Completely stumped...prints very grainy on 7900 with Wasatch Softrip and Sub ink

[MM1287]

I purchased this printer for dye sublimation but I've had no luck getting it to print properly. It is a 10 color printer but I'm using only 4 colors. I was told by Wasatch and other people with sublimation experience that I should have no problem doing this as long as I direct Softrip to print the specific colors out of certain ink channels. That's truly the only reason I purchased Softrip to begin with.

IT support at Wasatch so far hasn't been able to figure out what's going on. If you take a look at the image attached, you should be able to see what I'm talking about (sorry for the low quality...couldn't get my camera to focus). After creating the profile for it, the colors are accurate. It's just the grain that's the problem.

It's getting to the point where I'm considering selling the printer if I can't get it figured out soon. However, I'm concerned about the warranty since I used the non Epson inks. I'd hate to put this printer up for sale and say "warranty is void because I used aftermarket inks." Am I completely SOL with that?

[Phil Indeblanc]

I don't see the picture.

As for warranty, I would think so, unless you can get the original carts in there and do a print.

[TylerB]

just a guess- I wonder if you have built your CMYK channels from just the specific C, M, Y, and K carts. Though there is no attachment to see your grain, that would certainly look grainy. C should be built from both the C and photo C tanks, M from M and photo M, and the K should be built from the K, LK, and LLK tanks. The RIP should have settings to properly control each of those ink components in a single channel.. for example the crossover characteristics of photo C ink tank to C ink tank for the "C" channel. I don't know your RIP, so can't specifically advise. But this could be the problem.

[MM1287]

Sorry not sure why it didn't attach. Please try again in this post.

TylerB...I definitely have it set exactly as you said. All C related slots contain C inks, M slots contain M inks, K slots contain K inks. I set those channels correctly in Wasatch SoftRIP. As I said, I created a profile and the colors were definitely accurate. The grain is really the only issue that I'm having. Wasatch seems to be ignoring me now that they can't figure out what the problem is.

I did speak to a different company that claimed that a printer like this "at least needs the light colors...4 colors won't be enough." I don't know if that's true or not though.

[MM1287]

I'd appreciate any more help. I'm stuck with an expensive printer that I can't use so I'm trying my hardest to figure out what I can possibly do.

[TylerB]

....I did speak to a different company that claimed that a printer like this "at least needs the light colors...4 colors won't be enough." I don't know if that's true or not though.

they are saying essentially what I was.. by light colors I'd think they mean the light component of the basic 4, what I referred to as the "photo" colors, and LK, and LLK. It sounds like you are already doing that, when you said you have it set as "I said"... but then I said 2 things, the wrong way and the right way...
I'm not positive it's set up right, with C and "light/photo" C tanks as the C channel, M and "light/photo" M tanks as the M, LLK+LK+k as the K channel, with all the appropriate control for the light to dark transitions in each channel... in fact, did those "light" colors come with your dye sub inks?

I think you need more support from both the ink supplier and Wasatch

[digitaldog]

I think you need more support from both the ink supplier and Wasatch

Absolutely as the printer can produce superb output. But swap the original inks and driver, who knows wha’s causing this issue. Wasatch should output a file for the OP on their end for one. They need to prove the issue is hardware or the inkset.

[iladi]

Firstly, why did you buy a 7900 printer, when it was more cheap to buy a 5 color printer as a 7700 one?

Second, what color mode do you use for the driver? What have you done with lc, lm, and other channels that are not CMYK? Do you use a dual CMYK mode? What are the printer settings in the RIP?

I'm using Wasatch, custom inks and a 9700 for some years with very good results.

Edit: for me it looks like resolution is too low, or you chose a single size droplet with a very high value. What are your settings?

[MM1287]

TylerB: I only purchased 4 colors (CMYK) but LC, LM, and Gray (I'm assuming this is their LK) are also available for purchase. For the past year, many people have told me that 4 colors should be enough so I didn't think that would give me any problems. I can tell you that my Epson WF7010 is giving me MUCH better quality than the 7900 which doesn't seem right to me. So to clarify, I only use 4 colors and put them into 8 slots - 2 slots have K, 2 have C, 2 have Y, and 2 have M. The other 2 remaining slots in my printer just have distilled water in them.

iladi: I purchased the 7900 because originally I paid for the 7880 from a company for $1745. They promised that they had it in stock but ended up realizing that they sold out. So they offered the 7900 at no additional cost with free shipping. I thought that the 7900 being $2,000 more than the 7880 would have been a steal. Never did I expect to have a strange problem like this. I actually looked for the 7700/9700 because I know tons of companies use that for sublimation but I had absolutely no luck finding it. There technically isn't a "Dual CMYK mode" for the driver so as I said earlier in this post, I had to direct SoftRIP to pull the inks from each channel that I filled in with the specific inks. So for example my Green slot has yellow ink so I have that set in SoftRIP.

As for my ink, I tried 720x720, 720x1440, and 1440x1440 set at variable dot. I tried both fixed and variable and I got those weird dots no matter what I tried, but 1440x1440 did give me the best results (fewer dots but still there). Wasatch told me that I should be using variable dot since I'm not trying to print halftones. I'm seeing that many people on other forums are using 360x720 just fine for sublimation so I'm completely confused about that. 1440x1440 did print EXTREMELY slow though.

[Ernst Dinkla]

It is not that I know all the details of the Wasatch SoftRip anymore (and do not want to study it again) and do not know the issues of sublimation printing but did you already limit the inks more? I mean it basically squirts two CMYK images in your setup. Did Wasatch suggest which dual CMYK media preset you should use given the media you have? Both the resolution choice and the ink limitation influences the droplet sizes used in printing. Only if the ink limitation is right for the media used you can start with the profile creation which in your case should be done on a target that is already sublimated to the end substrate. Media that requires more specialised spectrometers I think. If you do not possess the skills and equipment for that then select the most suitable SoftRip media preset and ICC profile and try to limit the underlying ink load, save that as a custom media preset. If even that does not work there are some curves in the SoftRip to pull the load down. Is there not an extra textile printing extension of the SoftRip that should cover all this?  There are people that can work with the SoftRip, for me it has been a bad purchase. Among the disappointments the limited service by Wasatch, in time and in devotion.

You are sure your distilled water channels do not interfere in the printing process?

More questions than answers but that is the way to approach problems like that.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[tastar]

These comments are from our experience with an Epson 9890 running Sawgrass sublimation inks using the Wasatch RIP. This printer lost the light magenta channel in it's printhead - and we switched it to a 4 color printer, eliminating the light cyan and light magenta (we were using clear in the two light black channels). And, we got the similar results to what you are getting - we tried variable dots, fixed dots, different sized dots, different resolutions, etc. We then replaced the printhead and went back to C, M. Y. K. LC, LM and all was good again. The company that owns this printer sublimates onto metal, so the more course dot structure was very visible. But, if they were sublimating onto fabric, it would have been more than acceptable. The type of sublimation paper that you use also has a very significant effect on output - if you use a softer paper that doesn't hold the ink as precisely as a high release paper (that we were using for metal), it might minimize the effect of the dot pattern. Finally, I haven't heard of using distilled water in the unused channels - we always recommend Lyson Absolute Clear and their refillable cartridges.

Epson's DyeSub F6070 dye-sub printer is only 4 colors, and Sawgrass sells solutions for the Epson T-Series printers that use C, M, Y and K. They also sell solutions for the 7890, 9890 and their description for these printers includes "Expanded Gamut and Smooth Gradients" because of the additional colors. So, if you are sublimating onto textiles, then 4 colors would be fine, if you are sublimating onto hard surfaces, then the additional colors will solve your problem. And, in our opinion, the Wasatch RIP is a great RIP - you get an unbelievable amount of control with it that you just can't find with any other RIP and you can get very accurate color reproduction. So, if you are doing sublimation, it is an incredible tool. If your are doing RGB photography, it's features are probably going to get in the way.

[Ernst Dinkla]

And, in our opinion, the Wasatch RIP is a great RIP - you get an unbelievable amount of control with it that you just can't find with any other RIP and you can get very accurate color reproduction. So, if you are doing sublimation, it is an incredible tool. If your are doing RGB photography, it's features are probably going to get in the way.

True, it aims more at other tasks than photo printing and it should be good enough for the task discussed here. On the other hand for the Grey and Black channels approaching them individually for partitioning is very limited, you can set the transfer point for the Cc an Mm etc inks. It does not have the features for creating Quad up to Septone B&W inksets like Ergosoft has and the humble QTR for Epsons. In short the transfer points for LLK>LK>PK or MK are fixed, it is a black box there. Wasatch was not interested to add that when asked. At the time I solved it for an Epson 9000 loaded with 6 inks and by manipulating the CMYK curves in the Wasatch SoftRip. When I upgraded to HP Z3100 models and bought the Wasatch SoftRip upgrade the incompatibility became worse, exactly 3 media presets delivered for that multi channel printer and the black generation + use of the RGB inks in them was primitive compared to HP's own drivers.  After complaints the replacements of the three were not better. The RGB approach still buried in Softrip's features should have been the way to do it but they admitted it could not do it either. No B&W driver mode that used the 4 inks available but instead just black only is used.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[MM1287]

Ernst Dinkla: Yes I definitely limited the inks. I followed their own guide here: http://www.wasatch.com/profiling_with_pss_tech_note.html and even explained what I did over the phone with them. They looked at my settings and said everything was correct so they suggested a spot color replacement for the bad white area that showed the most dots. However, they ignored the fact that the dots were everywhere on the images, not just the white area. After that, they haven't gotten back to me. As for the distilled water, I'm ASSUMING that it's not interfering for 2 reasons: First, Wasatch has the option to select the slot and mark it as Unused, which is what I did with the 2 slots that don't have ink. Second, both Wasatch and other people that I've spoken to on a few forums have said to fill it up with water since the printer needs a cartridge inserted for it to work. I'm not sure if an empty cartridge would have worked but I took their advice.

tastar: So basically you're saying the same thing as TylerB....that the extra Light colors are needed in order to avoid this problem? I did a test print with the same image using Photoshop, and the dots are still there but they are "closer" together than when printing through SoftRIP so it's more organized...still unacceptable to me. The solid colors are not noticeable at all though.

[iladi]

sorry, you are printing with the wrong settings.

you must use only cmyk inks and select the proper setup:

CMYK setup, the desired resolution, variable dot and perform a color calibration with 4 color setup as described on Wasatch site.

EDIT:  it is OK to use water in the unused slots. You don't need extra light colors to get nice results. How do you assign inks to slots? I have search in the RIP and find nothing about this.

[MM1287]

sorry, you are printing with the wrong settings.

you must use only cmyk inks and select the proper setup:

CMYK setup, the desired resolution, variable dot and perform a color calibration with 4 color setup as described on Wasatch site.

EDIT:  it is OK to use water in the unused slots. You don't need extra light colors to get nice results. How do you assign inks to slots? I have search in the RIP and find nothing about this.

I tried this and got the same results. I will be ordering the light inks and see if it fixes my problem. My mission now is to figure out how to flush out the ink from the existing cartridges.

[tastar]

Ink2Image.com has empty cartridges and cleaning solution. If you have refillable cartridges, you could put in the cleaning solution and do paired cleanings (assuming that the pairs line up correctly) to flush the ink. If you don't, Ink2Image sells refillable cartridges. They have PDF guides for doing this at this link. From what I understand, it is never a good idea to put one ink behind another - it's important to flush the ink, then switch to the new ink.

Tony

[iladi]

@MM1287:

as far as I understand you are not.

you must use only the CMYK slots, and the CMYK configuration. IN all other slots you must use water or cleaning solution.