Epson L360, 50 shades of black on each print head pass

ajayver

Newbie to Printing
Joined
May 11, 2018
Messages
1
Reaction score
1
Points
6
Printer Model
Epson L800 X2, WF-7210, L360
Greetings to all community members!

I have several epsons for years now and I have a small print shop. For cheap flyers printing, I use Epson 360 with non OEM inks and it has been working great for around 12K full color A4 prints. The quality was acceptable and the main thing - it was stable, not good, not bad, but always same.

A couple of months ago the printer maintenance box reported to be full, I took it out, cleaned, dried, put it back and reset the box with wicReset software. While I was cleaning and drying the box, the printer stod on the front side where buttons are for around 4 hours until I understood that I shouldn't have done that. The ink tank was on the table in normal position all this time.

When I tried to print something, I got unusual random horizontal stripes only in black color (nozzle check is perfect). I printed a 100% black page and the result was surprising. Apparently, the print head changes the intensity of spraying the ink on different passes. The changes are random from page to page.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HqpIduGcI6zpYkyZwOAmGskhvxxFfz4N

https://drive.google.com/open?id=18gBRDlY7BGw1VgKO62i211c-ckmNUCUO

If I try to print on the best quality, the black looks perfect, so this happens only on the standard mode, that I use on this printer. If I raise the ink tank, the quality becomes much more stable but still, random fading occurs.

It looks like ink starvation, but it changes so fast with every pass. I thought maybe the ink line gets blocked, so I printed a narrow 5cm black column in the middle of a white page so the print head doesn't move a lot and again, same random lightning-fast changes of shades on every pass.


Maybe there is unwanted air somewhere, but how to determine where and how to get rid of it?

Any ideas?
 

Ink stained Fingers

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
Messages
5,838
Reaction score
6,964
Points
363
Location
Germany
Printer Model
L805, WF2010, ET8550
Please rescan the nozzle check, just the small portion, with a higher resolution than the full page, and you may directly upload image here to your posting with 'Upload a File'.
There are some different possibilities for your problem - the ink tubing goes to the printhead, there are some cartridge like inserts in the printhead carriage - dampers - connected to the ink tubes. These dampers contain a small and very fine wire mesh filter which may clog and impede the ink flow. These dampers are available as Epson spare parts or as well from China via Aliexpress.
You have been using already WicReset, this software has a function button for 'Ink charge' which effectively is a much extended cleaning cycle. You may try that and monitor the printout afterwards. And you may disconnect the ink tube from the black ink damper, take it out and fill it with a cleaner and run a cleaning cycle or two which might flush the nozzles if the blockage is directly in the nozzles.
 
Top