UPDATE: The tech showed up today (Tuesday) and replaced both parts. My call on Friday had been to late to get one here on Monday. After running the prints again, we saw the same problems... streaks and small bumps.
Hmmm... we pulled the 44" roll of Pro Satin off the printer and the streaking was obvious on the un-printed paper. However, we couldn't find the bumps that were so consistent on the prints. It appears that I have a defective roll of paper and that the streaks were not caused by pizza wheels or exit guides. We are assuming that the bumps are caused by some defect in the coating which only show up after the ink hits the paper.
At least I have the latest pizzawheel assembly and lower platen, which appeared not to be the problem in the first place. We won't know until HP ships a replacement roll of paper and I have a chance to test it.
I feel a bit better that the problem seems to be entirely with the paper and not the printer.
Now, this was the only pain in the butt part. The tech said she couldn't order the replacement paper because it is a consumable, not a part. She told me to call the tech support people and get them to do it.
Well, they can't either because they do not have access to the 44" paper and even if they did, Nick said the order would probably get lost in a black hole since they are not supposed to send out paper. His suggestion was that I buy another roll and he would send me the equivalent value in ink and print heads. I didn't find this acceptable, so he told me to call the the HP Small Business Division where I had originally ordered the paper and have them replace it.
OK, now I'm getting a bit PO'd with all the phone calls that should have been handled by the tech. The Small Business guy, Arturo, calmly asked me to take pictures of the defective paper and send them to him so he could start a case. "What!", I said. "I can give you the Tech's name who was just here and she can confirm the defective paper."
He insisted on the photographs. I told him that the defects can be plainly seen when the angle of the light is right, but it would be hard to photograph. I offered to send him the remainder of the defective roll. "No", he said, "we need the pictures."
I offered to FedEx a print to him so he could see the defects first hand. "No", he said, "We really need the photos". At this point I was getting a bit preturbed that I had to spend more time proving the defect when a phone call to the field tech would have sufficed. He began to detect my frustration and said he would go ahead and ship the replacement paper out overnight and await the photo when I could get them to him.
Summary:
It took 15 minutes to set up a field tech visit (who drove 2 1/2 hours to get here from Phoenix) - Quick and Easy - Great Customer Service
One hour for her to replace the parts and run a test print - Quick and Easy - Great Customer Service
and, over an hour and a half making phone calls to get a roll of paper replaced - Pain in the Butt and not well done!
I have sent the photos of the defective paper to Arturo (took about 30 minutes to get some that showed the problems) and I will update this after I get the replacement paper and hopefully see no more streaks or bumbs.
Jim
