Epson 9600 Printing Woes

I posted this over on the Digital Imaging forum but was hoping someone here might be able to help.

I'm trying to make some fine art prints for a client and I'm having a couple problems.

1.) The printer appears to be printing fine (no clogged heads, etc.)and the prints look great--but the printer is depositing random drops and splotches (splatter) of ink on my nice new prints thus ruining them. The droplets are 1-4mm in diam and have been both black and magenta. Most recently the black splatter shows up in areas with a lot of black in the photo and drips/splatters into the margins of the photos. Incidentally, I've recently replaced the light black and magenta cartridges--any connection?

2.) I'm printing on Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art paper and having lots of problems with flaking. I've been dusting the paper off with a fine brush before printing but it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas? Thought about upping the humidity in the room (its very dry here).

3.) In the margins (and probably on the print itself--just too much ink to see) the printer is laying down fine lines of very tiny ink dots. Each row of dots is a different color. It almost looks like the "pizza wheel" affect that some printers have had on glossy prints except this is dots of ink and there are no "pizza wheels". Never seen this happen before.

Any suggestions on troubleshooting these problems would be very much appreciated. I've burned through far too many 11x14s on this job and will be lucky to break even due to these problems (which I've never had before).

Thanks in advance!

Phillip,
I don't have any experience with Epson printers, but could you be having ink loading issues? Maybe choosing a different paper type would provide a pleasing result with less ink. Perhaps if too much ink is being laid down it's getting collected on the platen or rollers before it dries and transfered to other parts of the paper.
Nothing to offer about the dots in the margins.
Maybe try a different paper and determine if it's how the paper holds the ink or whether the printer is malfunctioning.

Maybe Nat or Richie has seen this. Good luck!

I can't really offer any advice/insight except, "Bummer." That is a paper that I'd like to try. I'll also be interested in hearing the replies from Richie and Nat...

I'd be surprised if the humidity level was causing the problems you described (but what do I know? ). But dry climate will certainly clog nozzles. I recently moved my Epson 4000 downstairs to the basement to help relieve clogging issues.

Good luck and hope you figure it out.

I have no clue what the ink problems are. Of course these things always pop up while printing a large job. Sorry to hear that. Maybe try the ink limiting suggestion, increasing platen gap and/or increase your drying time between passes. But that just means more burning paper to experiment. The row of ink dots alone seems bad enough to call Epson asap.

I use nothing but Photo Rag and USFA these days. I love the USFA for many reasons. The flaking is always an issue though. I've gotten used to it. Are you using roll paper? The roll paper flakes a bit less. I always unroll to the size of my print, brush it off with a few passes of a large camel hair brush, and then give it a good blast of canned air to hopefully remove any lingering dust. So far I haven't ruined any paper with my aggressive cleaning. As soon as the print comes out of the printer, find a super safe place for it to dry - and cover it with a piece of interleaving tissue. Spray it as soon as it dries/outgasses. That's how I deal with this paper. And I still throw away a few prints occasionally. Pretty typical I think.

Well, I reduced the vacuum and printed again and I got no splatter and no dots. Hmmm. I'm not going to declare victory just yet though. I have a large canvas to print next. We'll see how that goes.

Phillip - maybe Rich V. will chime-in. Otherwise you should shoot him an email.

He may be able to give you some insights.

Sorry but I've never seen those inking problems before on any of my Epson printers. It sounds like #1 and #3 are the same problem. And it could be a bad head; maybe there's a leak. Whatever the case, the settings on your printer (such as vacuum) shouldn't cause this; the vacuum might just be making another problem evident.

Re: the flaking - all matte papers are prone to flaking, and it's not necessarily caused by dust. On matte papers the ink receptor coating is very thin and easily damaged. In fact, you may be damaging it by brushing it first. Instead, just give the paper a good shake before loading to shake off any particles. Whatever you do, don't touch the surface of the print with anything eight before or after printing. (You can touch up some flecks with an archival marker though.)

I also recommend using Premier Art Print Shield. It's a lacquer that helps reduce flaking and increases permanence. (Use a good dust mask)

I had a problem very similar to #1 on my 7600 when I was printing to Hahnemuhle photo rag roll paper - a relatively thick paper that held too much curl. I cured it by setting the platten to wide or wider. I (thank goodness)haven't had the other problems . Good luck.

Steven - good point about the platen gap - but I haven't seen spattering as a result.

But in general you will want to be adjusting your platen gap often for different papers.

Nat - No question about it. What I've found down here is that when the humidity gets to 10% and under, the roll paper get "curlier" (sp?), so you have to adjust even more than what you normally do. Unless you forget to pay attention, like I always do...