Digital BW, The Print

I know banding can drive you nuts, Thom. 

Been there. Had bands. Now my oldest 1160 printer has them on a couple
papers, in the 90-75 percent gray areas. When I print on Aspen, they
aren't there, but are on photo matte, and now this morning on EAM. I've
tried squiriting ammonia (Cleaning solution) through the printheads, no
improvement. Fantastix on the pad to the right of the printer did
nothing either. I get perfect head alignments and nozzle checks, but
courderoy bands in those dark gray areas. Perfect Nozzle checks mean
nothing as far as banding goes. They can be perfect and still you can
have banding. The printer prints great on the aspen paper, but that
isn't thick enough for prints I sell. I just had to replace a 1280
printer, so can't afford another one for a while.  I think that a
printer can print just so many prints, and then things begin to fail. 
This printer has had thousands of prints through it.

Jerry

> Mostly EAM with a bit of photo rag and german etching
> now and then.  All printed slow speed at 1440.  I
> haven't noticed any difference between paper types
> even after realignment for the thicker papers.  From
> normal viewing distance it's not noticable, but for
> me, knowing it's there drives me nuts.

How old is your printer and how many prints have you had through it? 
Maybe a lot of our problems are occuring simply because the epson print
heads start to wear out after so many prints.