Perform an Engine Check

Product support for: Xerox Color 8250 Production Printer
Article ID: KB0328413
Published: 2015-09-02

The Engine Check operation assesses the current color state of the Print Engine only. It makes sure that the output TRC from the Print Engine is within the acceptable range of predefined values.

When you select and start Engine Check, the Printer Interface submits the Color Maintenance Tool (CMT) Engine Target document. Depending on whether Quick or Best was selected as the Mode, the printer prints the CMT Engine Target document that consists of 4 pages of 21 patches.

The CMT uses the Inline Spectrophotometer (ILS) to perform spectrophotometric measurements of the patches on the CMT Engine Target document. The CMT analyzes each patch measurement against a specified range and determines if the color is within this acceptable range.

Perform an Engine Check

Select [Options] from the toolbar on the Printer Interface (PI).
Select [Color Maintenance Tool] from the pull-down menu.
Select the [Engine Check] radio button under the Verification and Recovery section.
Make sure that mode, stock, and halftone screens are set under the Options section.
Select the [Start] button.

If the check passes, continue next to running the System Check (Perform a System Check). See the Related Content for additional information.

If the Engine Check fails:

For a CMT fault, check that the correct paper is loaded in the tray and rerun the Engine Check. See the Related Content for additional information.
For a Solids fault, refer to Perform dC0951 Xerographic Setup on how to run diagnostic routine dC951. See the Related Content for additional information.
For an XPI-06-3131(Color Tool - Patch Read Interrupt)fault, the CMT detected a long delay between the start of the job printing the color patch targets and the end of the job. This delay may have been caused by a paper jam or an “adjusting print quality” cycle. When the Print Engine is ready, rerun the Engine Check.
For a XPI-09-4398 (Print Engine Check Failed during Color Maintenance) fault, refer to XPI-09-4398 Print Engine Check Failed during Color Maintenance RAP. See the Related Content for additional information.
For a Patches Out of Range error, examine the print targets for artifacts. If no artifacts exist, refer to TRC Linearization (printer calibration) and run the TRC Linearization procedure. See the Related Content for additional information.

Evaluating the Quality Score after an Engine Check:

When the Engine Check operation completes successfully, the Status window will display a color quality score for each color station (C, M, Y and K). The Quality score ranges from 0 to 10 and measures the accuracy of the color patches it represents. Use the Quality score in the Status window along with performing a visual evaluation of the color quality of the output to determine whether you want to continue adjusting the color to be as accurate as possible.

Use the following information to interpret the Quality score and the action to take to improve the color output:

A Quality score between [1] and [10] indicates the Engine Check operation passed and the color quality is good.
If the Quality score is between [1] and [5], to try and improve the score, run a TRC Linearization in Expert Mode. See the Related Content for additional information.
A Quality score of [0] indicates that the Engine Check operation failed. If in Auto Mode, the CMT will automatically run the appropriate color operation.