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HP L26500 washed out prints – help required, please?
Hi all,
Our HP L26500 has been printing pretty poor on certain substrates (mainly papers) over the past few months but it’s got the point where we now have to get it sorted.
Prints (especially posters) are just not vibrant at all and look like they’ve been sat in the sun for a while (almost faded in appearance), and other substrates seem to take on completely different colours to what they should do (blues coming out purple, greens coming out blue).We contacted Art Systems (the company we bought it from several years back) but the cost is somewhat extortionate to get and engineer to even speak to us!!
Can anyone recommend any engineers that may be able to help?
At first we thought it was profile issues, but we really don’t think it’s that anymore as we’re using purpose built profiles for both the substrates and our machine.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Pete.
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5 Replies
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Hi Peter
Might sound a daft question but do you change the print heads regularly ? Latex technology is so different to Solvent/Eco Sol as it uses Thermal ink jet print heads.
They are viewed as a consumable (and only warranted for 1 litre of ink through them) – On average we used to say best performance from colour and vibrancy is within the first 4 litres (approx. 5 cartridges)
During the lifetime more and more nozzles will block and although the printer will still print you will suffer an ever less vibrant palette of colours.
If you have never changed a print head (and have used more than 5 cartridges for each colour) I would suggest order a full new set of print heads and replace them.
If your heads are really old this could fix the problem without the need of an engineer (they are operator replaceable)
You should be able to check your printer log and see how many litres has gone through each print head before you decide to replace
Hope this helps
Stuart
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Hi Stuart,
Thanks for your reply!
We change the printheads when the printer instructs us to do so, in all honesty, it’s been a little while since the last time.
I’ve had a look through the printer logs but can’t seem to find the information on how much ink has passed through them… I’ve got a full set of new printheads in stock so I’ll try replacing them all and see if this helps at all!
Will let you know how I get on!
Thanks again,
Pete.
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My god it worked!!
I changed all 6 printheads for brand new ones and it’s a million times better! Still think we may have some profiling issues but the general colouring and look of the prints is so much better!!
Thank you so much Stuart, saved us an absolute fortune!!
Regards,
Pete.
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Hi Pete
No problem at all and glad it helped
I don’t think you’re the only one that will have suffered from this – As you say the printer will tell if the Printhead is broken/faulty/damaged and to change it, but it wont advise you that the Printhead is getting "tired".
I normally suggest to users to print a good colour reference print with various pantones/process colours when they first get a printer or change to new printheads. Then you can reprint this same reference file if you’re experiencing issues in the future to check colour vibrancy.
Its also useful to do this if you have particular repeat contracts to print a reference print at the start of each contract (ideally on fresh printheads) which will help produce consistent prints over the length of a contract.
Stuart
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Hi Peter, We had washed out colours when printing on PVC banners but that was 3 years ago. But eventually comes down to the rip and profiles. We use onyx and wasatch.
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