Epson Artisan 1430 missing/incorrect colors?

[whereISpurple]

Hello everyone.

My printer is at maybe 4 months of use. Through this time period I have replaced the black ink cart probably 3 times with non-OEM carts, and just recently replaced all of the color carts with non-OEM ones as well.

This is precisely when I started having problems. Most of the colors look right, but certain dark purples do not print at all. If I print a color wheel, there is no dark purples. Anything that is dark purple prints a vibrant sky blue, yet the more pinkish purples print accurately. I have also noticed that grey now prints with an unacceptable tint of blue. I cannot get a reddish grey anymore. It did still print the proper grey before replacing the color carts, even with my non-OEM black.

I figured my problem would most likely be the non-OEM magenta cart being too cruddy, so I purchased a genuine magenta which made no difference at all in print quality or colors. Genuine carts are about $22 a piece and there is yellow, magenta, light magenta, cyan and light cyan. That's $110 worth of color carts, and I'm not even sure at this point if re-buying all of them is going to fix this problem? Is it really a magic combination of ALL of the color carts in order to get correct color prints?

My non-OEM carts were purchased from - http://stores.ebay.com/inkcartridgesupply1/
at the recommendation of a review that I watched on the printer before buying it.

I know they are incredibly inexpensive carts, but I was so satisfied with the black that I figured the colors would also be satisfactory. If these carts are no good, what is any reputable non-OEM I can buy for the T079 series?

Again, I'm not totally sure this is this even a cart issue, or if the problem goes maybe further than that. Could it be a hardware issue, or possibly a driver/software issue? I've tried about everything I can think of short of replacing every single color cart with genuine.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Could you please print, scan and post here your nozzle print check pattern to check whether a
particular color is missing

 

[cls]

almost 100% sure that the nozzle check will be missing Magenta nozzels at least by 50%

 

[The Hat]

Hi @wherelSpurple and welcome.
The only other thing that I can add to the other excellent contributors is the ink itself, it is of extremely to low quality, the free shipping is always a dead give away.

Get a set of refillable carts and good inks and your problems will be few, changing just one colour in an ink set can throw the whole colour balance completely out (PrecisionColors.com)

 

[whereISpurple]

My scanner would only recognize the printoff in black and white mode. So if this is somehow helpful, here is the scan. The yellow is hard to see in the scan, but I still can see it on the paper. Maybe a bit faint, but no gaps or anything in it.

Here is an example of what my greys print like (top) when they are supposed to look like the bottom one.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I have turned up the contrast,

all colors are printed, that is assurance that no color e.g. a light color is missing from the
use of non-OEM cartridges.

You should become aware of the basics and need of color management, 3rd party inks and as well non-OEM papers
both have influence on the color appearance, and worse - comparing colors on the screen against printouts will lead to wide differences. For a start I would recommend to get familiar with the need of a icc/icm color profile measured with your inks on your paper, and then activating this profile in that application from where you typically print your images. the other step would require the callibration of your monitor with a suitable instrument like Color Munki or similar. These steps standardize the look of the colors both on the monitor and the printouts, this calibration of the monitor and the printer
counteracts and corrects the variations introduced from the hardware and the inks.

 

[cls]

So far so good no missfiring or blocked nozzels

 

[whereISpurple]

Would any of you recommend, or have any comment on DL Products brand compatible cartridges? I'm thinking of switching to them.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not aware of any Fujifilm Drylab compatible cartridges, Epson runs a similar product portfolio with their Surelab printers and inks, and they are in the same price range. I did some comparative
testing of various dye inks earlier this year, and only the DL inks stand out in therms of longevity - by far.
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/non-oem-ink-for-epson-1500w.10072/#post-83663
Inkjetmall is one of the very few companies actually talking about longevity of their dye inks, they offer a dye ink which they claim to last longer than other inks , I have not tested those, they are pricewise not attractive over the DL inks.

http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/sc.29/category.90144/.f

 

[whereISpurple]

Well guys, I switched ink sources and... no luck. The color balance has changed, but is still wrong. Now, instead of having a blue tint to everything, I have a red tint to everything. Blacks are reddish, greys are burgundy. Already did another nozzle cleaning.

I just don't get it. Why is the color balance always off? I'm pretty disappointed in this printer overall. It worked well for the first 3 or 4 months, and now has decided to quit as soon as I stop using the ink that came with the machine. I guess there is still a manufacturer warranty?