Printing From Front Feed or Fine Art paper feed on P400

Open Discussion
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This is a problem with these printers and second pass K7 GO printing and some papers.

hmm . . . . not sure on QuadtoneRIP. I have front feed just barely working on an internal piezo driver but other things aren’t so that’s not an option yet. The problem with QTR is it does not allow front feed. Try rear-feed and see. I think it will take it but you need to test. This still might not fix the roller mark issues. These rollers can be pulled out. It would negate all printing on the last .56 inches (just like roll printers) but would give you a blemish free print.

Alternative is to use hahnemuhle art spray or Moab desert varnish (same thing). I tend to do this on anything 13" wide and smaller anyway . . . .

-Walker

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Is there any way to print from the front thick feed or rear fine art feed on the P400? The top feed is leaving an impression from the roller on all of my prints. Barley noticeable from the first pass but after the go pass it is very noticeable.

Thanks.
Chris

3

On my R1900 (same printer two generations earlier) I use the rear feed for the second GO pass. Works for me. On some printers this feed can be fussy, but generally you can get it to work with patience and persistence and a little care. To use the sheet feeder you need to tape on a lead sheet, a technique publicised by Dana on this forum some years back. I described it some detail here.

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Thank you for the information Walker. I am not confident enough to remove the rollers. I think I found a solution. I have been reversing the direction of the image when running a GO pass. This seems to have alleviated the issue. For now any way. I will keep the spray in mind though and may have to go that route.

Regards,
Chris

6

Reading this again, there might be some confusion which rollers we’re talking about. There’s the sheet feed roller that grabs the paper in the top sheet feeder, and then there’s the transport rollers that are on rotating shafts across the width of the printer along the paper path. The top sheet feed roller is the one that is notorious for marking the print during the second pass for GO. Using the rear feed or a lead sheet will prevent that happening.

There have been reports of the transport rollers marking prints, but this was during single pass printing. IIRC the P800 had a reputation for this on softer papers like Platine when it first came out, allegedly due to spring pressure that was too high, but I haven’t seen any recent reports.

I don’t really see how either problem could be solved by reversing paper feed direction. I suspect that the your problem is the top sheet feed roller, and if so you may well find that the problem comes and goes. Sometimes you can get lucky and the roller doesn’t mark one print and then for no apparent reason it does mark another. If reversing the direction does provide a stable fix then perhaps you could let us know.

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Brian,
Thank you. I don’t think I want to test my skills at taping a leader sheet just yet. But I will certainly keep it in mind and will read your post on it.

Regards,
Chris

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I have still been using the top feed. I went through about 47 prints over the weekend, with reverse image direction. It has elevated the issue. For now anyway. I think that with reversing the feed it does not put that extra indention on the paper in the same place.

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Interesting. Thanks. I confess to being surprised.