to now is another 5"x7" print of the blue patch sample that I posted. The yellow bands are still there, but the purple line seems to have gone. Which is an improvement!

Thanks again for your help!
 

Ink stained Fingers

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a nozzle check after that was perfect.
Please post that nozzle check.

The yellow bands are still there,
after the nozzle check was o.k. ?

Please for simplicity cut your A4 paper into 4 pieces - A6 - and use those for testing and test with different quality settings and another paper selection - ultra glossy instead of premium glossy . A6 should be available in the driver.
Does that yellow stripe occur at the top of the printed sheet or at the bottem ? One time only or does it reocccur - e.g. in the middle or in a particular distance ?
 

carlosantoniolopez

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Sorry for the delay in replying - haven't had much time lately!

I'm posting the two nozzle check patterns from yesterday (Nozzle Check Patterns.jpg). The top pattern is before head cleaning, and shows the problem with the magenta. There are also, now I look closely, some broken yellow lines. The bottom pattern is after cleaning, and looks perfect to me.

After cleaning, I printed another copy of the blue patches that I posted yesterday. The two yellow bands that I mentioned in my first post remained, but the purple line had disappeared.

The yellow bands are about 1.5cm in from the left- and right-hand edges of a landscape print (but top and bottom as the print comes out of the printer, if you see what I mean).

In all the borderless prints I have done since the issue arose, the bands are in the same position.

Before submitting this post today, I tried another nozzle check - and the magenta again has some cyan lines in it. This is a bit worrying as it's only 24 hours since cleaning! I printed a Marrutt test pattern, and the magenta is clearly affected. (See Test Pattern.jpg.)

Of course, I could run another head clean... but I don't want to have to do that every day.
 

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Ink stained Fingers

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There is a possibility of a very fine ink leakage between adjacent ink channels inside the printhead, this effect shows ink printing in the wrong ink channel, and the effect is gone - for a short time - after a cleaning cycle, and reappears after days or weeks idling. This cannot be repaired, only a printhead replacement would fix this problem.
 
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carlosantoniolopez

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Aah... that sounds bad, but it would (presumably) explain some of the issues I've been having.

A quick look on ebay shows several Chinese sellers offering replacement heads, at widely varying prices, from about £55 to over £170. The illustrations all look the same; are these replacements likely to give the same performance as the originals?
 

Ink stained Fingers

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All these printheads are salvaged from scrap, cleaned and hopefully tested, there is nevertheless a risk with the printhead and getting support or refund from the seller, and there is a risk with the installation - the flat cable connectors may not be seated properly. I rather would go for a while with the current printhead and do some more cleanings until you come to the conclusion that you rather need a new printer
 
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