Z3100 New Rollers and Star Wheel Assembly

[Mary K]

I had the new pinch rollers and star wheel assembly installed on my Z3100 44" printer on Wednesday, 2-13-08.  

Installation of the new star wheel assembly went very smoothly.  The new assembly has two positions, actuated manually by pulling out or pushing in the black buttons located at each end of the assembly.  Pushing them in lowers the assembly into the normal down position, and pulling them out raises the assembly, hopefully resulting in the elimination or reduction of star wheel marks on some problematic papers.

Installation of the new tan/brown pinch rollers was more tedious, but went well after the engineer clearly understood the use of the tool included with the installation instructions (which were included in the package containing the parts).  It was not necessary to tear down the printer in any way, except to replace a couple of the pinch roller holders that broke during installation.

Since the installation I have experimented with several of the papers that I previously had problems with:  Harman Glossy FB AI, Ilford Galerie Gold Silk, Epson Exhibition Fiber, and HP Premium Plus High Gloss Photo Paper.

Of the above papers, the only one to show pinch roll marks is the HP High Gloss Paper, and this is only evident when calibrating or profiling the paper.  This is of no importance to me, as I do not use the paper very often.

So far, star wheel marks have been very light to non-existant on the above papers when printing in color.  However, they are visible on the Ilford Galerie Gold Silk and Epson Exhibition Fiber papers when printing black and white, primarily in the deep blacks.  Of these two, the star wheel marks are most noticeable on the Epson paper.

I am printing on all of these papers with the star wheel assemble in the up position.  All papers tested have been cut sheets, and I only had a sample pack of the Epson, so my testing was very limited for that particular paper.  All testing has been done with gloss enhancer ON.

Over all I am very hopeful that this fix will permanently solve the problems I've had with these types of papers.  I really like the Epson Exhibition Fiber, and will try more prints when I am able to find more sheets.  

These fixes are in the experimental phase for now, and I have been assured that if better solutions are found down the road I will be eligible for them.

I must also add that my overall satisfaction with HP tech support has gone way up after dealing with their senior level support, and that the engineer that installed my new parts was very professional and determined to do the best job he could.  I want to also thank Ben Wolf for his assistance.

Mary

NOTE:  I do not believe that the pinch roll marks are related to the height of the star wheel assembly, but I tested this way because I was getting star wheel marks in deep blacks on all of these papers prior to the new star wheel assembly installation.

[Jim Cole]

Mary,

Thanks for your update. As reported in another thread, I had the upgrades done as well, but did not see clean results with the Harman paper. I initially thought I did until I looked more closely at the test prints where the roller marks were still there, although less visible than before.

Do you keep your printing room at a certain temperature and humidity? My room is between 60 and 70 degrees F and maintained at 35% humidity. These parameters are within HP operational specs. I was curious if yours were any different.

I have not tried printing the Harman paper with the star-wheel assembly in the high position, but I did not think that would affect the pinch roller marks.

Jim
www.jimcolephoto.com

EDIT: Mary, I forgot to ask about which paper preset you used to profile your Harman.

[Mary K]

Jim,

After looking more closely at my calibration prints using Harman FB AI, I must now say I do see very light pinch roll marks in the black and dark gray areas.  I do not see any pinch roll marks on  regular prints, even using a magnifying glass in deep black areas.  However, I am concerned that these light roll marks on calibration and profiling targets may be affecting the printing profiles produced on the Z3100.

I keep my room temperature at 70-73 degrees F., but do not know what the humidity is, other than to say that it is on the low side.

I used the Photo SG/Satin (less ink) preset to profile the Harman paper.

In my original post I neglected to say that all of the tests I have made are on 17" sheet paper.  I'm not sure how things will look when I go to roll paper in wide sizes.  I'm certainly not ready to say that my problems are solved, but things are looking better in the short run --  we'll see how they look when I am able to run some larger papers through the printer.  Up until now I obviously  could not justify ordering these papers in large sizes.

Mary
http://marykonchar.naturescapes.net

[hubicka]

Thank you for report. I will try to get updated our printer too, not only because paper jam accidentally pulled out one of the small pizza wheel rollers and parts of it was lost

It seems to me that the roller marks on calibration charts are result of fact that printed image is rolled back into printer for scanning. The surface of inks is more delicate than surface in original paper, so as long as the marks are no visible at normal prints, I would be happy.

Jan

[Jim Cole]

Mary,

Thanks for answering the temp/humidity question. I guess I'll write that off as a non-variable.

I used the Fine Art Pearl - Less Ink preset and still had very light roller marks on my production prints. Maybe I'll try the HP SG/Satin - Less Ink as you did and see if I get similar results. Or, maybe I'll wait to see what Ben Wolf and HP come up with as a proper preset for this paper as I know they are currently testing it. I'm almost thru my initial box of 11x17 with no good results yet. The Barite preset that is mentioned in the newest HP 3rd Party Papers doc for the Z is nowhere to be found.

I'm not sure if the roller marks affect the calibration and profiling, but I do know that I have to apply a separate curves layer to lighten the output on the Harman paper that is not needed on the HP Pro Satin. This darker midtone difference is NOT visible in soft proofing so Im not sure what's going on there either.

Jim
www.jimcolephoto.com

Jim,

After looking more closely at my calibration prints using Harman FB AI, I must now say I do see very light pinch roll marks in the black and dark gray areas.  I do not see any pinch roll marks on  regular prints, even using a magnifying glass in deep black areas.  However, I am concerned that these light roll marks on calibration and profiling targets may be affecting the printing profiles produced on the Z3100.

I keep my room temperature at 70-73 degrees F., but do not know what the humidity is, other than to say that it is on the low side.

I used the Photo SG/Satin (less ink) preset to profile the Harman paper.

In my original post I neglected to say that all of the tests I have made are on 17" sheet paper.  I'm not sure how things will look when I go to roll paper in wide sizes.  I'm certainly not ready to say that my problems are solved, but things are looking better in the short run --  we'll see how they look when I am able to run some larger papers through the printer.  Up until now I obviously  could not justify ordering these papers in large sizes.

Mary
http://marykonchar.naturescapes.net
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