Need Help Epson S80600L color drift during print

[Rallyeguy]

I am running a relatively new to us (New machine Installed this last fall) Epson S80600L with bulk ink setup. We have a job with 3 spot colors that need to be on the money. We did our spot color matches and began running the job and have had a mild drift toward a magenta cast. We've tried pulling it out of the spot colors and it drifted again and seems to continue to shift as the machine runs. Most of our other work is short prints, so this is a new thing for us, but this is a long production run and we have concerns about consistency throughout the job. Any idea what might be causing this? The machine runs fantastic in all other aspects. Good nozzle check etc.. This is not various files....It's one file being run over and over shifting color slightly as it runs for some reason.

Edited to add that we are using Onyx Thrive for the rip.

Any one else have/solve this issue?

Thanks in advance,

Brian

 

[CanuckSigns]

are you getting any banding? we also have an S80600 and had a few jobs were we were printing 4-5 full rolls of a solid spot colour and we had issues with banding, but the colour was pretty much perfect across the whole run. here are a few suggestions that might help

1- Run gutters on the job on the left and right side to keep the ink all flowing
2- in the menu on the printer, you can adjust the cleaning interval, I would adjust it to clean more frequently when you run these types of jobs.
3- how many passes are you running? when our machine was brand new we could run it in 6 pass all day long it it was perfect, now 6 years later I need to run 8 pass high quality to get nice solid colours, especially for colours with lots of cyan.

Hope this helps!

 

[Rallyeguy]

Not the slightest hint of banding at all... The print itself is perfect. We're running it slow (12 pass quality) never thought to run gutters but may try that thank you for the suggestion. It shifts over as little as 15 linear feet of running the prints are 24" tall 36" wide on a 40" roll. our intention is to shift to 8 pass moving forward for speed but already had this one matched so we figured we'd just let it run at the 12 pass.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[P Wagner]

I am running a relatively new to us (New machine Installed this last fall) Epson S80600L with bulk ink setup. We have a job with 3 spot colors that need to be on the money. We did our spot color matches and began running the job and have had a mild drift toward a magenta cast. We've tried pulling it out of the spot colors and it drifted again and seems to continue to shift as the machine runs. Most of our other work is short prints, so this is a new thing for us, but this is a long production run and we have concerns about consistency throughout the job. Any idea what might be causing this? The machine runs fantastic in all other aspects. Good nozzle check etc.. This is not various files....It's one file being run over and over shifting color slightly as it runs for some reason.

Edited to add that we are using Onyx Thrive for the rip.

Any one else have/solve this issue?

Thanks in advance,

Brian

Can you post well lit pics that show the color drift that you are seeing (start vs end of print run)?

 

[Rallyeguy]

You'll never see it in pics (phones have color correction built in) its so minor. Its a 4% shift darker in the magenta in a bright yellow color when we re-set the color to match properly. so its a very fine drift, not unlike what might be seen in a neutral gray drift (worst to manage).

I'm going to try to run a cooler platen so it doesn't heat the heads up over time. Thinking that may be the cause. This is our first bigger production job that has a critical approved color.....so its the first time its come up.

I'll follow up with if the temp drop on the platen helps or not.

Brian

 

[Graphic Extremes]

I was wondering if it was a heat related problem with the color shift on these printers or where some people are having problems with the printers having ink dropout on these printers.

 

[P Wagner]

You'll never see it in pics (phones have color correction built in) its so minor. Its a 4% shift darker in the magenta in a bright yellow color when we re-set the color to match properly. so its a very fine drift, not unlike what might be seen in a neutral gray drift (worst to manage).

I'm going to try to run a cooler platen so it doesn't heat the heads up over time. Thinking that may be the cause. This is our first bigger production job that has a critical approved color.....so its the first time its come up.

I'll follow up with if the temp drop on the platen helps or not.

Brian

Have you measured the physical prints to quantify the color shift?

 

[Rallyeguy]

"Have you measured the physical prints to quantify the color shift?". No we didn't. It was noticable by eye and the adjustment to bring it back into tune was about 4% magenta pulled out across the board, then as we ran more it drifted out again and we had to pull more out.

We believe we figured the problem out today.

My theory after thinking it through over the weekend was that as it ran a longer job over a platen that was heated, the head began to get hotter, possibly changing the way it dropped ink ever so slightly. We dropped the platen heat to the minimum setting this morning, sampled and trued the color, then started running to see if it shifted again. It didn't.

No guarantees that it was the problem but the problem seems to be resolved with only that change (so far).

Thanks to anyone attempting to help.....I will update if it comes back to bite us again. For now , this seems like the solution and could be a solution for those having problems holding a neutral gray over time.

Brian