Problem at start of print - Epson 4900

[Mike Guilbault]

I've been having some problems with the beginning of a print.  The first 1.5mm is discoloured, almost as if some of the ink is being laid down, and then it's fine for the rest of the image.  I'm printing on a 10" roll of Epson Premium Lustre.  If I print the same image on 8.5x11 sheet feed, I have no problems... only on the roll paper. 

any ideas?

[JRSmit]

I use a 4900 and have not (yet) encountered this ate the beginning. I did in one occasion at the end of a roll if I remember correctly. Could it be the paper was rather curled ate the beginning? Such that the head sort of " shaved" af a bit of ink?
.

[Mike Guilbault]

I don't think so.  This can happen on a brand new roll or near the end. 

[Farmer]

Are your firmware and driver up to date, Mike?

[Mike Guilbault]

I believe so... I'll try to check today.

[darlingm]

I might build a junk "to be trimmed" area into the prints until it stops.  Perhaps whitespace would do the trick, if it just needs to start advancing.  Perhaps you would need to use a mid gray or color gradient to get the ink flowing.  Throwing away misprints is one of the most infuriating things to me.

[Mike Guilbault]

Problem with that Mike is that I often gang print 20-30 8x10s at a time - so it only happens to the first print.  However, that may just work if I make a special template that adds a 1/4" 'image' at the beginning and trim that off.  I hate to have to redo all my templates for that though and then it works again!!  But alas... ya gotta do what you gotta do!

[Farmer]

It should be resolvable, Mike - there's no reason for it to happen in normal printing.

Once we confirm driver and firmware, let's double check settings in the printing workflow (everything!) and try to spot something gone amiss.

Feel free to remind me - it's a super busy week in the office coming up - but I can check on our 4900 to see if there's anything that stands out, too.

[darlingm]

This just screams hardware issue to me.  I really hope it can be resolved with firmware/driver/settings updating and checking, but I doubt it.

That being said, it is really bizarre it only happens on roll paper.

Does this happen every time, or intermittently?

Do you have other rolls (different brand or paper type) you could try, just to get more info on if it happens there?

I hope I'm wrong, but I think you'll be left with using a workaround in your template or calling in a tech.  Calling in a tech could have some value, if it is a hardware issue, because who knows if something like this would progressively get worse.

[Mike Guilbault]

thanks guys.. I'll have to take a look at it again this week when I'm back in the studio.  I have a couple of clogs I'm working out and this happened before - and when the clogs went away, so did this.  Hoping that happens again.

[BobShaw]

Sounds like the curved edge of the paper is hitting the heads. Put a longer margin at the start. Easy if you use Mirage Print.