Transparencies with Canon ix6820 not printing

[WebbyDean]

When using Printfab to create film transparencies for screen printing, I am unable to print a complete page. Sometimes it will print a whole page, and half of it will be blank, or it will print completely blank pages; Whenever it does print something, it is faded. Here are examples:











I’m using the all black ink kit from filmdirectonline.com. I'm not using the cyan cartridge since it broke awhile ago. Since this issue started happening last week, I have tried printing using single black and multi-black settings, I've cleaned my printhead, ran multiple nozzle checks, cleanings, alignments, etc. My nozzle check is showing that PGBK and K are both printing, but the color ones are not. When I check the ink consumption tab, it only ever shows that photo black is being used, regardless of which halftone mode I choose. I have been printing with Illustrator using spot color separations. In the past, my printer has worked great and I've gotten excellent opaque transparencies. However, it seems as if every other month or so I run into this issue where it won't print correctly, and then after trying endlessly for a few days, it starts working again.

Here are my current settings:

Settings_Main.PNG (13.98 KiB) Viewed 9703 times

Settings_1.PNG (21.75 KiB) Viewed 9703 times

Ink.PNG (4.47 KiB) Viewed 9703 times

I’ve tried absolutely everything I can think of, and I’m so frustrated with the amount of ink and paper I’m wasting trying to get this solved. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the printer, my ink/cartridges, or a driver issue. I've read another post on the forum from someone having a similar issue, and they mentioned that inferior ink cartridges were responsible.

[zedonet]

Hello,

yes, I agree that it could be a problem with bad ink cartridges and I am almost sure that it is not a problem with driver settings.

The ink cartridges for Canon have a sponge that "holds" the ink and prevents it from flowing out. In some refill cartridges not enough ink is released and there are dropouts in the print.

In your nozzle test print only the pigment black and photo black cartridges are working properly: From top to bottom there are 9 test patterns for pigment black, 3 x cyan, 3 * magenta, yellow and photoblack. So it makes sense to try a new set of fill-in cartridges before replacing the printhead.

[zedonet]

PS: The printer allows only one of the black ink cartridges to be used. This is controlled in the printer firmware:

• "Pigment black" if the media type setting "Plain paper" is selcted

• "Photo black" for all other media type settings, e.g. "Transparent"

You can try both:

On tab "Main", select "Medium"="Transparent" (for the smaller black cartridge) or "Medium"="Plain Paper" (for the larger black cartridge).
Make sure to select the highest print resolution.

With the media type setting "Plain paper" the maximum print resolution is limited to 600x600dpi, so I think the setting "Transparent" is better.