3880 Head Strikes

[sjcampbell]

I am printing with Hahnemuhle FineArt Pearl 285GSM on my 3880 feeding in to the first cut sheet feeder- not the rear one. I am getting head strikes at the trailing edge on the paper as it is printing the final few sweeps. Making the platen gap wider does no seem to fix the issue. It is most apparent on A4 cut sheets. Has anyone had a similar experience?

Cheers
Steve

[bernhardAS]

The manual specifies that "thick" paper should not be fed from the top.

Did you try rear or frontloading?

[sjcampbell]

Hmm.. wonder if by "thick" they are referring to me or the paper

I find that feeding from the rear is problematic. Lots of misfeeds and mis-alignments. Maybe I should spend a bit of time getting it rights.

Front feeding seems to be even more of a problem.

Cheers
Steve

[Gupfold]

I use thick paper (310gsm) through that front or top cut sheet feeder, I find changing the Platen gap and the paper thickness in the driver sorts out the head strikes prob, with the paper you use and thicker, 310gsm. Try setting to Wide and 5 for that paper, this seems to work for me. I think Eric Chan also suggests this. Another thing that can help is if you bend the corners down slightly before you feed the paper.

[Alan Goldhammer]

The obvious thing is to check the paper for curl.  I have found Hahnemuhle papers extremely prone to curling even though I always store them flat (Bamboo seems to be the worst of the lot).  I routinely roll them on a tube (with a cover sheet over the printing surface) to release the curl.  Doing this works well and I've not had a head strike with my 3880 (I always use the rear feeder and do not find it fickle at all as long as one exerts even pressure from the top to get the paper started).  Museo papers and Ilford Gold Fibre Silk seem to stay perfectly flat during storage and I don't need to take any special precautions with these papers.

[BarbaraArmstrong]

This problem came up some weeks ago on this forum, and I have experienced it also with the thicker papers.  The front receiving tray allows the leading edge of the emerging print to fall downward.  This, I think, tilts the back edge of the paper ever so slightly upward, causing these head strikes at the end of the print.  Putting something under the emerging front end of the print to support it (a magazine, a dvd box) solved this problem for me.

[BarbaraArmstrong]

As an additional note, I typically print on Canson Platine through the upper front paper feeder with single sheets and set the dialog boxes to 4 and Wide to accomodate the paper thickness.  Also, I think the problem with head strikes at the back end of the print occurs more with longer sheets.  Try supporting it with something underneath as it comes out.

[sjcampbell]

Thanks for the assistance everyone. I'll be doing a run tomorrow so I'll try the suggestions.

It's nice to be on a forum that is welcoming to newbies

Cheers
Steve

[unknownone]

It’s also possible it could be the printer, as one 3880 I had had problems with canvas, it always loaded slightly skewed and took a long time to feed in, but the 3880 I have now has no such problem, the canvas loads first time and always straight. I might get the odd head strike in the centre of canvas, but that’s to be expected as the printers not designed for canvas.

My point is that these printers aren’t identical, there were other differences too.