Phaser 850 cyan color wrong

[lanman3428]

I have an old phaser 850 which the cyan is printing wrong. I run the diagonstic printout, the yellow, black, and magenta print normally. The cyan on the otherhand is printing out aqua rather than cyan. I ran the eliminate stripes diaghnostics numerous times with no help. I then turned the unit off for four hours and tried again with the same result. When I look at the ink sticks it seems like the cyan is not melting. I suspect the problem is a printhead. Could it be something more simple and less costly? We replaced the 850 with an 8200 last year so if I can fix it at a relatively low cost i will fix it. Plus, any suggestions on where I can find printheads for this printer?

Thanks

 

[marty5261]

This sounds like a typical case of the cyan ink being cooked in the printhead. When not used the ink will change due to the constant heating that is done while powered on, this will change the composition just as you have described. The best solution is to run solid fill pages of pure cyan, this will take about 50 pages before you may even see a difference and upwards to 200-250 pages to totally recover the ink color.

 

[klsanders1]

Does this happen with the yellow also? We have a persistent problem with the cyan, but I also notice that the yellow sems more like mustard.

 

[marty5261]

Yes it can and has happened with all colors. Run solid fills of each color to purge the head and refresh the ink.

 

[lanman3428]

Thanks for the help. It was the cyan stick burned up. I purged the cyan and all works great.

 

[klsanders1]

Thanks. Is there any way to prevent this?

 

[lanman3428]

We have two solid ink printers, the 8200 (which we use all the time) and the 850 (which is used rarely). I think the best way to avoid this is turn the printer off if you do not plan on using it for extended periods of time. Or print a sheet of solid cyan, then magenta, then yellow, and then black every couple of weeks. I may be wrong but is makes sense.

 

[marty5261]

It is the lack of use while the printer is turned on that creates the problem.The ink basically cooks in the head because it stays hot.