Digital BW, The Print

Hi Steve!

Thanks again for your detailled post. I'd love to say that there had 
been an improvement but nothing changed after performing all of your 
steps. Now- before I dump my 1290 (which I'd hate to, because before 
the banding issue it produced beatiful prints) and get the 7960, 
there are two more questions I have: 
1) when trying to align the prints, I never get a grain-free box in 
the second column. The row that is printed first shows an ok box at 
around "5" (but the banding is also visible there), but even after re-
adjustement there isn't a grain-free box in the second row (I can see 
no improvement in both rows when clicking re-adjust (sorry, don't 
know how this button is called in the english epson-software)). Could 
this have something to do with my issue?
2) What about a software problem? I have a usb-hub. Could the signal 
from the PC to the printer be "bad", so that it produces microbanding?

Thanks again!

Peter

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "scrber" 
<stephen.bate@m...> wrote:
> OK, so you have at least improved it.  Thats a start.
> There is one more thing that could be affecting the printing.  That 
> is that the paper is not being 'indexed' forward enough at each 
step.
> There are two causes.  One common, I get it a lot with my printers 
> after heavy use, the other pretty rare, I have read about it but 
> never seen it.
> 
> 1. Your paper has a coating, normally a kind of chalky substrate 
that 
> accepts the ink.  This coating is extremely slippy and over a 
period 
> of time can build up on the rollers that feed the paper and cause a 
> tiny amount of slip each time the rollers try to 'grab' the paper 
in 
> order to move it forwards.  When I use my satin matt papers such as 
> imajet, there is a huge amount of coating deposited on the 
rollers.  
> After 50 or so prints, the grab roller wont even feed the paper 
> anymore.
> 
> So, what do you do?  Two steps.
> i. Take normal plain bond paper, 50 sheets of and feed them through 
> the printer.  Just stick a fullstop on a blank page in word and let 
> it go.  This clears a lot off.  
> ii. Next step is to spray some more of our beloved windex onto some 
> more bond paper, especially on the RHS where it is grabbed. NOT too 
> much because it will tear up, but enough that it is damp.  Feed wet 
> sheet after dry sheet alternately about 10 sheets.
> iii.  Finally if you feel around inside the paper feed tray you can 
> find two thin plastic flaps that cover the 'grab' rollers.  Gently 
> fold these back outwards and that a cotton bud soaked with Windex.  
> Rub the grab roller with the cotton bud and see how much gunk comes 
> off.  Normally it helps to get the printer into a red light 'no 
> paper' situation so that you can press the feed but to cycle it a 
few 
> times, this gives you access to more of the roller and can clean it 
> better.
> iv. Use a number of sheets in your printer paper tray, it places 
the 
> top printable sheet closer to the rollers and helps it to feed.  If 
> you check the posts prior to this someone found that this step 
alone 
> cured their problem.
> 
> Now the second possibility....
> 
> 2.  Your band that drives the paper feed has stretched.  This could 
> theoretically mean that you will always get banding - even in your 
> alignment patterns.  As I said before, I have never known this 
> happed, only read about it during my lengthy research to solve the 
> same issues you have.
> 
> Also, try changing papers.
> Take a cheap EAM and see how that improves this on the 0 setting.
> 
> I have no experience with the HPs, but you can just look around 
this 
> board and see that most people swear by their Epsons and have found 
> ways to solve most of the issues.  At the end of the day, we are 
> tinkering with things that weren't really meant to be....There is 
no 
> telling what problems you may have with an HP.  Some of the issues 
> above could be just the same.
> Good luck
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "flabes23" 
> <peter.bongard@t...> wrote:
> > Hi Steve,
> > 
> > 
> > thanks for your detailed post, but unfortunately I did everything 
> you 
> > suggested. I will give you a more detailed report on what I`ve 
done 
> > yet.
> > Some weeks ago I moved to a new flat. During the drive to the new 
> > house I tried to leave the ink-bottles and the printer on the 
same 
> > heigh. Some days later. I printed fifty thick cards. I therefore 
> > changed the lever from 0 to + position (it's in the + position 
> since 
> > then, because I mainly print on Tetenal or Permajet 240g Archival 
> > Matte). During that time I often got bad nozzlechecks and after 
one 
> > photo-print was suddenly missing the grey color, I decided to 
flush 
> > the cards using the syringe-method the MIS-guys suggested on 
their 
> > site (I did everything exactly as they described except the step 
> > where a brand new cardrige set is needed in order to check if the 
> > print head works fine...sorry ;-), but apart from the bad nozzle 
> > checks I got from time to time the prints were perfect-no banding 
> > whatsoever! So the printheads were ok until that point). After 
that 
> > the trouble began: I got very fine horizontal lines on my prints 
> > (microbanding, I guess), although I always had a perfect nozzle-
> > check. It seemed as if less ink came onto the paper than before 
the 
> > card-flush. The whole image didn't look as "rich" as it looked 
> > before. After that I tried some methods I learned from various 
> > forums: Printing out the purge-file. No improvement. Run various 
> > cleaning-cycles. Still no improvement. Then I tried realigning 
the 
> > printheads several times along with the Windex-trick and the 
> raising 
> > of the bottles. After that the picture looked better, 
significantly 
> > better, but the banding is still there. Since I'm a photographer, 
> > this situation is very vexing for me. Now I'm going to sacrifice 
> one 
> > more sheet of my beloved Tetenal Archival Matte and do a proper 
> > Windex-treatment before that. Then I realign the heads once more, 
> but 
> > if this doesn't work, then say goodbye to Mr. Epson :-< . So 
Steve, 
> > after hearing my whole story - do you have any idea what could 
> cause 
> > this problem or if there is any other thing I should test? My 
> > suspicion is that I made something wrong during the card-flush. 
> Maybe 
> > I should repeat it, now with the cardrige-step included? Apart 
from 
> > that, do you think that the hp 7960 can print out b/w as 
beautiful 
> as 
> > my Epson with the MIS-inks? 
> > 
> > Thanks for your advice. I'm actually quite desperated. 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Peter