Xerox Phaser 8500 Color Problems

[Dogfood1]

Hi, this is a cross-post from the peripherals forum...

Anyway, I cannot get my Xerox 8500 to print red correctly. I've been through all the diagnostics, troubleshooting, web-surfing, phone-calling and general expletive filled tirades with no satisfaction.

Does anyone a) have one of these, and b) have any idea how to get colors (red specifically) to print properly?

It can't even print the Xerox 'Pantone' Red on the start-up and diagnostic sheets right, but the test strips all match. This is crazy.

It's been suggested that I just need to keep printing to clean out the wax - it looks like a ream or two and some wax sticks are a pretty expensive solution...This thing doesn't get a lot of use (home office) and it may be that it needs a larger office with more constant use (Craigslist?)

Thanks for the help if can...

Dogfood1

 

[Sedulous]

I have the 6350 and have some ideas to try (in no particular order).

Make sure you have not set some weird defaults either on the printer or in your computer's print dialoge box.

When you print the Troubleshooting>Service Test Pages, do they also have blown out red?

Try using a different Colorsync Profile with your printer. I've continued to use the Generic CMYK profile from the System folder (exact colors are not required for our purposes).

If you are using a Color Profile on your computer, is it possibly corrupt? There is a vaidator tool within the Colorsync utility.

I'm excluding all the other simple things you've most likely tried.

 

[Dogfood1]

Thanks - I have played with the colorsync and other system related things with very little change in the colors.

The CMYK test page is very close to the color of the ink-sticks (as Xerox recommends) but the Xerox logos on the top and bottom of the page which should be bright red are rusty orange color. This tells me that the problem is on the printer rather than a misinterpretation of the color instructions from the Mac. I wish I could get inside and clean it with a big soapy brush.

It's driving me nuts. I just want red to be....red!

 

[mkjj]

We have one here in the office and it worked from day one, no problems.
Use the Printer Utility and delete the printer from the list then add it again. It should find the drivers you installed (I think they are also preinstalled in OSX). Make sure any options installed on the printer (trays etc) are checked using the info button in the Printer Utlity. The printer should show the correct PPD selected Xerox Phaser 8500N (in our case, you have different model).

Don't use any ColourSync profiles etc, just get it running correctly and then you can adjust if needed. If nothing is hyper colour critical (with the wax and different stocks colour vary greatly from a laser anyway) then leave it!

 

[Dogfood1]

Thanks...

Just to follow-up. I had a no-charge call with tier-2 Xerox tech support today. I explained the 'Red' situation and his reply? Are you ready?

"Yeah, that printer just doesn't do red well."

He went on to tell me that I'm never going to get a true-red out of it. Nothing can be done other than play with the sliders to tweak the color palate, but what I see in CMYK as 0/100/100/0 will never look that way printed.

Nice.

Thanks for the help.