3880 / K6 Piezography 2 / Vertical Banding

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
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1

I have a digital negative that is showing banding. I have previously printed this exact image with the same pictorico and not had the problem I’m experiencing. On the attached image (which is printed on ilford paper), you can see the vertical banding that is in the direction that the print head moves. I printed this same negative twice yesterday and it did the same thing both times.

Printing on a 3880 with the K6 Piezography 2
digital negative inkset.

Any insights would be helpful.

Thanks

2

Please attach a printed nozzle check for me to examine. From the photo above, it looks like you may be dealing with mis-firing nozzles, which could be caused by a dirty printer. If this is the case, I recommend cleaning your printer’s capping station, wiper blade and bottom of the print head, by following our instructions, here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance

Please let me know, thanks~ Dana

3

Dana, thanks for the reply. Below is the nozzle check. The second row/pattern is very faint, but I believe all the nozzles are there.


4

Thanks. From what I can see, your nozzle check looks perfect… Has this banding pattern happened with any other images? Have you shut down both the printer and computer, then restarted and made a test print? Have you cleaned your printer’s capping station, wiper blade and/or bottom of the print head? If not, you can follow our instructions for cleaning the inside of your printer, here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?133-Printer-Cleaning-and-Preventative-Maintenance

Keep me posted, thanks~ Dana

5

The file is huge and I’m wondering if it might be a data/software issue. I’ll try a restart and see what happens. i’ll let you know. Thanks

6

Please let me know how things go after restarting, and if it happens with a different image.

7

Could these marks be pizza wheel marks - i.e. from the rollers hitting wet ink? (I’ve never had this problem with IJM inks, but it was a big issue some years ago with Image Specialists inks in my 2100.)

8

I’m with Brian in that it might be the steel gear looking things (pizza wheels) under the print head on the output cover that moves the paper out of the machine. You can probably see from your print just what area it is striking. This also happens with some papers that soak in the ink and get soft leading to the marks, even imprinted tracks on the print’s back too. Some papers just don’t play well with the 3880 feed system too.

One thing I’ve noticed with mine is that if the head is too low (Platen gap, Paper thickness, etc.), and the ink is slow to dry on its surface, the head will go over that area and actually rub ink off where those rollers, pizza wheels, gears, or whatever they call them are at. If the gap is too little, it can even scrape off paper fibers to collect in the steel frame that surrounds the actual print head and then you get blobs of ink from those later on.

Trying to clean the bottom of the head is a nightmare, and you can hope the wiper will remove it maybe. I’ve seen a lot of tarry-looking junk under mine.

Mack