Xerox 242 Color Shifts during Runs

[WillG]

We recently, within the last 4 months bought a Xerox 242 with Fiery Rip through Fuji Film. So far it has been a really good machine. However, over the last several jobs I've noticed that color has been changing on the sheets. I used one of our offset Xrites to check the color and sure enough it's shifting. This includes all colors, even solid blacks. We have been using the same paper and the same profile for all jobs. I haven't talked to our Fuji contacts yet, but plan to on Monday.

The first job was so bad the covers just kept getting lighter and lighter through a run of 150 copies on some Tango 12pt C1S.

I restarted the machine and RIP server several times, to no avail. Eventually, changed all the drums and the fuser, problem seemed to go away. However, the problem is back and the drums still have a lot of life left in them. I shouldn't have to change the drums for every job should I?

Also the toner is getting "speckled/marbleized" on the sheet after a few hundred sheets, maybe fuser is getting hot? Whereas the first couple are solid color....

Paper is Finch Color Copy ( Usually runs really well with the machine)

Any ideas guys?

 

[The Element]

Re: Xerox 242 Color Shifts during Runs

We have a similar problem on our 260. We were running a 12x18 with full coverage on 120# opus gloss cover and the large red background would turn pinkish after about 15 sheets. The problem appears to be running a really heavy sheet, the fuser cant keep up. Keep in mind the 260 is a 220v machine and the 242 is 110v. So in theory the fuser on the 260 should be more robust - but its still not keeping up with the heat disapation.

Most likely it is the weight of the stock. We went back and looked at the specs for what the max thickness is and the 120# opus was way over the top limit. Hope this helps.

 

[aprilmarie]

Re: Xerox 242 Color Shifts during Runs

we also have the 260. we run into lots of problems on anything with a solid color areas. grey's being the worst.
streaking, spotches, etc. sometimes switching stock helps. and of course the xerox stock doesn't perform any better.
and gradients are impossible. always some weird, harsh, banding shows up.
we have done alot of switching out drums, fusers. lately we go through fusers every so many days. yesterday we had a two sided job and we were manually duplexing, running the second side was causing something to scrap a groove into the first side.
xerox came out but didn't fix it. i feel like we were made lots of promises and the machine doesn't deliver.
Runs good with mostly white backgrounds.
good luck

 

[GordoMac]

Re: Xerox 242 Color Shifts during Runs

Hey guys. None of you mention calibrating the device for the stock you're running. Unless these are off the glass jobs, then auto grayscale adjustment from the tools would be all you can do to get the toner laydown back in line from a drift. If you're all printing thru the network and have a Fiery based controller, then use ColorWise ProTools and run thru the calibration process. If it's not a hardware related issue, then calibration should do it. Also, for heavier stock jobs, there is a (side 2) setting for most heavier stocks in the driver and by using that setting, it takes into consideration the toner and fuser oil already present. I have alot of experience with DC242 bussled Fiery and do not have the color drift mentioned here.
Good luck.
Gordo.

 

[aprilmarie]

Re: Xerox 242 Color Shifts during Runs

I do calibrate the machine every morning. sometimes during the afternoon also. I use the Colorwise tools.
I run into problem sometimes adjusting color thru there and perhaps going to far. I've learned to write down my numbers, so i can go back. Well then its never the same. So I calibrate and start over.
We have run into problems with color at the end of a run. The color starts out right on then near the end you start to notice a shift. We run thru the Fiery too.

Thanks

 

[[email protected]]

Re: Xerox 242 Color Shifts during Runs

Hi,

Before performing any Colorcal calibration, do you do a "Restore Device"? If not, you are calibrating your Fiery from the last referance point. Diong this repeatedly will cause a color shift.

If you notice colors shifting after only 15-20 prints. Call for suport as this is unusual.

 

[che.c]

Hi one of the machine's here is a 260 and I would see a bit of colour shift on long runs with heavy solids, or on light tints. This is especially noticeable on digital uncoated stocks [colotech, conqueror] and seems to just be a limitation of the machine - it can't put down enough toner.

If you can, breaking up your job into small chunks is about the only way I've found to get round this! I once had to run out 500 sheets in 20sh chunks just to get decent coverage on a purple.

 

[X33]

when you calibrate your machine with a Fiery, you should be able to see the "color curve" at the end, and from that, you should be able to tell if the engine is not "pumping" enough toner in low, mid, or highs. compare the reading with the target curve.
if that's the case, you need to call for service, they can fix it.

 

[lfelton]

I don't know whether this helps, but the guy who operates our 250 mentioned that he calibrates after changing toner, otherwise you will get a colour shift. This was a Xerox recommendation - there's a technical reason, but to be honest I don't recall what it was

Older Xerox machines had problems with toner starvation on heavy coverage, but we haven't seen that on a 250 and we've run just under 1,000,000 SRA3s on it in a year. If toner starvation is an issue then like rflores says, you need to get Xerox service in.

 

[saint]

We have experienced the same issue Tango c2s but we are printing on an offset press. Once we switched paper our issue disappeared. It seems that the coating on the board stock is inconsistent and the result is a marbling or mottling in the image.

 

[che.c]

Hi I've been running a bunch of solids recently and the quality drops off a cliff after 7 sheets, then degrades slowly after that. Has anyone else seen this behaviour? The starvation starts in the middle of the sheet and spreads out, drums all recently changed, fuser's fine.

Our engineers tell me that this is just a 'limitation of the machine'. Are they being lazy or am I stuck with running sheets in small batches?

Cheers

EDIT - Forgot to mention that I'm talking about our 250 and 260.

 

[PineyBob]

Hey folks

I did some research among colleagues and on-line and I think what you have here is mismatched expectations. From what I can gather the Xerox 242 is a fine machine to a point. IT IS NOT A DIGITAL PRESS!
This machine is listed as "production", however when you look at the specs and you see a 200K duty cycle per month it is clearly does NOT fit my defination of a production machine. The toner starvation and color shift issues support my contention. Try to run 1000 pieces of the work described on a Canon 5185 or a K-M (not 6500) product and see what happens? My suspicions are the results will be similar

 

[Craig]

That is why there is such a HUGE difference in price between the office equipment (business color) and true production boxes. After 13 years of this and 7 color boxes, I have finally come to an understanding that you really do get what you pay for. If you truly need a production device, get ready to open the wallet $$$,$$$.$$

 

[PineyBob]

That is why there is such a HUGE difference in price between the office equipment (business color) and true production boxes. After 13 years of this and 7 color boxes, I have finally come to an understanding that you really do get what you pay for. If you truly need a production device, get ready to open the wallet $$$,$$$.$$

Craig,

Nice post and accurate as well. Just curious what you have now?

It never ceases to amaze me when it comes to digital devices the printing community expects Norstrom's performance at a Wal-Mart price.

Back to the original topic. Question for the OP. Have you brought these issues to the attention of Xerox? and if so what was the response?

Many Xerox user guides have verbiage in them that attempts to manage customer expectations. IMO the answer to the specific problem is to broker the job to someone who has the right equipment to handle it.

 

[WillG]

Craig,

Nice post and accurate as well. Just curious what you have now?

It never ceases to amaze me when it comes to digital devices the printing community expects Norstrom's performance at a Wal-Mart price.

Back to the original topic. Question for the OP. Have you brought these issues to the attention of Xerox? and if so what was the response?

Many Xerox user guides have verbiage in them that attempts to manage customer expectations. IMO the answer to the specific problem is to broker the job to someone who has the right equipment to handle it.

Piney,

We bought out machine through Fujifilm, who we have a very good relationship with. They made clear the pitfalls of the 242 series verse the say 5000AP. We didn't get "kool-aid" speech from Xerox on what great things the machine can do. We knew long before the purchase what we were getting and what to expect from the 242.

The color shifting problem was only one of many (too many to list). The machine was eventually replaced by Xerox, and we have yet to have of the same issues as we had before. Sometimes you just get a bad machine. But its not to say that any 242 that has color shifting is a "bad" machine, after all its not a "production" machine like you said.

To defend the 242, we are now very happy with our new unit. I've printed a heavy color file on an iGen3 and a 242 and the image color (replication between the two units) is pretty good. For the money, the 242 is a steal.

Someone else mentioned having problems on Tango, We had problems on our cover press with it colorwise and also postpress (lamination issues)... From what I hear it turned out that there was a problem with the coating where they were adding silicone to the sheet and have since fixed it. Does it perform any better now? I wouldn't know, we switched to productolith and haven't looked back.

 

[Craig]

Just curious what you have now?

The 8000AP in my avatar, is my latest color box.