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Author Topic: IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches  (Read 20016 times)

shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« on: April 11, 2010, 01:29:00 am »

Is there anyone out there who has tried printing to Epson Exhibition Fiber with a Canon IPF8300 yet? I'm getting some pretty bad scratches. Some of them appear to line right up with the pinch rollers on the edge of each.... "pinch roller module". Some of the scratches though I just can't trace. I spent 20 minutes watching it print and as far as I can tell the scratches are happening before the ink is getting laid down. It's definitely the result of the paper going through the paper path as I was working with 24x30" sheets. At first I'd created a paper size of 24"x30" and printed 4 sheets like that. To test the theory that it was picking up the scratches in the direction of the print feed I loaded it in a 30"x24" configuration and rand the same print and sure enough the scratches were in the direction of the feed.

I tried printing the same print (Bill Atkinson's test page) with Crane Museo Silver Rag. It's not nearly as noticeable there (you really have to know exactly what you're looking for and where to look, for example the most prominent scratch in a 24x30 orientation runs right through the number 2 key on the calculator).

Curious to know if anyone has run across this yet? I'll give Canon a ring on Monday. I'm hoping it's something simple but in the mean time I figured I'd see if anyone here had come across this. The only thought I have at the moment is that perhaps I'm not laying enough ink down (the manual says something about this) BUT... with the Crane Museo Silver Rag I'm using their custom developed media type so I'm not sure that's it. With the Canon IPF6100 I've just used Premium Semigloss Photo with the Epson Exhibition Fiber and built a profile off of that. The 8300 has different media types. I made the assumption that Premium Semigloss Photo 280 was the same thing but that could be a wrong assumption. The new Media Configuration Tool looks pretty cool but I didn't get a chance to dive into that quite yet.

Cheers, Joe
« Last Edit: April 11, 2010, 01:29:37 am by shewhorn »
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John Hollenberg

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2010, 10:10:59 am »

I would also ask your question at the Canon iPF Wiki, as there are a few people there with the new generation of iPF printers:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/message/list/FAQ
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2010, 10:23:29 am »

Talked to Canon support this morning and just thought I'd pass this on...

Some of the settings in the media type actually control the tension on the pinch rollers. They suggested trying Graphic Matte Canvas as a media type.... not to make pretty prints but just to see whether or not the reducing pinch roller pressure will solve the problem with the scratches. If it does then the fix would be building a custom media type which hopefully won't be too difficult.

Cheers, Joe
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2010, 03:32:36 pm »

Quote from: John Hollenberg
I would also ask your question at the Canon iPF Wiki, as there are a few people there with the new generation of iPF printers:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/message/list/FAQ

Thanks John,

Been on the phone with Canon support for quite a while now. I'll post over there if we can't get it resolved... will post the outcome here either way.

Cheers, Joe
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2010, 06:57:44 pm »

No resolution, they had me send some prints in to VA which they'll review tomorrow.
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2010, 12:05:01 pm »

Tech is coming out tomorrow to replace the pinch rollers and the springs. Hopefully that'll nip it in the bud.

Cheers, Joe
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2010, 11:41:51 am »

They finally came today, opened up the printer... "I don't think there's anything we can do" was pretty much the conclusion. He figured that even if we replaced the entire pinch roller assembly, the same problem would still be present. He left with some prints that are being sent to Canon but I overheard them talking on the phone and it sounds like they're going to say "we don't support that media".

Now, they haven't said that yet so I can't draw any conclusions but it does look like that's where it's headed SO, if you want to print on Epson Exhibition Fiber or Crane Museo Silver Rag (the issue isn't NEARLY as bad with the Silver Rag, you really have to know what you're looking for there but a critical customer would probably find it) and you're about to pull the trigger on buying one of these printers I'd recommend holding off until more people run some Exhibition Fiber though these machines to see if there's just something really peculiar going on with my machine, or if there's a fundamental flaw in the design of the feed system. For the time being questions still need to be answered.

Cheers, Joe
« Last Edit: April 16, 2010, 11:42:52 am by shewhorn »
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colinm

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« Reply #7 on: April 16, 2010, 12:00:56 pm »

That's disappointing to hear, Joe.

Did changing the media settings to canvas make any difference at all, or was the scratching still just as bad?
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Colin

shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2010, 12:40:48 pm »

Quote from: colinm
That's disappointing to hear, Joe.

Did changing the media settings to canvas make any difference at all, or was the scratching still just as bad?

Spent TONS of time trying different media types, canvas as mentioned earlier, and also did a custom media type using the new Media Configuration Tool (which by the way I think is pretty darn slick) but none of it made a difference. There's still some things to try so it would be premature to say no go on the Exhibition Fiber but the preliminary inspection of the machine looks okay. The tech left with some more prints to FedEx to Canon's top dog engineer so hopefully I'll have more feedback on Monday. I'm a bit bummed but I remain optimistic.

Cheers, Joe
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Rob Reiter

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2010, 10:19:17 pm »

I've been using my 8300 for about a week and have run a bunch of Silver Rag through it. Looking closely, I don't see any scratches or roller marks. Nor have I seen any on Harman Glossy, either. Haven't tried the Epson paper, though.
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #10 on: April 28, 2010, 02:24:41 pm »

Quick followup for ya. Canon sent me a roll of Polished Rag to test. No scratches there. I sent them some 24x30" sheets of Epson Exhibition Fiber and they tested it in their 8300. They were able to reproduce the scratches there as well. They determined that the scratches are happening when the paper is getting loaded as the way a cut sheet behaves with the front loading is a bit different than how a roll behaves. They are looking into it to see if anything can be done but they thought that this issue would appear with any cut sheet (not just EEF) that was coated. The 6300 and 6350 will not suffer from this issue as they have a straighter path.

Cheers, Joe
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KevinMcD

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2010, 11:17:19 am »

Quote from: shewhorn
The 6300 and 6350 will not suffer from this issue as they have a straighter path.

Hey Joe,

Sorry to hear of your dilemma, I'm considering the purchase of the 6300. You mention that the 6300 and 6350 will not suffer the same issue. Is that what you were told by Canon?

Kevin

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babakBoghraty

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« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2010, 11:55:28 am »

This new generation of printers (both Epson and Canon) seems dedicated to the manufacturers' media.  The X900 Epsons are the same; your choice of media type controls a lot the settings, including spacing between the media and the printhead.  The printer menu provides settings dedicated to the manufacturers' own media only.  So, if you are using third-party media, you have to guess which media setting is appropriate, if any.  There is inevitably a lot of trial and error before you find a setting that works for your favorite media, which means a lot of time and expense.

My Epson 9900 produces severe banding in solid blacks with certain media, such as Museo Glossy Canvas and Canson matt paper.  I never did find a proper media setting for the canvas, but for the Canson I found that Enhanced Matt Roll setting with media feed adjustment of +23 eliminates the banding.  After many wasted hours, ink and paper, I am about to throw in the towel and stick only to Epson media.

So, these machines deter the use of third party media.  The question is: is this level of sensitivity to the media type setting a necessity for the sake of achieving the best IQ, or is it to force users to buy Epson or Canon media?

If you consider how hard Epson has tried to eliminate third party ink suppliers for its machines, the answer would seem to be the latter.
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #13 on: April 29, 2010, 12:17:24 pm »

Quote from: KevinMcD
Hey Joe,

Sorry to hear of your dilemma, I'm considering the purchase of the 6300. You mention that the 6300 and 6350 will not suffer the same issue. Is that what you were told by Canon?

Kevin

Yes, this is what they told me. I asked them if the feed path was the same as on the 6100 (I own a 6100 as well) and they said yes. I can confirm that prints on my 6100 with EEF look good.

Cheers, Joe
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JeffKohn

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« Reply #14 on: April 29, 2010, 12:23:53 pm »

Quote
This new generation of printers (both Epson and Canon) seems dedicated to the manufacturers' media.
The Canon ipf's have actually gotten better at media-type handling with each new release, although there's certainly still room for improvement. The original x000's were pretty annoying, as different media types were "locked" to different paper paths, which meant that finding the right media type that you could use for both roll and sheets could be difficult. Special 1-5 were generic types meant to be used with 3rd party glossy papers.

The x100 series added Special 6-10 for 3rd-party matte papers, and with one of the later firmware releases all of the base media types were "unlocked" so that they could be used with any paper path. (The bigger x000's may have gotten this firmware update as well, but I know the 5000 didn't).

Now with the x300's, Canon has added the ability to create custom media types. Some experimentation is still required in choosing the correct "base" type for the custom type, but it's still an improvement from what we had before. It would be nice if Canon more fully documented all the parameters for each media type to eliminate some of the guessing/experimentation required. HP seems to be the leader in this regard. From what I've heard their support for 3rd-party papers is pretty good.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 12:24:37 pm by JeffKohn »
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shewhorn

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #15 on: April 29, 2010, 12:31:18 pm »

Quote from: babakBoghraty
This new generation of printers (both Epson and Canon) seems dedicated to the manufacturers' media.

I have to disagree with you there and I'm sure Scott will as well. I can tell you that someone at Canon specifically said to me "we really designed this machine to support 3rd party papers". Although the issue with the Epson Exhibition Fiber is a bit of a bummer they're still looking into it and I have to say that support for 3rd party papers IS much better. The MCT is much improved and while there's still room for improvement (it would be nice for the MCT to support taking some readings using a Spectrophotometer so that ink levels can be derived in a more scientific manner) it's now much easier to create a new media type. Just tell it whether you want to use Photo Black or Matte Black ink, and then enter the thickness of the paper. From there it recommends a media type to start with. Once you approve the selection it does a print feed calibration and from there it prints a test pattern with 6 (or is it 7) different levels of ink. I've gone with low or medium low so far. On the coated papers anything above low appears to have some pooling issues and I don't see any improvements with the heavier inks and with the matte papers the heavier ink settings appear to bleed a bit more on the fine details (and I don't see any IQ advantage to using more ink although I haven't done extensive testing yet). After that's all done you can play with head height and vacuum strength and a few other parameters as well.

If I'm not mistaken Canon has also created a new tool specifically for 3rd party paper manufacturers that allows them to create specialized media types. Crane Museo has already posted a custom media type that you can download and then import via the MCT.

I used to be a software engineer (and prior to that a software test engineer). I will say that I think their alpha testing program needs to be a little more methodical in terms of doing matrix testing. If indeed all coated cut sheets are susceptible to scratching then this should have been easy to catch early on. That said... when I was running a software test department I was pretty darn methodical and anal (which from time to time would result in saber clashing with the VP of engineering and a very disappointed CEO) and would often veto releases but I've missed significant things myself so I know how it goes and can empathize (I still would like it fixed though :-) ).

Cheers, Joe
« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 12:33:16 pm by shewhorn »
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ednazarko

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #16 on: April 29, 2010, 02:04:38 pm »

I can attest to the value of the custom paper type capability in the 8300, from the wrong side of the problem... I created a custom paper type with what seemed to be all the right settings and the printer mangled the paper.  Turned out I'd "fat-fingered" some of the info defining the custom paper type and created a really bad set of parameters, and when I fixed my errors, everything was great.

That experience led me to wonder about whether some pre-defined paper types might not be set up exactly right.  Not to mention that the paper type names for many Canon papers don't match up to the names on the boxes when you buy them, so Canon's silo-ed product management organization has built a nice little mine field for us - if I guess the equivalency wrong, I'll have problems.
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Randy Carone

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« Reply #17 on: April 29, 2010, 02:38:18 pm »

I'll agree with shewhorn - we have MANY customers of Epson and Canon printers who routinely run third party media with excellent results. Many media manufacturers provide "media type" guidance along with their ICC profile. I own an Epson 3800, which runs many third party papers with no problem.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 02:39:35 pm by Randy Carone »
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babakBoghraty

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IPF8300 and Epson Exhibition Fiber - Scratches
« Reply #18 on: April 30, 2010, 06:35:11 am »

You guys are right; I should not have spoken about Canon because I have no experience.  But I do have a lot of experience with Epson and there, there is far more sensitivity to media type in the X900 generation.  I started with Epson 2000 and 9500 machines.  Then, we did not think about media setting except perhaps when a exotic paper proved too think.  With the X800 generation, I printed alternately on paper and canvas without changing the media type setting on Imageprint 7, and rarely gave it any thought.

With my 9900, every non-epson media requires careful selection of the media setting and some media feed adjustment.  You may not initially notice a problem with the setting when changing media type, but in my case, the problem surfaced in solid blacks and even other solid colors.  I initially thought there was a problem with the black ink pump, so I called Epson.  In contrast to the Canon users' experience, Epson only tested the printer with Epson media and declared that there was no problem.  When I showed him my funky Museo canvas prints, the answer was: we do not support non-epson media.  That was the end of my support case.

Since then, as I said, I have found that it is possible to find a setting that works with most third party media.  But unless you are married to your favorite paper, it is just less hassle to find the equivalent Epson media that you like and get on with printing instead of constantly fiddling with media type setting and adjustments.

The Canon user that began this post said that Canon support initially asked him to try different settings and eventually suggested a similar Canon media that would not present the scratch problem.  Sounded to me like a gentle nudge by Canon as opposed to Epson's brute force -- a matter of differing strategies while sharing the same anti-competitive impulse.

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shewhorn

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« Reply #19 on: April 30, 2010, 09:50:40 am »

Quote from: babakBoghraty
The Canon user that began this post said that Canon support initially asked him to try different settings and eventually suggested a similar Canon media that would not present the scratch problem.  Sounded to me like a gentle nudge by Canon as opposed to Epson's brute force -- a matter of differing strategies while sharing the same anti-competitive impulse.

That is 100% what I was expecting but I'm pleased to say that's not the line they've given me, totally opposite actually. I'm a little curious to maybe get some cut sheets of Canon Polished Rag. If the theory that this is only an issues with coated cut sheets then the Canon paper should exhibit scratches as well.

Cheers, Joe
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