Epson sp1400 refill noob question

[Freestyledork]

I just purchased the Epson sp1400 printer wanting to print some larger formats. Very eager to see how this printer would perform I printed some test photos. 3 prints later I noticed I had already used 1/4 the ink on 3 colors. So I had looked at refillable carts before purchase but only knew that it was possible. The only place that I thought to buy them was ebay. So I bought a set of prefilled for around $26 shipped and thought if this works ill buy the ink and refill them. Now when the ink came in I switched the cartridges and printed a test page. After I printed the test page I noticed that the black and white portion had a dark navy blue hint to it. Now my understanding is that this is caused when printing on photo paper the printer uses the color inks to make black. (this is just what I heard)
Now under further research everyone talks about profiles and such. Now I know I'm probably asking a question that is already answered on here but I don't know what to search for the answer. I'm guessing my printer profiles are wrong... If anyone could help guide me in the right direction on how to fix this problem you help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

The Ink I bought.......
PREFILLED Refillable Cartridges Epson SP1400 1400
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310087356083

Thanks.

 

[Freestyledork]

anybody?

 

[Freestyledork]

I found this in one of the PDF files they sent me...

Things to watch for;
1) dripping, puddling, streaming flows of ink (air issues)
2) large banding (missing colors) (white areas) (prime issues)
3) emptying ink cartridges (air issues)
4) colorations wrong colors or mixed colors (air issues)
5) color shift, prints tend to be pink or green (driver setup)
The fix for items 1 to 4 are actually printing and head cleanings.
You cannot stop the prime process once started, have time available to
complete the job at hand. Item 3 is a end result of item 2 symptoms.
Complete the priming process BEFORE walking away from the printer.
1) Use the plain paper profile & the gloss paper paper to isolate the
bleeding color first, then print single color charts to prime this cart
only. If you cannot isolate print each single color chart using both
profiles twice each job. Remember to use plain paper to print on.
2) Banding is printhead starvation, perform a head cleaning to
establish flow. Up to three may be required, but perform a nozzle
check between each one to ensure you dont over do it.
3) Emptying tanks is a sign that you didnt fully prime those carts. It is
best to err, thoroughly running in (printing) with your new system.
4) Weird or mixing colors is from a bleeder as in item 1 or a very wet
waste pad and ink is dragging with the printhead across the paper.
The fix for this is to clean the waste pad thoroughly and then
immediately isolate the bleeding color, through the use of single
color charts.
5) Using third party software like Photoshop or CS is great, but dont
forget to read about and turn off your standard driver in printer
poperties. You can drive the colors twice causing this issue. Global
colorations like green cast or pink cast throughout the image is a
symptom of this.

 

[fortisi876]

By no stretch of the imagination am I well versed in fixing a printer, but since I have the same printer and interested in finding a set of refillable carts and good ink replacement.....I'd like to see how this pans out. So I have a question, not knowing what your test page is.......have you performed a nozzle check since popping in all 6 new carts? If yes, what does that tell you? And what type of paper are you printing on?

 

[Freestyledork]

Yes I have done a nozzle check and a bunch of other tests. Nothing really solving the problem but eliminating what would seem to be the easier fixes.
I have a bunch of photos of the OEM ink prints and the refills. I was working with the company that I purchased the ink from today for 6 hours. didn't quite get to the answer but I have a lot better understanding on how all this profiling stuff works. I will upload the photos for you to review maybe you know something he doesn't.
There is one original epson print in there its the one where the gray looks gray not blue.

 

[ghwellsjr]

First off, your pictures are not showing up on my screen, there's just a website starting off mail.google.com and I cannot even copy the link.

Secondly, I don't know if Epson printers work like the Canons I have, but if you replace a cartridge that has used only 1/4 of the ink and replaced it with another one that is full, you will need to do a manual print head cleaning to get the ink flowing out of the new cartridges.

 

[Freestyledork]

here are the photos sorry about that.

you can see the one photo has the grayscale that's the one that I printed with the ink I had.

 

[Freestyledork]

First off, your pictures are not showing up on my screen, there's just a website starting off mail.google.com and I cannot even copy the link.

Secondly, I don't know if Epson printers work like the Canons I have, but if you replace a cartridge that has used only 1/4 of the ink and replaced it with another one that is full, you will need to do a manual print head cleaning to get the ink flowing out of the new cartridges.

What do you mean manual print head cleaning?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Canon printers will perform a print head cleaning (also called priming or purging) automatically whenever it determines a need for it but you can also make it happen whenever you want by selecting options on the computer's control panel for the printer. You can also do this on most Canon printers by simply turning the power off and back on and attempting to print something. You can tell when a Canon printer is doing a cleaning cycle because it doesn't print immediately, it performs a lot of gyrations that make noise and take time. I have no idea how you do this with an Epson printer.

 

[lolopr1]

The only way you can fix the problem is by profiling. You need to match the inks to the paper you are going to use, that is the only way to obtain an accurate print when you switch to aftermarket inks. Another problem that you may come across is low quality inks (specially for Epson models), I personally will recommend you to use Image Specialist inks for your printer model.