New Epson Printing light films

[theskinnyarmadillo]

Hey everyone,

Our epson 4880 died last week and we got a new 4900.  Accurip is installed and our printer is printing again, but nowhere near the blackness of our 4880.  We have tried increasing the resolution, changing droplet weight. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting a blacker black?  What settings are you using with Accurip to get those results and would anyone recommend upgrading to Accurip Black Pearl to help resolve this issue?

[blue moon]

which inks are you using?

pierre

[abchung]

It could be the film. Dusty films or bad batch? I don't think it is accurip....If you think it is. get a laptop and do a droplet test with black pearl.

Sent from my SM-G900H using Tapatalk

[theskinnyarmadillo]

I'm using the blackmax ink.  It's a brand new roll of Ulano 17" X 100' roll

[UnderPressureSP]

Make sure that you have the channel of ink selected from the cart your printing from.  If not than all the clear carts will print causing your issue.

[theskinnyarmadillo]

UnderPressureSP...what do you mean about the channels?  On the blackmax system aren't they all checked to print black?  That's how it was on the 4880, but again, I know this may have some different settings and nuances, which is what I'm trying to determine.  We are also getting a lot of the films sticking to the screens really bad during exposure to the point where it ruins the films and we'll have to reprint in the event of a reorder.

[blue moon]

contact AR support, they should be able to walk you through everything.

pierre

p.s. just in case you had the regular ink in there first, you would need to print a lot to get it clear out of the system before the blackmax kicks in.

[Frog]

UnderPressureSP...what do you mean about the channels?  On the blackmax system aren't they all checked to print black?  That's how it was on the 4880, but again, I know this may have some different settings and nuances, which is what I'm trying to determine.  We are also getting a lot of the films sticking to the screens really bad during exposure to the point where it ruins the films and we'll have to reprint in the event of a reorder.

as for the sticking, we have had numerous discussions with solutions offered which pretty much boiled down to these: (use any or all, your results may vary)
Make sure your emulsion is absolutely dry (many reported more problems in humid situations)
Use a small dusting of talcum powder (what I usually do)
Don't sweat storing or re-using your films as they are pretty easy and cheap to re-make (I don't save every single film, even non-dated event designs, as I used to in the days of cameras)

[IntegrityShirts]

UnderPressureSP...what do you mean about the channels?  On the blackmax system aren't they all checked to print black?  That's how it was on the 4880, but again, I know this may have some different settings and nuances, which is what I'm trying to determine.  We are also getting a lot of the films sticking to the screens really bad during exposure to the point where it ruins the films and we'll have to reprint in the event of a reorder.

On my 4000, I choose one tank to print from and print a density test from there and set the droplet weight based on that one tank/color. Allows you to move around to different portions of the head as others clog etc.

[theskinnyarmadillo]

So, I'm happy to report that our films are printing great again and we are loving this new printer.  Here are some things we did to get it right, just in case anyone else has any problems or is looking to upgrade their printer to a 4900.

1. It was recommended that we install the epson full color set to initialize the printer.  If you do that, just know that you will have to run the powerclean cycle 12 times to fully clear all of the color ink out of the lines.  This was at the direction of an Accurip tech that explained that Epson reduced the power of the powerclean cycle and that was the recommended number of times to cycle the color ink out.
2. We upgraded to Accurip Black Pearl and the connectivity and ease of use was extremely easy...not that the regular version of accurip was ever hard to use, but Black Pearl seems dummy proof.
3. Our settings are on All Black with all boxes checked on the cartridges.  We are at a resolution of 720X1440. We are at a droplet weight of 8 and we are on the "use less ink" setting at the top, with ellipse half-tone dots.  Our films are awesome and half-tones are washing out beautifully.

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions...it's nerve wracking when you are backed up 3 weeks already and your film printer goes down...