Digital BW, The Print

Chris,

I of all people am the least qualified to comment on MIS inks and
microbanding!

But I can tell you that we have a testing lab with somewhere between 40 and
50 small EPSON printers. At any given moment about 15 are in for repair. So
we know that across the board, EPSON printers require a lot of maintenance
that the end-user is not able to do themselves. With thermal inkjet, the
head is replaced with each cartridge change. With EPSON you get what you get
when you buy it and you have what you have as you use it over time.

 Microbanding is one of the most difficult things to tech support. It can be
the ink, it can be the ink cartridge, it can be the print heads need
cleaning or alignment, it can be that the cartridge itself is not venting
well, it can be that the piezo crystals are not firing well, it can be the
printer's board electronics are interfering with the head electronics, and
it can be environmental as in too dry or too humid, it can be the CFS carts
are plugging, it can be the tubing is plugging, it can be a pinched line. it
can be other things as well....

Look at the list above and see what you can do on your own. Don't overlook
the environment. Try and determine if there is anything new since you last
printed. Do all the easy things first. Then move on to deep cleaning issues
including if you are not timid injecting a solution of ammonia diluted 9:1
with distilled water into the ink stems. make sure you push the tubing all
the way down to the base, move the heads to the left and place a wad of
toweling under them to collect the fluid, take your syringe for starting
your CFS and push the fluid through the heads.

If all else fails - EPSON repair depot. We visit one on a weekly basis. I
figure that our testing lab is a microcosm of 40-50 separate users. At any
given moment 15 of us are in for repair - most often its electronic
replacements which do the trick.

good luck,

--------------------------------
may your highlights be dotless
and your tonal scale smooth,


Jon Cone
jon@...
Piezography(tm) brand software and inks
http://www.piezography.com
--------------------------------




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "cmpatti2001" <cmpatti@a...>
wrote:
> I hadn't used my 1280 CFS system for a while, and after many trials
> and tribulations have got it working again.  I decided to try to
> Tyler Boley curves for the first time.  Although they seem to be
> giving me smoother tones, I've run into a new problem--light banding,
> most visible in the mid-highlights, running in the direction of the
> print head.  It is just visible to the naked eye with the print held
> at a reasonable viewing distance (say 12 inches).  I'm printing on
> EAM and am using all the recommended settings ("heavyweight matt,"
> 1440 dpi, "no color adjustment," and "high speed" and "smooth edge"
> unchecked).  My first couple of prints seemed fine, but now
> the "banding" has ruined several prints in a row.
> 
> I assume this is a relatively common issue, but I've not run into it
> before.  Any suggestions?
> 
> Chris Patti