Hi folks!,
I am a total newbie to this forum and to large format printing. I recently purchased a used Epson 9880 which had problems with the vivid magenta channel of the nozzle check. In the process of trying to clear it, I did several head cleanings, a careful cleaning of the capping station, wiper arm and the other spongy block to the left of the wiper arm (name?). I also did an underhead cleaning using windex and Bounty paper towels. When I printed a new nozzle check, I got the results shown in Figures 1 - 3.
img]c:\docs\personal\pics\gear\9880\figure 2.tif[/img]
img]c:\docs\personal\pics\gear\9880\figure 3.tif[/img]
Figure 1 is a low resolution view of a whole piece of the output, and Figures 2 and 3 are closeups of the right edges of the top and bottom lines respectively. These pics pics were shot with a Nikon D800E, but close enough to the printout to avoid any moire effect. Therefore the moire effects visible in the images are not artifacts of the copying process. The similarity between the two right edges is striking and seems to suggest a firmware issue, (to me anyway).
img]c:\docs\personal\pics\gear\9880\figure 4.tif[/img]
Figure 4 shows a third line of the printout which occurs from border to border but only if the printer is set NOT to cut the printout off the roll. If the printer is set to cut the printout, this line disappears completely.
Since there are numerous lines apparent throughout the printed bands, I attempted to perform a head alignment. However, when I initiated it from the Epson remote control pane, the printer started to print a black line using so much ink that the ink was running of the bottom of the page. See Figure 5. So I paused the print, wiped off the excess ink with kleenex and ejected the page.
img]c:\docs\personal\pics\gear\9880\figure 5.tif[/img]
I then attempted to initiate a head alignment from the printer panel, but again the printer began to print a very dense black line, though the ink was not dripping down as before. I realized that the Epson firmware would never be able to detect the alignment pattern in this band, so I terminated the print.
Anybody got any ideas on this? It certainly does not appear to be a typical head blockage problem. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide on this.
Dave
