Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: John Caldwell on March 12, 2013, 05:38:27 pm
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Paper dust generated by the 9900's cutter is contaminating the newly printed surface of prints made on metallic paper. Ink is staying tacky long enough on the metallic that these fine white particles are embedding in the inked surface, and it's noticeable as faint speckling when the affected ares of the printed surface is dark. It's a problem for a current project where the permitter of each image is a 3" black band the creates a poster effect. This printer has never seen a canvas print or canvas cut.
Wondering what you'd try to eliminate this. In particular, what driver settings would you consider to allow the print to emerge from the chassis in a less tacky state. Ink limits, drying time between head passes, others? Any tricks to "inside hygiene" of the 9900?
What I've done so far:
1) Keep 9900's panel immediately below the bonnet clean of dust.
2) Disengage auto cutting and allow the print to hang from the printer, uncut, for additional drying.
3) Install a self-healing Rhino cutting mat on the 9900's chassis to allow "manual exacto blade" cutting, avoiding the auto cutter altogether (shown below).
Thanks everyone,
John Caldwell
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Are you sure it is debris from the cutter? The cutter is pretty low down, well below the print head.
I found that most of the dust was in the plastic bag that the roll came in. I now remove the roll and wipe out the bag, then wipe the outer surface of the roll, after blasting both ends of the roll with canned air.
Rolls can come in a pretty filthy state.
Brian A
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It is very suggestive of cutter dust, Brian. It's the same particulate debris that can be found on the 9900's exterior horizontal panel that lies immediately below the cutter after a cut has taken place. Not saying you're wrong; I do believe it's paper dust.
Thanks for your interest.
John-
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It probably is dust from the media. You might be able to slide a damp paper towel in to pick up the dust/paper debris.
I know it may sound anal retentive but this works for me. I use a Dirt Devil Scorpion (corded model is powerful) frequently to vacuum around the top deck of my 9900. I also vacuum the edges of the rolls, and the edge of the paper. You'd be surprised how much paper or canvas debris and specks there are---and murphy's law says it's dropping right down the paper slot to the print head. The paper dust/debris might not be immediately from when the media is cut, but afterwards when the roll is reinserted into the feed. Regardless, vacuuming or cleaning is what I do to keep paper flecks to a minimum, and also help keep the printer/print head clean.
ken
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Thanks Ken. There are clearly sources of paper dust aside from the cutter assembly. But I feel quite certain, now that I'm observing the exterior horizontal panel immediately below the cutter, that several of my metallic prints were heavily speckled with a spray of paper dust when the cutter ran across if the ink was a bit tacky.
I've observed a substantial improvement in metallic print contamination by:
1) Delaying auto cut until the print hangs complete for about 15 minutes, then using the built in cutter
2) Increasing the drying time with each head pass; (+30) is my current usage, but I'm still experimenting so I don't mean to post this as a conclusive. There is little question that this way the print is emerging from the machine less tacky, and cleaner.
While I haven't vacuumed inside, I am paying a good bit of attention to machine hygiene on the whole, and along the lines that you're recommending. I'm looking into a proper vacuum as we speak.
I should again emphasize that this contamination seems only noticeable on metallic paper when image content has a lot of black, or near black, area.
John Caldwell
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Take a look at the Dirt Devil Scorpion---the corded version. It's small with an attachable hose. The included brush attachment makes it easy to vacuum the paper catcher. It's the most powerful small vacuum I've found.
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I'm buying my wife a new Dyson vacuum so I can bring our old Dyson to the studio. My only concern is that it'll suck the ink right out of the heads! ;)
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I'm buying my wife a new Dyson vacuum so I can bring our old Dyson to the studio. My only concern is that it'll suck the ink right out of the heads! ;)
Not trying to derail the discussion but I would look into a Miele vacuum. I had a Dyson and it in no way compares to the Miele I traded it in on. Miele is less noisy and does a better job. Feels more solid as well.
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What type of paper you use ? The problem is different according paper brand .
Thanks
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George, The metallic paper that presented the original problems is the Breathing Color Vibrance Metallic, but Red River's metallic gave similar problems. I suspect about any metallic brand would have yielded similar results. Canson Baryta Photographique was also printed on, and auto-cut on, this particular machine. The baryta paper never reveled the dust problem, as the prints on the baryta emerged quite dry and un-tacky from the machine. In the end, the problem of dust contamination boiled down to:
1) Metallic papers emerging from the printer with ink still tacky enough that the printed surface was able to attract and bind those dust particles generated by the cutter mechanism
2) My not keeping the printer as clean as was needed
Since my original post, I have found much better results by:
1) Greater attention to printer hygiene, in part by using an old but excellent Electrolux canister-style vacuum inside and out, with attention paid to the exterior panel immediately below the cutter path. For anyone not familiar with Electrolux vacuums from the 1960-1980's era: These are tremendous machines and be bought and maintained for reasonable prices. I'm quite pleased with the pairing of the Electrolux and the 9900 (see photo).
2) Increasing drying time between head passes (+30 seems to allow the print to emerge with a much more cured surface).
3) Delay the cutting of the print for 15 minutes, or longer, after printing is complete, as accomplished by Cutter Off in the driver dialog. The point here is to delay the onset of the "spray of paper cutter dust" until additional ink surface curing has occurred.
I'll again state that my becoming so aware of dust embedded in the print surface pertained, at least in part, to the perimeter of affected prints have a 3" black border. It may be that "normal" photographs don't present the same hazard.
John Caldwell