Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: mstevensphoto on May 07, 2013, 11:49:18 am
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Hey folks,
over the last month I've seen more and more of these on my ipf8300. I'm printing on Moab Lasal Exhibition Lustre on a 24" roll - this happens almost exclusively with this paper. I don't see it on canvas or BC Vibrance Lustre, sometimes on Optica One. Marks are always at the edge of the paper and this photo is pretty typical, the longest is 3" and they're most frequently on the right side as you look at the printer. it's only ever just a few. this particular sheet was 24x48" of ganged photos and the marks only show once. right now anywhere from 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 prints will have them but it seems to be happening more. any ideas what to check? where to clean? this of course, happens most often with high key images.
thanks in advance.
Mark
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When I have seen something like this on my Canon iPF6100, it was because the paper was too tight on the roll, and too thick, so there was too much curve and hence the head was hitting the paper surface. Are you at the end of the roll perhaps which makes the paper much tighter on the roll?
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Hey Mark,
You're clearly getting head strikes here. Do you profile your own media? If so, what is the head height set at on the media types giving you this issue? Paper curl can definitely contribute to this. Maximum head head and maximum suction can help.
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Go into Feed mode and open up the cover. There's a little ramp a few inches out on the black outfeed panels that tends to lift the leading edge of the print slightly. If there is a curl in the paper, the ramp can sometimes lift it enough to swipe the heads. Watch as edge of the paper feeds over that ramp, look at the edge of the paper near the suction recesses just past the rollers to see if it's lifting towards the heads there. One cure is just to feed out media, and stop when you don't see any more lifting, which is usually when the curled leading edge reaches the far side of the ramp. Or you can roll out a foot or so of media and de-curl it on an old core, then feed it back in. May or may not be your actual problem, but the location of the swipes kind of suggests that's the case. Also, have heard of cases where too much suction can problems even worse than not enough.
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thanks for the suggestions, I'll take a look.
I'm 20 feet into a new roll, shouldn't be any problem there. using the media config from moab direct - same thing I've used with total success for a year.
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Well it's spring around here in the high desert, and the humidity is well down into media curling range. Seeing a lot of that lately.
Of course, you could also have a leaking head, or just a big buildup of spray residue on the bottom of the carriage.
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how might one diagnose leaking head? just got two new ones about two months ago. the Vibrance rag curls like nobody's business but I've never thought of the moab as a curly paper, even at the end of the roll even here in 12% humidity colorado.
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Best I can do is this...if you have a leaking head, sooner or later you will get dark stripes on your prints. How helpful is that?
I suppose you could bring the carriage out and pull dust free Scott blue towels under it, like I used to do almost every other day with the 9880. Might be worth a try. I suppose you can get the carriage out by starting a head change sequence, and then cancelling. Probably is a better way. I do the towel thing when I change a head, and have never seen a truly grungy result. So if you get a lot of crud on the towel, could be a leaky head.