Hi,
I have just received a replacement (second) Canon iPF8400 printer from Canon. As far as I can tell, the badge behind these printers say "Made in China". The quality of these new machines are horrific. One of my pinch rollers has a huge piece of flash (the bit of material squeezed out between two halves of a mould). The pinch roller axles are also not passing through the center of these rollers, so they rock about instead of rolling true.
I'm still seeing roller pressure marks on softer paper like Canson Rag Photographique 310gsm. It is about three times better (fainter) than my old printer, or about 1/3 as bad. These are not scratches btw, these are pressure marks. Like as though a bunch of steam rollers ran over the paper. Of course the marks line up perfectly with the rollers, easy to see when you lift the top cover and look at paper feeding out.
I've come to believe that the pinch rollers exert far top much pressure onto the paper and I'm thinking of ways to half that force. A simple experiment I did yesterday shows improvement, so I may be finally able to print on all kinds of paper like I could before, on my old iPF8100 (made in Japan!)
Is it now a toss up between badly made Canon printers from China that cannot print without leaving pressure marks on paper and arrives new with a whole bunch of defects, badly installed panels that are warped and poorly made rollers, failing mainboards etc or made in Japan Epsons that clog all the time and need sprinkles of holy water to work perfectly?
What is going on with the fine art printing market? Are our favorite manufacturers getting complacent because we are not demanding enough?