Printer problems-ink dried on heads?

[babbles]

I'll start by saying I am very much a novice at sublimation printing. I bought everything a year ago, took seriously ill and lost interest.

I'm trying to get started again but ran into print problems I thought were perhaps caused by icc profile. I asked on here about it and am pretty convinced all is okay there.

I had started by trying to sub ceramic blanks with black ink. I followed all settings correctly but nothing was showing so kept having to play around with temp and time. Eventually after upping time and temp I was gtting brown print but very faint (I thought black going brown was my icc profile being set wrong)

However I tried printing colour and again there was very, very poor transfer and I could only get that by upping temp and time massively. I bought new sub paper incase there was a problem there but am still getting same results.

I've noticed there was slight banding on some of the prints on the paper and went looking for an answer but have got totally lost.

I have run a nozzle check which seemed fine but read that maybe ink has dried on printer head especially as printer hasn't been run at all in over a year.

Could this be the problem? Would this cause poor very faint transfer?

If so can anyone advise what I should do now?

I'm using Epson 2500

Trupix sublimation paper, printing on whitest side.

Subpro-ex hd ink.

[Reg]

If you're using refillable carts have you moved the travel plugs.

[babbles]

This question may win the stupidest ever on the forums:redface:

Do you mean where you put the ink in? If so I just use the ones that came in the printer-where you would put normal ink. The caps haven't been removed since I filled them.

[Reg]

There is usually 2 plugs 1 coloured and 1 clear remove the clear ones to let the air into the carts.

[babbles]

It's an ecotank and looks like this...

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[InkExpress]

If you have left the printer unused for 1 year it may very well have blocked the printing heads or possibly the ink has dried up in the ink feed tubes between the ink tanks and the printing head. Ideally a printwer using sublimation ink should be used once a week to keep the inks from drying up. I have left some of mine for 3 months and got them working again but its hit and miss.

If you print a nozzle check pattern how does it look, all colours present, some missing, gaps in the nozzles?

Can you print a nozzle check pattern and upload it to here so I can see it.

Alex

[Skye]

Hi Babbles,

You say in your first post that the print is not transferring to the item.
Can you confirm that the items you are heat-pressing the prints onto are designed for sublimation ink?

Skye

[InkExpress]

Hi Babbles,

You say in your first post that the print is not transferring to the item.
Can you confirm that the items you are heat-pressing the prints onto are designed for sublimation ink?

Skye

First post does say sub ceramic so hopefully the blank is sublimation compatible.

The other thing I would question especially with your printer being an Eco Tank ET2500 would be- was the printer originally setup with the standard Epson inks, or was it set up from brand new with the sublimation ink.

Only reason I ask this is there could be a mix of standard ink and sublimation ink in the printer, this would lead to a watered down sublimation ink and would yield bad results.

Alex

[babbles]

Thanks for all the replies. I am definitely using sublimation blanks. The printer has only ever had sublimation ink in it, never any standard inks.

Last night I ran another nozzle check and it had bits missing so I ran the head cleaner a couple of times.

I also went back over installing my icc profile.

I *think* Im now getting somewhere as I did manage to get a print onto ceramic.

I've attached two photos-one of the print out and one of the item on a ceramic-I know they aren't sized properly at all but I was just anxious to actually get an item sublimated.

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vB_ID:5402

IMG_6057.jpg (83.35 KiB) Viewed 2 times

I still think the subbed item looks very wishy washy. Any suggestions re this? Could it be something wrong in my AI settings-tbh I have fiddled quite a bit in them and they could still be off.

[InkExpress]

You are starting to get somewhere now but the final result is still pretty poor.

Can you supply a web link to where you got the sublimate tile / coaster from. Also what heat press temp and time are you using?

Alex