Color Issues with Xerox Phaser 7300

[Lebowsky]

Hello,

This is my first post here. I volunteer for a small association where we run an independent cinema. Everybody works for free. I'm a programmer, so I'm taking care of everything computer related.. including printers. I hope this is ok and not rude as a first post!

We are using a Xerox Phaser 7300. We had many issues with it, which I was able to fix, especially with some great infos on this webpage.

Now, I'm having a rather big problem with it. When printing stuff with strong colors, for example drawings without color mixing or gradation, it's fine. But as soon as we print photos, it's a disaster. This is the latest one.

Original document:


And this is the print. On the left is a test on my home Canon MP520, colors are fine. On the right is the Xerox print, completely greenish and very dark. Sometimes it's reddish instead...


So the printer is now saying that the imaging units are near end of life, however the printer has printed like this in the last 2 years, and we always "ignored" the problem. But since the IUs are in need of replacement, the question is whether it's worth it or not, as the price of the IUs would stretch our annual budget a lot. But I suppose, if it fixes the printing issue, it wold be worth it.

Oh and about a year ago I spent two hours calibrating the colors, adding more or less of this color, etc, and it was a no go, it would print a different color too much everytime.

What do you think the issue could be?

 

[xfactor printing]

Are you using generic toners -- I don't know much about the 7300 but maybe generic toners or drums at the end of life are throwing off the machine's internal calibration routine resulting in a shift every time it calibrates itself?

If it shifts during a run it sounds like it's the printer itself; I was going to ask if it makes any difference if you send rgb or cmyk image to the printer.

 

[Lebowsky]

thanks for the reply!

nope, it's xerox official toner. I don't know if cmyk/rgb changes anything, that's a very good question. I checked the original files, and the ones originally in illustrator, which were photos, are cmyk, and the only photoshop one, which was a scanned drawing and not a photo, was rgb. however all of them were converted to pdf before printing, and when opening the pdfs, I can't find that information. Only when printing, but there is says that color management is done by the printer itself...