Printer problems, Ricoh and Epson!

[harlequeen]

I have a Ricoh 3300 and it's been fine, but today I printed something to put onto a mug and the print came out quite blue, but as it was the first time I'd printed this item, I thought it might be ok.

The sublimated mug came out very blue. So I printed the same design on my Epson which give a colour I could live with, but lo and behold, the Epson wasn't printing black at all, so I've got spots and ghosting on the pinkish one. So Epson is giving very unsharp results.

I wondered if anyone could tell me what might be the issue with the Ricoh. There is plenty of ink left, black is marked as expiry April 2017 and Yellow expires May 2017. Below are a couple of photos which might show what I'm talking about. The mug on the right are more or less the colours that I'm after, the mug on the left has too much blue. The prints show both printers, epson at the top and Ricoh at the bottom.

Is this just an issue of expiry dates>?

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Any help would be appreciated

[Justin]

It could be the expiry dates, I know most inks are fine well after but SG (They are SG inks?) claim they would need changing...but then they would wouldn't they?!?! Support will tell you to replace first. Have you done a nozzle check?

[harlequeen]

Hi, Yes, they are the real McCoy and I've dont the nozzle and head checks, but no change. It's a bit of a bummer as you have to have spare cartridges so if they run out you can swap them in and then they sit for months because they don't need changing. This is the only thing I've printed where it's been really unacceptable though.

[UK Printed Mugs]

I doubt it is inks. For a range of gifts we sell we only use expired inks in our Ricoh's and these can be as much as 18 months old. We have NEVER had any colour issues like you are having. May seem obvious question but have you just printed a RGB colour chart to see if it looks ok?

[harlequeen]

Thanks for the comments. No, I haven't, I don't even have one. Do you suggest I get one and print on a sub item? Should I just get a colour chart from the internet or do I need a particular one. I have had the printer a few years now and it's always worked well. I just don't want to spend money buying new inks, then find it's the printer and I have to buy a new one, with different cartridges. I'm at my wits end as neither of my printers are working well at the moment.

[Ian M]

Paula, in the past when I was having a similar problem I came up with a simple idea to see which colour was causing the problem. That was to have a small strip of the prime colours we use on the edge of paper that you usually trim off to see where the problem was. You would then see if one of the colours was missing or if there were lines in a particular colour. I found it is just a simple idea that does work. This is what I used & hope it helps you find where the problem is.

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[harlequeen]

Thanks Ian, I'll give that a go.

Well I gave it a go and it looks like the magenta and cyan are not doing well. Off to buy some new carts now. thanks for your help all. Lets hope it fixes it.

[webtrekker]

That's a neat idea Ian. A great way of quickly spotting problems on every print.

[logobear]

i don't think it is a single colour issue, the unicorns nose comes out a nice red....
Have you lost the profile?

[harlequeen]

I am using the power driver, from sawgrass and it is certainly selected when I print. I ordered new magenta and cyan and the colour improved slightly, but on the unicorn I can't get the pinks to be pink, (that is the most obvious colour problem) and I've just sublimated a jigsaw and the colours on there are too pink, everyone looks like they are glowing in the cheeks. These used to be simpe to do.

These are the colours I was expecting to print on the unicorn, so you can see that they are way off.

I wouldn't know where to look to check that the power driver is actually there, or being selected or whatever. If I recall correctly, I had to connect to Sawgrass' site to download the driver when i did the set up first. I've just been to the Sawgrass site and couldn't see any driver for the 'R' sublimation inks.

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