Digital BW, The Print

Hi everyone. I'm having one of those infernal banding dilemmas that 
popped up suddenly after an approximately three-week period of 
printer non-use while I was on vacation.

My setup is an Epson 1160, running MIS FSN bulk quadtones via a 
NoMoreCarts CFS, with the latest Piezo drivers. Everything was 
workine just fine under this arrangement, printing mostly on Epson 
and Red River semigloss papers, until I went away. When I returned 
and ran a couple of test prints, there was moderately severe vertical 
and "plaid" banding, most apparently in the darker areas of the print.

Nozzle checks have been perfect, and I've run several alignment 
checks, also without effect. Results on Epson Archival Matte are 
better, but I prefer the additional D-max of the semigloss stock.

What could have happened after a few weeks of downtime? Could one of 
the inks somehow have settled out, causing a problem? I swirled all 
the bottles a few times, to no visible avail. I suppose I can do the 
soaked-with-Windex paper towel head cleaning route, but why would 
this be connected with 3 weeks of non-use?

Any thoughts/advice/encouragement would be appreciated!


Thanks in advance, and regards from Louisville, KY....


aa.