Hello, I hope someone can comment on a strange phenomenon I’m experiencing with my p800. First off, the printer works great and has been doing so reliably for the past 5 years. However, for the past month or so, I’ve been getting dark specks/globs of some foreign substance or material on my 16x20 prints. These specks are small and few; I usually only see 1 to 3 of them on any given print. The specks are black in appearance, and I blow them off the print surface using canned air leaving a small white spot. I then retouch the print; fairly easy to do but annoying.
At first I thought it was congealed ink, but in retrospect that doesn’t make sense since the specks must be adhering to the paper before any ink is laid down. So I think that perhaps something in my printer is deteriorating, and gradually casting off these tiny particles that then stick to the paper. Then the ink is laid down over these specks eventually resulting in white spots on the print.
I’m guessing whatever’s causing this is happening somewhere during the paper loading stage; perhaps a roller? I tried some cleaning sheets I got from Red River, but these didn’t seem to do anything. Also, I believe the cleaning sheets from Epson are no longer available?
I mostly print using Red Rive Polar Matte using the standard paper tray, back loading configuration. I have used the front loader for heavier art papers, but only rarely… less than 30 sheets total, so I don’t think that’s an issue.
So I was wondering if anyone has had this problem, and how they fixed it? Any info provided will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance…
P.S. I’m sure someone will ask if I’ve cleaned the print heads yet, and no I haven’t in that I don’t think that’s the cause. But I will certainly go that route if recommended by someone who found that cleaning the heads fixed the problem.
