7900 Problem - Prints unwanted fine straight lines

[mcbroomf]

.... I'd rather not pay an Epson tech to correct this problem if possible.

+1 on that ...

The latest F/W appears to be June 2016 so you should be able to update without any Epson help. 
While you don't have vertical banding the suggestion in the manual is to turn off high speed printing and align the print head.

Not sure if you've tried them but probably worth it...

[Farmer]

USB or Network?  Try changing the cable, either way.  Since nozzle tests (which are internal bitmaps) aren't affected, it is perhaps another electronic failure and that points to the link - the cable - as a possibility.

[Peterretep]

Where I'm at with this problem. I've updated the firmware and cleaned the wiper blade this morning. It seems that the frequency of the lines appearing is less but they still print about 25% of the time at the moment. The printer is connected with a USB cable, it's a long one, maybe a ten foot cable. My next attempt to fix this is to do as was suggested, print from another computer. Probably use my Macbook Pro laptop and attach it to the existing USB cable. Then if lines still appear attach it via a different shorter cable. Is there a possibility that signal interference could cause this glitch? Just wondering because my current cable does run close to and also contact 120 volt power cords.
Thanks again for your suggestions of help.

Peter

[Farmer]

Data cables should not be within 6 inches of power cables or, if they must be, run them only at right angles.  Whilst the amount of interference is typically small, running parallel maximises the interference and a 10 foot cable is about the maximum for USB 2 under the spec.

[ssgphoto]

While I have not had that same problem, I have noticed that when running very large files, especially when i have accidentally exceeded the  the 300,000 pixel limit, I have found the 11880 prints random lines on the tail end of the print after printing normally for 80 or 90 % of the way. So it does strike me as a software behavior for sure.

[Farmer]

That's a very old version of Photoshop you're using if you have a pixel limitation, still!

[ssgphoto]

I am not describing a photoshop pixel limit, only the one in the Epson driver.

[Garnick]

Data cables should not be within 6 inches of power cables or, if they must be, run them only at right angles.  Whilst the amount of interference is typically small, running parallel maximises the interference and a 10 foot cable is about the maximum for USB 2 under the spec.

When I first set up my Epson SP9900 printer I purchased 3 - 5 metre(15+ft.) USB Active Extension Cables to test.  Since that time, 6.5 years ago, I have been running that printer on those three cables, approximately 45 ft.  While under warranty a tech was working on the machine and mentioned that the issue was probably caused by the running length of the USB cables.  We then moved the printer close enough to connect with a 6ft. cable and the issue was exactly as it was previously.  He went about his business, replaced the faulty part and I ran my "test" image(Bill Atkinson file) on the both the 6 and 45ft cables and neither of us could determine any difference at all in the quality of the resulting print.  Needless to say, the tech was quite impressed and I've been using this USB extension system ever since with no issues.  Just my experience, and of course I suppose it may not work with every printer or in every situation.

Gary   

[Farmer]

I am not describing a photoshop pixel limit, only the one in the Epson driver.

Switch on "Coarse Rendering" and you won't have that issue.  Unless you're trying to print with finest detail, it won't be an issue.

[ssgphoto]

"coarse rendering" ? where?

[Randy Carone]

The printers encoder strip above the head may have a some dirt on it. I don't know of any way to check to see if that is the problem. If you can contact an Epson tech (without getting a bill) you may find out how to check for that short of visible inspection.

[Wayne Fox]

That's a very old version of Photoshop you're using if you have a pixel limitation, still!

I think Ps is still limited to dimensions of 300,000 or less.  I know you can’t create a new document greater than 300,000 pixels wide.

[Farmer]

Coarse rending in the driver is under Utility tab and then Speed and Progress.

Wayne - sure you can - I just did it in CS6 (and that's pretty ancient really), and I know I can do it in the latest CC.  Documents over 30,000 pixels will generate a warning about not being compatible with previous versions and it may mean a PSB rather than PSD file.

[ssgphoto]

Thanks Phil, but that tab is not present in the 11880 driver / utility on mac. Regardless I believe all that does is down sample to within the printers max resolution so there is a pixel limit either way. If I understand it correctly, best practice would be to optimize the down-sample in photoshop than have a blind resample.

I did not intend to hijack the thread, I just know that the printer has produced shapes and lines when I have printed very large files. Perhaps a re-exploration or pixel limits from the epson driver might be a good post.

[Farmer]

Hmmm, I didn't check OS X - you're right, sorry.  Windows only.  What it does is slightly more involved.  Yes, you should pre-down-sample to 360ppi.  There's no hard limit of 300,000 as such, but that's around the level you will run into issues with spool files and so on.

[Wayne Fox]

Coarse rending in the driver is under Utility tab and then Speed and Progress.

Wayne - sure you can - I just did it in CS6 (and that's pretty ancient really), and I know I can do it in the latest CC.  Documents over 30,000 pixels will generate a warning about not being compatible with previous versions and it may mean a PSB rather than PSD file.

Here's what Ps says when I try to create a document that is 300,001 pixels wide (and note that it changes it to 300,000 in the dialog box).

[Farmer]

Hmmm, I just tried in CC 2017 and you're quite right, but the other day I tried it in CS6 and it didn't complain.  That seems unlikely, so I'm not sure how that worked.  I was sure I'd done larger in the past.  Confused, obviously.

That said, there's no such limit in the driver :-)

[Peterretep]

From bad to worse, an update on my problem.... after going through all the suggestions made in this thread the problem still exists and more. I've changed the platen height, cleaned the wiper blade, updated the driver and firmware, printed from a newly installed different program(Lightroom) from Photoshop, printed from a different computer, tried different USB cables, separated  my USB cable from all other cables and cords, turned off high speed printing and lastly ran the head alignment utility from the printer control panel.

Doing all the changes prior to the last effort which was aligning the head made no difference, images still had lines. What is much worse now is aligning the heads has resulted in soft images, essentially going from what had been good sharp prints to prints that have a most noticeable lack of sharpness. I've ran the alignment twice, the second alignment still looks as bad as after the first.

Any ideas as to aligning the heads and getting back the sharpness prints had? I can't find any information as to how to read the manual alignment printout.

Totally frustrated....