Magenta problems Pro9500

[rodbam]

My Pro9000 is having bad Photo magenta nozzle checks & now my Pro9500 is exhibiting very strange behavior. This came to light when I tried to profile my new Bright white matte paper with the Colormunki Photo & the first test chart was not good at all. The first shows an old test print & that's how it should look but the new one seemed to have trouble mixing colours & there was magenta smudges outside of the print area (second shot)
I got a poor nozzle check with the first edge of the magenta looking very bitty but after a few hours soaking the head in Windex & general flushing the nozzle check looked good but there was still some smudges off the black lines.
I added some water to the purge pads & did a shut down start up & the water seem to have gone but the back pad still looked quite wet. There's a lot of stray magenta ink around it too.
The other strange thing is I seem to get decent prints still, this one on cheap Kodak gloss & I can't find any problems with it.
Any ideas anyone as to what is going on?
Stop laughing Hat

 

[PeterBJ]

Your image #2 looks to me like the light spots in the upper left corner could be caused by abrasion, so is the paper perfectly flat or curled?

Image #4 indicates that a print head alignment is needed, as the registration is not perfect with green at the left edge and red at the right edge of the vertical black bars. I wonder if this could be a jpg artifact or caused by the scanner, so does your print look similar?

Here is a crop magnified 5 times:

 

[mikling]

Rod, try servicing the magenta cartridge. Flush it through with something like windex with ammonia and then inflate and deflate fully with air a couple times. You can use the orange cap and syringe etc. I seem to think you have ink delivery issues on the magenta channel.
Either it is the printhead or the cartridge.
Have you tried popping another magenta cartridge in there?

 

[rodbam]

Thanks Peter & Mike Some of my shots posted above might give you the wrong idea because they were all taken with my camera & flash so the light spots Peter is seeing is just glare from the flash. If you just concentrate on where I have marked the shots this shows the problem areas, sorry about the false clues as I don't have a scanner hooked up & I can take closer shots of problem areas with my camera. I'm posting a close up of the nozzle check where the red smudges are more obvious as your blow up Peter was as you thought Jpeg artifacts.
I did a head alignment & in the grey bars we can see magenta being mixed into the grey.
I just did a quick test & printed the two test charts that were side by side in the shot in my first post to see if the printer would print the colour correctly in the good colour patch print & it did print the colour ok. How can the printer make a mess out of printing those colours in the colour patchs when I'm trying to profile yet it can print those colours from my photo of the good patches?
Mike I did change the carts & all the problems remained so I will do a flush & see if that helps Does all the ink around the purge pads look normal & would a dodgy purge unit cause the problems I'm having?

 

[mikling]

The problem appears to be dynamic and not steady state. In the first and second picture, is the direction of the chevron printing from the top to bottom or bottom? I assume the printhead is printing horizontally across the images shown.

Ok, now let's take a look closely at what is going on. In the case of the first image, when the printhead is printing the yellow, as it is going across, it is first asked to deliver a little magenta just at the edge tips of the chevron. It appears to do this fine at the start. Now progressing further down, you can see when it is asked to deliver a higher volume and rate as well. This is when it gets into trouble and is unable to do so.
The second image shows the same effect. This is an ink delivery problem. On some photos you will not pick this up but on these solid patches where a pronounced sustained STEADY and HIGH demand is asked, it shows its problem.
This could be the result of an ink, cartridge or printhead issue. I will assume that the ink is the same used as 6 months ago and that it has been stored properly. It could also be the result of some increased resistance within the printhead causing higher resistance to flow and the same effect could also be in the cartridge...There is the remote possibility that the circuit to drive the printhead cannot maintain a sustained energy output to the heaters but I would think this is highly unlikely. So of the remaining three possibilities I would possibly rule out the printhead BUT have you flushed through the printhead as yet? or just soaked?

Test..

Move on to the cartridge....service it and refill.

Test..

Move on to the ink and see.

Since we know that it printed perfectly 6 months ago, our task is to isolate what of the three is causing this.

 

[rodbam]

............is the direction of the chevron printing from the top to bottom or bottom? I assume the printhead is printing horizontally across the images shown...............
Yes it's printed horizontally across the images & from top to bottom.

.................have you flushed through the printhead as yet? or just soaked?..................
I've soaked the printhead for about 3 hours in Windex I also let filtered water run on to the head inlets where the filters are to try & force water through the heads. I also used a syringe & needle to try & force Windex & then water through the inlets. Because of the odd shape of the inlets I can't attach any tubing to really give the head a good flush. Has there been any flushing techniques for the pro9500 posted here?

I might buy an OEM magenta cart so we can rule the cart out & ink out.

What can you make of the printhead alignment printout where the magenta has been mixed in with the grey? I assume that line should be all grey.

I know what you mean about dynamic even though every different fault shown above is repeatable producing the same results each time.
Yes the inks are the same for all the printouts although I'm getting low & need to reorder.
Thanks for your help Mike I will now have a look at the carts

 

[mikling]

............is the direction of the chevron printing from the top to bottom or bottom? I assume the printhead is printing horizontally across the images shown...............
Yes it's printed horizontally across the images & from top to bottom.

.................have you flushed through the printhead as yet? or just soaked?..................
I've soaked the printhead for about 3 hours in Windex I also let filtered water run on to the head inlets where the filters are to try & force water through the heads. I also used a syringe & needle to try & force Windex & then water through the inlets. Because of the odd shape of the inlets I can't attach any tubing to really give the head a good flush. Has there been any flushing techniques for the pro9500 posted here?

I might buy an OEM magenta cart so we can rule the cart out & ink out.

What can you make of the printhead alignment printout where the magenta has been mixed in with the grey? I assume that line should be all grey.

I know what you mean about dynamic even though every different fault shown above is repeatable producing the same results each time.
Yes the inks are the same for all the printouts although I'm getting low & need to reorder.
Thanks for your help Mike I will now have a look at the carts

In cases where there is flow, you might consider filling the cartridge with windex..which you will do. and then use this as a cleaning cartridge to pull windex through the printhead. Do this twice and let it stand for a while between the cleans.

I would not use a pressure method unless I had to. Windex will break down any sediment in there that might have clung to the walls...assuming that there is buildup inside... my suspicion still goes to the cartridge system. Magenta has a high level of pigment solids and there could be a buildup inside the pads of the cartridge. After you saturate the cart with windex, use a syringe and gently produce a vacuum around the pad area. If you have a precise vacuum system, it is ideal. Somewhat like what a dentist uses. This is what I use to recondition carts that have had dry pads. Remember to fill the cart a little with some ink, shake to rinse the insides and then evacuate before filling completely with ink.

It's too bad you don't have a scanner because I think I am seeing a similar effect on other colors on your alignment but it could be the way the image is captured.

How much ink is left in the bottle? and is there any possibility that the ink dried inside the bottle due to the small amount of ink in large volume of the empty bottle?

 

[rodbam]

........ use this as a cleaning cartridge to pull windex through the printhead..................
Do I put the cart filled with Windex in the printer & run a clean?
I have just washed out a cart with filtered water & the printout is just the same as before although the nozzle check looked better as I couldn't see any magenta smears on the black lines.
I will now put windex in the cart & see if that helps.
I have a scanner here but I can't get drivers for Win 7 so I will hook it up to my wifes computer & scan in the prints.
Thanks again Mike.

 

[The Hat]

I would recommend you stop fiddling around with the print head before you end up doing something to it that you’ll regret, your problems are in your cartridge not the head.

For whatever reason that a cartridge on the 9500 won’t deliver adequate ink to the print head it’s very good at masking itself as a clog in the heads so you’d be excused into thinking it really was one.

The sponge in the PGI-9 cartridge can get clogged up from pigment particles or dried ink lodging on the inside, and all the water purging in the world won’t shift it.

I got something very similar in my Matte black cartridge and it nearly drove me mad trying to figure out what was causing it because no matter what I did nothing would clear it.

I used standard washing up liquid (Fairy) and warm water to pump the solution from the syringe into the cartridge and out again about a half dozen times using one of my refill clips and then left the solution in the cartridge for over half a hour.

I then rinsed the cartridges out with water three or four times and then half filled it with ink and flushed that in and out several also, then finally refilled the cartridge with new ink and have had no more problems with that cartridge since, to be fair this cartridge had been previously filled 20 or 30 times before this happened.

I now mark any of the cartridges with a triangle that I have given this purge too (Three so far) it makes for an easy record, just in case the same problem crops up again in the future.

I would also recommend a manual head alignment instead of an auto one, because you can make a much better judgment call than the printer can, it makes sense to run a Print Alignment Value first that way you can see the previous setting before you make any changes.

I can say my method of completely purging these cartridges is not one that’s whole heartily approved of on this forum, but the results clearly speak for themselves..

 

[mikling]

Rod, use a wet dry shop vacuum and adapt a drinking straw to the end. Fill the cart with windex, then suck the cartridge pads out to remove the pigment sediment. Do this until the pad is pale pink in color or white. I can get mine white with a precise vacuum wand. This will clear the solids in there. The windex is superior in breaking down the embedded pigment particles and the vacuum will take them away.

hat's guess is essentially the same, it is an ink delivery problem and the likely culprit is the cartridge due to pigment buildup and must be cleared.

One other option is to acquire a new cartridge as you've thought about previously and start over with magenta, for many this will be the most sane option and in the meantime when you have some time, you can service the cartridge with no pressure.