Epson Drylab inks in L1800

well I don't have it myself, but this problem happened for my clients using L800.

There are extensive results on google if you search for:

epson l800 полосы при печати

http://forum.trade-print.ru/showthread.php?t=17050
http://resetters.ru/index.php?showtopic=29571
http://вбухте.рф/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2601
http://www.repair-printer.ru/topic24231.html
http://www.startcopy.su/forum/msg/07761.html
http://ispytano.ru/-reiting_page_4476

I know microbanding but the actual reason can vary and sometimes is hard to identify.
I have it most visible on some old canon's (ip4000 s9000) which printheads might be worn out. The S9000 as the i9100 were known for microbanding in light blue skies and I could not get rid of it too.
My two r285 are showing microbanding in certain areas or with certain testphotos and I guess it's the printhead... at least it could not be due to the L-series, because this printer is like a L800 without ciss / tubing / dampers

PS: but I admit, you have to be aware of air in the tubes or dampers - like with all other printers with stationary carts which don't sit on the printhead. Sometimes a deep clean is needed. And there is one more simple and stupid risk: running the printer while the lever of the ciss is on "transportation". Which means the ink flow is interrupted by the user.. yes I did that already..

The problem seems to be related to printhead and ink supply system. Many on Russian forums reports this with EPSON inks, so it's no ink related.

O.k., thanks, I'm happy I don't see such effects at this time, and one of the links above just shows missing nozzles. It would be difficult anyway to solve other people's problems here. One link just shows missing nozzles, another a nozzle check with irregular steps. I have seen that before, with Epsons, and Canons, and Brother as well, it's not specific to the L800 etc models. That is supposedly some deposit at the rim of the hozzle holes deflecting the direction of the ink stream. And I'm pretty sure, I have seen this in the past, it's something with the inks, some impurities, all of it, dyes and solvents, are industrial grade quality, with high purity, but never 100%. I even have seen that those effects went away by changing the ink/supplier - another brand. Cleaning/soaking the nozzle plate with a solvent fixed some of that, but not for a longer time.

Smile said:

well I don't have it myself, but this problem happened for my clients using L800.

There are extensive results on google if you search for:

epson l800 полосы при печати

http://forum.trade-print.ru/showthread.php?t=17050
http://resetters.ru/index.php?showtopic=29571
http://вбухте.рф/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2601
http://www.repair-printer.ru/topic24231.html
http://www.startcopy.su/forum/msg/07761.html
http://ispytano.ru/-reiting_page_4476

Click to expand...

Well that links contain some heavy duty banding, print like that is directly for service visit. But in my case banding is much more delicate, it is way smaller and less noticable, usually present only with some color tones. It varies, sometimes the blues in the sky, other time oranges in skin or greens in vegetation. It is just uncontrolable and i dont find a way to remove it completely. Sometimes it is there sometimes there is none. Seems like the paper has influence too. In my case matte is banding more than lustre.

Below are macro shots of banding issue. I had a lot of difficulties with this specific print, i think i made more than 5 prints with different settings and even the best one was not without this sort of banding. I know this is very small banding but this is not perfect print for me and prints like that can not be sold.

I tried everything with Epson drivers and their alighment options but with no luck. One of my L1800 had a head replacement recently and i noticed that they used some different program for head alighment (Printer adjustment program 1.0.0.). Anyone knows anything about it?

I don’t have any Epson printers so I maybe a million miles away with this but in all honesty it looks to me to be ink starvation or nozzle failure, I know it only seems to appear in the cyan but magenta also plays a great part in blue skies.

The heads on the printer also look to be firing ink wildly all over the place.

DryAxE, I assume that the banding in your images is in direction of the printhead movement, a nozzle check would help to identify where the problem is.

Let me give you an example:

That's part of a nozzle check of my Pro 7600 which was resting for several days. One of the black nozzles is pretty much out of track. I just print one or two pages of text, and the problem is gone, in this case. Cleaning would help as well but using/wasting inks which are not affected here. This effect repeats after some time but does not affect me really as long as it is easily printed away.

Here another example:


That's part of an L300 nozzle check, the yellow very much enhanced by contrast, there is no step anymore for the top nozzle, something barely visible without a little UV LED lamp. This would create blue lines in green areas - cyan + yellow = green, and without yellow that track stays cyan. You might be misled in that
case to think there is a cyan problem - no.
The L300 does not do very many purge cycles on its own, so this problem stays for a while, I'm not printing
images on this unit so I don't really care but I know that the problem goes away with a cleaning cycle.
So far so good, I have seen similar effects with lots of other printers, Epson, Canons and Brothers where the little check blocks are not positioned equally. A purge cycle helped in some cases, the problems were much more persistent in other cases. Placing the printhead onto a piece of kitchen paper soaked with some
cleaning agent, alcalic, ammonia, your choice whatever helped in most cases, but not in all of them. I have used cartridges filled with some cleaning agent and 'printed' with that stuff, it helped as well in some cases. And I have observed the effect that changing the ink from one supplier to another solved such problem as well in some cases. I didn't do that intentionally in the beginning , one ink was running out and I filled up with another brand, yes that made a difference, after a while, not immediately. But I cannot tell you at this time which ink was worse or better, I'm frequently using different brands of inks.
I have seen similar comments in other forums that the cause is apparently some residue buildup at the rim of the nozzle holes deflecting the ink stream when leaving the nozzles, and that this residue can be cleaned away, more easily or not at all. I do not have the chance to inspect my printheads under a microscope to verify this but it sounds good enough as an assumption to work with, but it may not explain all of the effects. In general I would not believe that this problem is unique to the L1800, I have seen those deflected nozzles too often already.

On the deflection issue this is invariably deposits in the ink that are adhering to the nozzle. Algae is a prime suspect and the cause for my first experience of the issue.

I first noted it back in 2007
http://www.continuousink.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=34148#34148

Flushing the CIS and replacing the ink was the only solution we every found.

On the microbanding issue, I've yet to play with our L series printers that we bought in but having seen the build quality on the L1300 and L1800 I'll be interested to see if the issue is related to quality control. I've been pretty disappointed with the packaging and evident lack of care in most aspects of these printers.

I suspect we're drifting off topic though... The discussion about fade characteristics for different inks has been incredibly informative.

I have seen fungus in inks, clogging nozzles and filters in refill cartridges, and even in ink bottles. But whether these deflected nozzles are caused by it - I have some doubts. O.k., even as a working assumption the consequence is the same - replacing a printhead won't really fix it for the long term. I remember some discussion long time ago at the Photokina exhibition with a 3rd party ink supplier about this and that, pricing, patents etc. Glycoles are the main ingredient of the ink solvent, and companies with the cheap inks would work with less purity than his company and Epson, Canon etc. - 99.9% vs. 99.999% . I can't verify this, I'm not in the ink business, only as a customer, but nevertheless purity of technical (or medical) substances very much drive the price of those, I'll leave it like that.
( We may have opened another thread, but it all started with the L1800 and inks for it as the title states. I cannot compare the L1800 , the assembly, quality etc to its sibling 1400, that may be another thread indeed)

Ink stained Fingers said:

I have seen fungus in inks, clogging nozzles and filters in refill cartridges, and even in ink bottles. But whether these deflected nozzles are caused by it - I have some doubts. O.k., even as a working assumption the consequence is the same - replacing a printhead won't really fix it for the long term.

Click to expand...

In terms of physical cause the issue that I experienced with the R300, and have since seen repeated with other end-users, the solution has tended to be a flush and replacement of the ink with a new batch/manufacture.

My educated guess is that with the R300 the cause was algae of sufficient adhesion that it partially clogged the nozzles and created the deflection. We confirmed algae was present in the affected ink in that case so that's not a huge stretch. Oh and just to note the issue appeared over time, after 2+ years of successful use.

That said, I'm fully aware that it's tempting to see every problem as a nail if you have a hammer so I'm by no means suggesting that ALL deflection issues are algae related but it is one to consider.

I cannot compare the L1800 , the assembly, quality etc to its sibling 1400, that may be another thread indeed

Click to expand...

It's one I think that's worth doing as the built quality on the L1800 and L1300 I've unpacked and checked over here has really been a shock compared to earlier models like the Photo 1400, B1100 and a few others... But as you say... new thread, different day...