# Help! Horrible ink bleeding on initial test print Epson 7720



## jhuckelberry (Nov 6, 2018)

Hey all, we just recently bought our new equipment to get into sublimation, and I've been reading up on it for a while here. I installed the printer tonight (did not test with standard printer ink. my fault there), installed the sublimation ink in the cartridges (bought from inkxpro) and did a sample print.


It came out like this. (also attached)

https://imgur.com/pMyfCJG


Can anyone help! I have no idea even where to begin on this. Thanks!


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Looks like you may have a defective leaking black dye sub cartridge.


Switch back to the Epson cartridges that came with your printer and print the same image. Then report back how that looks.


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## jhuckelberry (Nov 6, 2018)

gonna try that out. of course now it won't let me continue since it says it's already been initialized and I'm using the original ink. Let me fool around with that a bit.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

You have to wait a few minutes after taking out the dye sub cartridges before putting the Epsons in. Wait 5 minutes.


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## LancerFlorida (Mar 20, 2018)

The assumption is the voids should have information. Is that true?
I would start with obtaining perfection printing the print-head alignment tests on plain paper. The lines for all colors should be PERFECT. (Clean, purge, swap until perfect)

Then print the Adobe RGB target on plain paper. Absolutely no banding should be evident. (this verifies you completed step one correctly)

When these turn out as expected, you can know the printer is good to go. For trouble free operation, print the RGB on a dialy basis.

Any subsequent problems will be related to media or environmental variable.


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## Amw (Jul 2, 2012)

LancerFlorida said:


> The assumption is the voids should have information. Is that true?
> I would start with obtaining perfection printing the print-head alignment tests on plain paper. The lines for all colors should be PERFECT. (Clean, purge, swap until perfect)
> 
> Then print the Adobe RGB target on plain paper. Absolutely no banding should be evident. (this verifies you completed step one correctly)
> ...


The issue is the black ink lines all over the paper from a leaking cartridge. As seen in the photo.

No print head alignment is going to fix a leaking ink cartridge.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

LancerFlorida said:


> The assumption is the voids should have information. Is that true?
> I would start with obtaining perfection printing the print-head alignment tests on plain paper. The lines for all colors should be PERFECT. (Clean, purge, swap until perfect)
> 
> Then print the Adobe RGB target on plain paper. Absolutely no banding should be evident. (this verifies you completed step one correctly)
> ...



Umm, you did see his picture, right?


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## jhuckelberry (Nov 6, 2018)

so quick update. I tried letting the printer sit without the sub-ink installed to swap back. would never let me (still kept giving me the same error of using initialization carts when already initialized)


So, after all the swapping back and forth trying to test with the standard ink, I decided to do a quick test print just as is. Didn't really show leaking, except one small area that I think was left over from the first print.


Then sent a print through with the original design. Only thing I did differently was used standard quality instead of high quality (just to save some ink). It actually came out fine. So maybe a one time glitch?


Here's hoping. And thanks to everyone for the quick and helpful responses! I'm really looking forward to expanding with sublimation. Mainly been htv up to this point, with a little bit of outsourced screen printing and DTG work done for the more colorful designs.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

I would do another test print on high quality and see if the issue repeats itself. If it does it may be a printer issue. I would exchange the printer just to be on the safe side. you don't want to keep a printer that can't print at certain qualities. 

It's also unusual that the printer didn't recognize you swapping out cartridges. That may be an issue when you need to refill your cartridges.


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## jhuckelberry (Nov 6, 2018)

splathead said:


> I would do another test print on high quality and see if the issue repeats itself. If it does it may be a printer issue. I would exchange the printer just to be on the safe side. you don't want to keep a printer that can't print at certain qualities.
> 
> It's also unusual that the printer didn't recognize you swapping out cartridges. That may be an issue when you need to refill your cartridges.



yeah that's my next plan tonight is reprint in high quality just to be sure. 



For the carts, it seemed to not like that I was trying to put in the starter carts and not a full retail cart. Still very strange though. Haven't seen that before. We have another epson for general printing and I always buy i-version carts off ebay and it works fine.


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