Digital BW, The Print

Steve 

I have had the same problem with my 3000. The silly thing is it only 
happens in the 50% area of the print. I found the fix was a  few 
things. I must first tell you that I am printing on the German 
Etchers 310gsm paper and as you know Epson 3000 are only supposed to 
take up to 165gsm, this is part of you problem. First thing and this 
fixes most micro banding is to do a head alignment test, you need to 
do this on a piece of the stock that you are printing on. Second is 
to do a nozzle check, make sure all of the lines are parallel if any 
lift or drop then there is a bit of dried ink near the jet and this 
is deflecting the ink. If a cleaning cycle does not fix this then put 
a few drops of Windex (local product in Australia, it is an ammonia 
based window cleaner)on the felt pad that the head parks it's self on 
and leave this over night. Finally I found that there was a small 
amount of slippage with the drive rollers and this also caused 
banding, I found the cure for my paper printing was to lay the paper 
on a clean work bench face down before I printed it and gently rub 
the back of the paper with a clean towel, this removed any dust and 
also made the paper slightly rough, this aids in getting better grip 
from the rollers.

I hope this fixes your problems.

Bruce

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Steve German 
<sgphotographics@e...> wrote:
> I've recently begun printing with MIS full spectums on Royal 
Renaissance
> (photorag) 309gm. with my Epson 3000, using the Roark curve.
> 
> Firstly, I would like to thank Mr. Roark for inventing and making 
public
> his wonderful curve, which really turns the old 3000 into a great 
photo
> printer. The problem I'm having, and I gather I'm not the only one, 
is a
> slight micro-banding, especially visible in areas of flat tonality. 
I
> get a little less banding with the thinner version of this paper, 
but I
> like the weight of the 309gm. I'm feeding the paper with the
> straight-through method, with the print head set on +.
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the Piezo driver with 
these
> inks with a 3000, and whether I would experience more or less 
banding
> with that. Also, I was wondering it there might be any printer
> modifications that might reduce banding with a thick paper, such as
> increasing the print head height even more than the + setting 
allows.
> Other than removing pizza wheels, I've never tinkered with the 
mechanics
> of the printer, so I don't know what's possible with this. And for 
one
> other thought, someone just suggested to me that banding can be 
caused
> by interference through the serial cable, although I'm not sure if
> that's the same kind of banding I'm getting.
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> Steve
> 
> PS: I tried to post this message several days ago, but it didn't 
seem to
> "take," so I'm trying again. Excuse me if it double-posts.