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.