How to load canvas into 3880 WITHOUT the leader?

[Some Guy]

Spent entire morning taking printer apart due to the tape coming off the leader during loading of canvas.  That idea of tape to secure it to canvas didn't go well at all.  Anyway, it was a mess of tape stuck everywhere else that it shouldn't have been.  Printhead went nuts too and didn't help the matter.

That "rear feed" idea of Epson really was never tested well with canvas it seems.  Right now I'd like to strangle the engineer who designed it for canvas.  Seems canvas strikes some lip ahead of that long black spring-loaded bar and it refuses to feed under it out to where the head scans and sets the print border alignment up with the rollers.

Anyway, I don't want to go through the taped leader idea ever again, plus all the print resizing and offsetting the image just to get there - which was totally worthless this AM too.  Whole "Tape a leader to canvas" idea is capable of heading to a disastrous mess if it breaks or comes off.  Anyone know a "better way" of getting the 17" wide canvas into the rear slot of the printer without a fight and the air turning a shade of purple on a Sunday?  The front load slot is 16" and I don't know why they didn't go with 17" there.  Really has some design and engineering issues Epson didn't address well at all.

Tia.

SG

[StuNY]

You will see a lot of discussion here around this here. The canvas type seems to make a big difference based on others results. In my initial tests with different canvas' I found that some were softer and not able to hand feed, while others feed very easily. I settled on Hahnemuhle Monet Canvas due to the look and handling and never have to tape a leader to it. It does take a bit of technique at first but you will soon be loading without thinking about it- much!

When I started, I found it best to stand behind the printer and push the canvas (make sure it is cut square- very important- I use a rotary cutter), but now I do it from the side as easily.

My technique is to spread out all 10 fingers and push evenly into the back feeder until the printer grabs the canvas. I then lift the cover and look to make sure it is straight and about 1/4" hanging out from under. It is important to turn off the "check paper alignment" option in the menu to make things work so you have to take a peek yourself. If for some reason I messed up and don't like the alignment I just redo the feed. Works first time about 95 percent of the time.

I had the same thing happen with the tape getting stuck when I was first trying the headers too!

Good luck, it is worth the effort and a great canvas printing machine when you get it down.

[Randy Carone]

I use a similar technique to feed my 3800. I stand in front of the printer and dampen my knuckles and guide the canvas in by pushing with my knuckles. Good success rate using this method. BTW, I also set the platen to 'widest' and paper thickness on 8 or 10. I keep the cover open so I can monitor the first few head swipes to make certain all is well. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[Some Guy]

Well success, finally!  Sort of. 

I kept fighting with one canvas sheet trying to get it to load in the rear slot.  Just didn't want to cooperate. Turned it to the opposite end and it fed immediately!  I saw the head pass and no yellow "Skew error. Reload paper" light came on so I assumed it was good.  It was a little crooked ahead of the black bar so I pulled it back out on one side to even it up.  Went into Qimage and hit the Print and it ran fine.

However, for some odd reason, the first one only printed about 12 inches of the 17 inch width.  The rest of the canvas was unprinted (white) past the 12 inch area.  The 25 inch length was okay.  I set a custom profile up in the Epson printer driver for 17x25 and I guess the cleared "Fit image to page" setting messed it up.  I check it "On" and the next sheet did the same thing;  One end wouldn't feed, and the other one did?  Guess one you bang up one end, the chances of it ever loading right or easily is slim?  At least the second one looks fine for all the fussing on loading - and some driver setting issues too.

On the second sheet of canvas, I cut it to about 27 inches figuring if I had to trim the ends to get it to feed I'd have some leeway.  May help prevent a scuff mark on the image itself when the rollers go for the eject too.  Used a roller cutter as well.  Stiff canvas might be good too.

I used the matte ink too.  Don't know if it mattered, but the canvas setting kicked it to matte ink.  On the canvas it does look a bit glossy, but not bad.  I sprayed it today with Premier Art Lacquer (or is it a varnish?) out of the HLVP Sata Mini-Jet gun and it looks quite nice.  Two coats took about 5-6 ounces of the lacquer.  Helped with some dull areas of the canvas and evened it all up.  Great stuff, and no spray marks and overlap lines as when I used a can of McDonald's SureGuard Gloss aerosol.

So it can be done without the damned taped leader idea!  That method I can see leading to disastrous results if you have to dig into the machine with Goo-Gone, tweezers. needle-nose pliers, and whatever else to dig the tape out of the thing.  Talk about a nightmare!

SG

[RHPS]

Well success, finally!  Sort of. 

However, for some odd reason, the first one only printed about 12 inches of the 17 inch width.  The rest of the canvas was unprinted (white) past the 12 inch area.  The 25 inch length was okay.  I set a custom profile up in the Epson printer driver for 17x25 and I guess the cleared "Fit image to page" setting messed it up.

In my experience (with the 3800) this is normally because the canvas is slightly skewed. The head moves across the loaded media to measure its width, and if it's skewed it looks narrower than it actually is. The printer doesn't warn you about it but it only prints to the width that it thinks is loaded. Very annoying! When I print canvas now I turn off the PAPER SIZE CHECK in the printer menu.

[Some Guy]

In my experience (with the 3800) this is normally because the canvas is slightly skewed. The head moves across the loaded media to measure its width, and if it's skewed it looks narrower than it actually is. The printer doesn't warn you about it but it only prints to the width that it thinks is loaded. Very annoying! When I print canvas now I turn off the PAPER SIZE CHECK in the printer menu.

On my 3880, I find the biggest issue is getting the canvas to show up ahead of that long black spring-loaded plastic strip while looking down from the top cover area on initial loading.  Probably too limp and why some have used a stiffer leader?  Seems it catches on some lip someplace on feeding and never quite comes through that area so the head won't even find it.  Probably too many attempts bends it up even more and the problem just gets worse, and maybe why when I flipped it it loaded the first time?

If it pops maybe 8-12mm ahead of that black strip on loading, chances are the head will do the skew check and might report askew or not.  Turning off the skew check probably can't hurt.  I tugged the canvas back on one side to make it parallel to the black plastic strip prior to going into the Print on the computer.  Getting it ahead of that strip seems 90% of the issue that I had on loading.

SG

[RHPS]

I don't know about the 3880 but the 3800 only seems to detect skew in one direction. If the left-hand edge of the paper is leading then the printer will report a paper error when it goes to print. If the right-hand edge is leading it doesn't report an error - it just goes ahead and prints, but doesn't print the full width. That's why it's so annoying.