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Epson 3880 streaks, not the "pizza wheels"

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
I often use an Epson 3880 for prints and I am generally pleased with the printer. I have had very little problems, usually I just send the prints and it simply works.

Yesterday was different: I got streaks on the prints. The marks were in the direction of the paper feed (therefore orthogonal to the print head travel direction). The reason for the difference, I found out, was that the weather was abnormally warm and humid so that ink was not drying as fast as usual. I also got head crashes, but these can be solved by raising the platen gap.

I spent some time searching the Internet for solutions and it seems that everybody is complaining about the "pizza wheels" (little spiky metal wheels moving the paper on the exit side). So I thought that was the problem at first, but found out after further prints that the marks were not aligned with any of the wheels at all.

The problem, I found out, is that the paper curled up and touched a metal bar above it. You'll see the bar if you look straight into the paper exit. The solution was to lower the exit tray on the first half of the printing. I had to watch each print going out and fumble with the tray and paper to avoid the streaks...

I am writing this in case someone has the same problem later: contrary to what you'll find everywhere it is not necessarily the "pizza wheels".

This problem with paper curl will happen with:
  • thick fiber based art paper, which tend to curl more than standard Epson paper
  • when the weather is humid, so that ink does not dry very fast
  • on darker prints, which use more inks
  • on large prints (full width), but not on prints too small to curl high enough.
 
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