2880 and thick papers

[AndyF]

Has anyone found the trick to printing on thick papers with a 2880?  Papers such as Hahnemuehle Torchon or William Turner in particular.

I've tried loading them through the sloped, add-on single sheet feeder in the back, and even removing that paper bracket and feeding a single sheet straight in horizontally at the back of the machine.  In all cases, the printer reports a feed error.  It seems it will pull the paper in to the right location, the head shuffles back and forth, then the error is reported.  It doesn't try to move the paper.  The single blinking orange LED isn't very verbose.  Was the paper too thick, or not aligned, or some other problem.  It doesn't appear to be jammed.

The printer allows "thick" media to be loaded flat, from the front.  However for some peculiar and completely inconvenient reason, there is a slider to adjust for paper width but the printer driver will always scale the image up to 13x19; the manual says it will not print on smaller sheets from the front loader.  Perhaps there are insufficient guides to keep the paper moving exactly in a path perpendicular to the head, but anyway the front loader is not an option.

Epson's suggestion was to load it flat & horizontally from the back but that didn't work.

Andy

[Luca Ragogna]

I've been able to load 11x17 sheets through the front I just used the paper adjustment slider as common sense would suggest. It worked but it was a PITA and took a few tries.

[AndyF]

How did you configure the printer to use 11x17 on the front loader?

On my page layout tab whenever I pick 8.5x11 or 11x17 it automatically changes the output paper to 13x19 and then sets the reduce/enlarge, fit to page option.  Unclicking that results in the input paper size changing to 13x19.  No apparent way to print on less than 13x19 using the front loader.

Andy

[Luca Ragogna]

Ok, I just tried it again and I think you're right. I have a box of 11x17 Hahnemule 308 photo rag and I know I ran an 11x14 for my mom at Christmas on the 2880 I had a ton of trouble getting it to feed and I know that eventually I got it fed from the front but I'm thinking that I managed to get it in from the front but stuck it back far enough that it thought it was being fed from the single sheet feeder at the back but I didn't have the feeder in place at the back of the machine. I've attached a screen shot of my settings anyway.

[AndyF]

I found where to adjust custom paper settings and set the platen "wider", to accept thicker paper but the printer still shows a jam.  I also tried setting the canvas size to 13x19 in CS5, but still leaving the image in the 8.5x11 front corner and loading letter size paper to avoid the upsizing, however the printer is clever enough to detect that 13x19 paper is not what has been loaded.

I'll try the Epson and Hahnemuhle support people tomorrow.
Andy