IP3000 color problem - or lack there of

[dangerzAU]

Hi People,
Long time listner first time caller so to speak.

I've been having quite a bit of bother with my printer as of late.

I am currently using refills in the IP3000 and up until now this has not been a problem.

What is occuring is that Yellow will print without issue. In fact it prints so well everything has a yellow hue to it at the moment,
cyan prints fine (Blue right?) magenta prints fine. However:

When i do a nozzle check and it shows for example a full strength Cyan, Magenta, Or Yellow underneath that horizontal bar of color there should be a half strength print of that color... I'm not getting th ehalf strength.

Printing isn't working correcting in that the colors dont seem to be mixing correctly.

Long storey short I have a test pattern i'm trying to use and the grey border around it just prints as yellow.

NOW... this same test pattern, if i print it continuously for about 12-15 prints, all of a sudden it will print fine. So long as I dont let the printer sit for more than half an hour of idle, I can keep printing photos, cd's documents u name it .. its as if there was nothing wrong with it. However... leave the printer for an hour and BOOM.. back to square one needing to print another 15 wasted pages to get printer going again.

I've replaced the cartridges in case they were the problem, tried diff gromits to plug refill holes and that hasn't helped, tonight i stripped the printer down - washed out the ink sponges in the base of th eprinter and have blasted the purge lines with water. The only one that seemed to initially need some sort of heavy pressure applied was the black.. Now they're all flushed and printer is outside in the dark drying for tomorrows tests.

Ohh as a side note, if i print a black word docuemnt, everything prints out fine.

If i could work out how to upload pics i would....

Does anyone have any ideas of what to check or what could cause this kind of behaviour?

 

[Ron350]

Hello dangerzAU

If you removed and washed out all 6 of your waste ink absorber pads dont forget to do a final rinse with a little bleach in the water to prevent mold growth.

 

[embguy]

Sound like cross contamination of yellow color to other color.

Is the printing return to normal after doing a cleaning cycle?

Search this forum with keyword "cross contamination". It depends on the cause of the cross contamination. You may need to replace the printhead.

 

[dangerzAU]

No Cross Contamination occuring from what I can. It simply refuses to print certain colors.

I cleaned out the purge lines last night, the black was blocked which was kind of annoying considering my problems color.. lol

This morning printing out the extended nozzle check I get the same problem as always I can print full color type things, halftones dont print.

Printing my test pattern which uses all colors, still grey ... wait.. hold that thought... half way down the page and now grey is kinda printing... Will do another one.. hold on a tic...

RESULT~!!!!1... its printing perfect.... Now to leave it for a few hours and see if its still fantastic when i come back... fingers crossed.

Thanks for the tip bleech... did that...

Lets try a photo and see how that goes...

and... EPIC FAIL.... blues are printing - reds print -

Prints look like someones taken the contrast control and boosted it all the way up, although in saying that.. printing a photo of my baby girl, and her face is washed out.. her hand is perfect... hmmmm
I try another one.

Might still be feeding ink through everything again.. who knows.

 

[dangerzAU]

Update - Have been printing all day onto cd's and plain paper. With these settings Cd's print perfectly not a single problem. If i then switch to plain paper full color dvd covers - The colors are fine however I have banding through the image which to me seems to be being caused by the blue ink.

Nozzle check is STILL not printing correctly. That said, I've just tried a photo telling the printer i have photo paper plus glossy and the start of the image which is a picture of my baby girls face, is yellow, where as second half is fine.

Now trying as a test to use an A4 piece of photo paper and print four borerdless images to it. The results are far less than perfect.

As a side note, I printed on a cd today which was a photo - Picture printed perfectly, skin tones were correct and everything... GRRR this is doing my head in.. I'm almost at the point of just buying a new printer!