Color Issues with Epson 9900

[LMStewart]

I work in the marketing department of a mid-sized credit union, and we have an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 that we use to print all of our posters, banners, etc. Recently, the orange areas in all our prints started to look faded. When we print a nozzle check, all the lines are perfectly clear but the orange section is very faint, almost like the ink is diluted.

I've searched the wide reaches of the internets and tried everything; run all the suggested cleaning cycles, adjusted our print settings, printed from several computers, replaced the orange cartridge, printed purge files... it's always the same; the orange prints out as a nasty, dirty dark yellowish color. Changing color profiles, printing from Photoshop or Indesign or Acrobat, having Photoshop manage the colors or the printer manage the colors... nothing helps.

We've spent hours on the phone with Epson, but they have been spectacularly unhelpful are pretty sure it's user error, and want us to buy a full set of Epson ink (we've been using off-brand ink, which has worked fine, and the replacement orange cartridge we just installed is Epson). Before we spend the money to have an Epson tech come in, I thought I'd post here to see if anyone has any ideas. I would be most grateful for any input.

[Farmer]

It does sound like an ink issue - it will take some time for the new cart to flush the old ink and start being used.  Run some cleans on that channel and see if it comes good.

[LMStewart]

Thanks for responding! I ran a normal cleaning cycle a few days ago, and I just now ran a cleaning cycle on the Orange/Green channel. It didn't make any difference. I've printed so much orange stuff in the last few days that I'm pretty sure that all the old ink is flushed out. I also tried the paper towel with Windex trick, and there wasn't much change. I found a file that has a color swatch for each ink, and everything prints okay except the orange swatch.

In my hours of searching, I found ONE person who had the exact same problem, and they describe it here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/showthread.php?950-Epson-9900-Low-Orange-Density. (I can't post on that forum, though; it's only for customers who have ordered that particular brand and have a customer number.) They suggest that it may a printer driver issue, but we print from several computers and it's unlikely that the driver is corrupt on all of them.

Any other ideas?

[BobDavid]

Print about 10 sq feet of orange with a new Epson orange cart to replace the old orange--careful not to over saturate so the ink doesn't puddle up on the paper. Avoid head cleanings. It is a destructive process. USE OEM INKS. In the long run, there is nothing to be gained by using third-party inks. I'd keep running 10 sq feet of media until the old orange is flushed out and the new orange kicks in. Also, I recommend the 150ml orange and green carts. Those two colors are only necessary for matching color-critical pantone colors. If you are not churning out industrial design, package design, or ultra color critical work, you will not go through those colors until long after the expiration date. A jerk once tried to sell me a 750ml orange cart--what a dufus.

[Garnick]

Print about 10 sq feet of orange with a new Epson orange cart to replace the old orange--careful not to over saturate so the ink doesn't puddle up on the paper. Avoid head cleanings. It is a destructive process. USE OEM INKS. In the long run, there is nothing to be gained by using third-party inks. I'd keep running 10 sq feet of media until the old orange is flushed out and the new orange kicks in. Also, I recommend the 150ml orange and green carts. Those two colors are only necessary for matching color-critical pantone colors. If you are not churning out industrial design, package design, or ultra color critical work, you will not go through those colors until long after the expiration date. A jerk once tried to sell me a 750ml orange cart--what a dufus.

I agree with almost all of this post and the recommendations for a possible fix on this issue.  The only thing I find some fault with is this sentence -- "If you are not churning out industrial design, package design, or ultra color critical work, you will not go through those colors until long after the expiration date".  I've been using a 9900 for close to 5 years and have never done any Pantone work, nor does my work generally fall under the other categories listed.  Yet, both the Orange and Green carts seem to empty at almost the same pace as the other carts.  Perhaps slightly less, but not enough to be noticeable.  I only use the 350ml carts, Green and Orange included.  My work flow is not always as full as I would like, and I want to turn the carts over as efficiently as possible.  I will say that I do art reproduction on a regular basis, so there is some degree of colour critical work, but not enough to use the O & G inks to any great extent I believe.

Gary      

[LMStewart]

Yeah, our orange cartridge actually gets used quite a bit; PMS 173 (a "blood orange" color) is one of our corporate colors and we use it in most of our product posters and banners.

I also attached a couple files that show comparisons between an original file and a scan of what was printed to give a better idea of what we're dealing with. If you open the beach photo, you'll see that the whole photo is washed out, and the file with the swatches shows the drastic difference between the oranges.

I'm still not convinced that this is an ink issue, mostly because we hadn't changed the cartridge when the problem started happening. I just printed out about six square feet of orange. I'm sure I've printed at least four square feet with all the testing I've done, so I think we're up to ten now.

I really do appreciate all the input. I'm fairly experienced in working with CMYK, but this is my first time with a printer like this.