Epson 7600 horizontal banding - very fine white lines

[BrianWoolf]

Last weekend, I noticed very fine lines in the shadow areas of my prints. Since I don't use my Epson 7600 as often as I would like, I am always getting clogged nozzles, witch take some cleaning, This happened this weekend and after a few cleaning cycles, I got a perfect nozzle check. Then I did a few prints and noticed some fine horizontal lines in the last one. Checked the others and they had them also. Did another nozzle check and it was perfect. I went back and started checking prints from a week or two ago and they had these lines also. You have to realize that I have old eyes and they just don't see as sharply as they did when I was 20. I needed a fairly strong magnifying glass to see these lines and figured that it went back about six weeks.
   I went online and the solutions were print at a higher resolution (1440 - but that didn't really help solve the problem) and use the Paper Feed Adjustment in the Print Dialog box under Paper Configuration. This goes from -70 to +70, I tried various choices -50, -25, -20, -15, -6 and +50 and still lines. Yes they seemed to change but almost like I was getting more of them per inch.
   Any one have anything like this?
   Could it be the new roll of paper that went in around that time (Epson Enhanced Matte)?
   Mac OS10.5
Thanks in advance for any help,
Brian Woolf

[langier]

First prints through my 7600 years ago had a similar issue. I think the solution was to run unidirectional for printing. You may also want to try the head alignment test pattern under maintenance to see if that may also help.

Take care,

[BrianWoolf]

Larry, thanks for the reply.
I did do a head alignment for all three types of head passes, bi-directional and the two uni-directional. Didn't help a bit. Tried to pint on different paper, put a sheet of Epson Prem. Presentation paper thru and still the same horizontal white lines. Tried a Somerset Velvet and still had the lines at the 720 setting, but they were thinner/fainter, at the 1440 setting the lines seemed to disappear, at least I think they did. Having trouble making a 'lines gone' or 'they are still there' decision. maybe I am imaging them.
Will try a power clean today and see if that helps.
Thanks,
Brian

[yannb]

Hello,

Probably the paper is advanced too much between print passes. You can adjust this paper feed if you go to the custom paper menu.

Another way to compensate for paper feed issues, is through the service menu. Get there by powering on the printer while holding the 'enter', 'up arrow' and 'down arrow' buttons. Then find your way to the Adjustments->T&B Media feed. In this test the printer will print a pattern of about 1 m long, and then ask you to enter the measured length.

Regards,
Yann

[davidh202]

Brian,
If you are trying to reload very low carts that could be your problem.
I just went through all this a couple of weeks ago on my 7900 and ultimately discovered that the printer hates very low carts at
 a level of 1 or 2% remaining ink.
After doing multiple cleanings, and settings changes (according to the manual), I wound up leaving in the new carts, discarding the 4 carts that had 1% left (even though Epson says they can be reloaded after a cleaning), resetting all the driver settings back to default, and my banding disappeared.

[Garnick]

Hi Brian,

You've mentioned that your nozzle checks are "perfect", but you really should view them with an 8x loupe at least. I you are doing that and they still look perfect and you are still seeing the light banding, I would definitely run another cleaning cycle. I learned a long time ago that you can't always trust a nozzle check and that occasionally it will manifest itself as light banding. The nozzle check may appear to be fine, but try another cleaning cycle and then a print that has already shown the banding. There's no guarantee that this will cure the problem, but it is another approach to try at least. I hope it helps.

Gary 

[BrianWoolf]

David,
Not really trying to get the last drop from the ink cartridges, only the black and cyan are on the last bar and no low ink warnings yet.

Yann
Got to the service menu and did the T&B align printout, but the next thing up in the window on the printer is 3mm (I am US inches over here) found a ruler with mm on it, but have no idea what I am supposed to be measuring and nothing comes close to the 3mm. I don't want to really screw things up, by making blind choices. The printout has a small white space, then a 5/8 gray band (with white lines in it), another slightly larger white space, then a thin straight line. This might measure 2.5mm on my ruler. So I gave up on this attempt.

Then I did a regular power clean, a nozzle check, a few regular nozzle cleanings to get a good nozzle pattern. I then tried to print a section of the print, about 4" high and still the banding is there. On the printer, in Paper Config, in Print ADJ, I can select from 1 to 9, as I tried these settings, I could see the lines changing, with a magnifying glass, 1, 2 & 3 gave a wider overlaping band, 5 giving the closest, tightest band, with 6,7,8 & 9 giving wider, more obvious bands.

I did three of the same prints on Epson Somerset Velvet about two days ago, and when I looked at them today could not see any lines. So after all the above tests on Epson Enhanced Matte, I switched back to the Somerset Velvet and did some test at 720, hight speed on and high speed off and had lines/banding, although they were fainter.

So I am a bit confused on which way to proceed.

Brain

[davidh202]

David,
Not really trying to get the last drop from the ink cartridges, only the black and cyan are on the last bar and no low ink warnings yet.
Brain

I wasn't trying to squeeze the last drops ..(yes I was because the message said I could replace the low carts after using the full carts  for a cleaning)
and the banding showed up again.
When I put the full carts back in and reset all the driver settings  (including High Speed) the banding was gone.
If you have replacement carts try the new ones just for grins, and see what happens
Epson just loves to have us waste tons of ink!

[BrianWoolf]

David,
As I am out of spare ink cartridges at the moment. I was actually thinking of switching to Epson Prem. Luster and getting a photo black cartridge. So maybe that would work.

If I print at 1440 with high speed off the lines are impossible to see on a paper like Somerset Velvet, but on the Enhanced Matte the horizontal lines are just barely visible. It would seem that I might have a 'deflected nozzle' that I can't seem to fix.

Brian

[yannb]

Yann
Got to the service menu and did the T&B align printout, but the next thing up in the window on the printer is 3mm (I am US inches over here) found a ruler with mm on it, but have no idea what I am supposed to be measuring and nothing comes close to the 3mm. I don't want to really screw things up, by making blind choices. The printout has a small white space, then a 5/8 gray band (with white lines in it), another slightly larger white space, then a thin straight line. This might measure 2.5mm on my ruler. So I gave up on this attempt.

Hi, it's called the Adj: Feed Adj. + T&B. The T means Top, B means Bottom, so you probably only entered the menu to adjust the top and bottom margins.

If you're interested, I can send you the service manual for this printer. It's about 18 MB in size though.

Regards,
Yann

[BrianWoolf]

Yann,
Thanks on the offer for the service manual, but I have already downloaded it. Also I am aware that inkjetarts.com have a good help page on the 7600. At present, I will live with it and see if it gets better or worse. If it gets worse, I will attempt some kind of adjustments or repairs.

Thanks for your help.

Brian