Roller marks on paper?

[Paddy]

My Epson Photo 830 is leaving what looks like roller marks on any page that is printed.

If i feed the paper through manually its fine, so there doesn't appear to be any ink on the paper feeder itself. However, as soon as I print, I get black track marks over the paper.

Any idea on what this is???

[Tjalfe]

lint on the print head

[Paddy]

OK, so what do i do about it....

[Tjalfe]

see if you can wipe it off somehow.. cotton swabs or something, if you can get to it.. you can first check where the print head is parked and remove any lint / paper fiber from there. I have had this same problem before, and on the epsons it is not always easy to get to the print head to clean it

[UtwigMU]

Do what tjalfe said and also blow and wipe dust from printer.

HP has nice instructions for cleaning heads in the drivers.

Basically cotton cloth that won't leave residue as paper towel would and distilled watter.

[Paddy]

ta - i will have a go when it is light

[Victorian]

Re: Roller marks on paper?

Originally posted by Paddy
My Epson Photo 830 is leaving what looks like roller marks on any page that is printed.

If i feed the paper through manually its fine, so there doesn't appear to be any ink on the paper feeder itself. However, as soon as I print, I get black track marks over the paper.

Any idea on what this is???

Funny, I saw the message title and the first word that came to mind was EPSON.

It appears to a problem with a number of Epson printers. Only way I could get rid of a similar issue with my Epson was to buy a Canon printer. It worked a charm.

[LvR]

Real big PITA this - search for "pizza wheel marks" with Google and you will find the whole world complaining about it - luckily there is a cure involving a little forced persuasion among others.

Apart from the Pizza-wheel thing and the damn clogging of heads and the just about constant need to clean the heads its actually a very nice printer producing very good quality prints when it puts its mind to it. I am running a Epson 895 photo.

I also have a HP930 that has never required a head-clean in the 2 years its been living right next to the Epson in the same environment

[seether]

Just as a heads up ...

If the problem still exists and the print heads seem fine, what kind of paper are you using? Epsons are notorious for serious bronzing problems when laying down a lot of ink on most third party papers - for example, HP photo papers do not get along with Epsons at all. More often than not, the pizza wheel effect is simply due to the ink not being absorbed fast enough into the paper.

[Paddy]

yeah i am using the HP paper that came with the printer (go figure)
I even get it when printing photos on epson photo paper, although it is only the black ink that makes these tracks...

[Paddy]

I have written a snotty letter to PCW asking for an exchange.... Its a shame, the photo quality is excellent but it is clearly not fit for the purpose in which it was sold... Its less than two months old so i am not going to faff about with trying to mod it.... just send back to base.

I will get a HP model instead, although I dont think that there will be much choice over at PCW...

If you had to get a printer from here, what would you get?

[Paddy]

I guess i should state what i need it for.

I originally bought the printer in a hurry because i needed to print out 500odd pages of text that day... However, now that I have a bit more time to think about it I am really impressed with the photo output on the 830.... The skin tones are a tad questionable, but i think that is more the source....

Being able to print on 6x4 cards would be great.
I am not that bothered about boarder free printing as the 6x4paper can come with perforated edges... still....

I am not that fussed about having ports for digital media, but if it doesn't cost that more, then it might be a sensible future proof option.

I'll stop driveling on and have a look.
Oh, and I am only limiting my self to HP because I am fed up with the Epson and well.... I havn't heard much about the cannons.....

Any way, over to you..

[Paddy]

Here is a list of the HP printers from PCW that I am considering:

• DJ1220C @199
• DJ450 @205
• PHOTOSMART 7550 @229
• DJ5552 @99.99
• PHOTOSMART 230 @£149.99
• PHOTOSMART 7150 @£114.99
• DJ5550 @£109.99
• 7350 @£99.99

[/list]

I'll update the list as I find out more info etc...

Anyone know any of these models?

[Tjalfe]

whichever printer you choose, check that they can take the big size ink cartridges.. alot of the newer HP ones can only take the 19ml black cartridge, where their old standard was 42ml... price being approximately the same for the cartridges. Usually the more expensive the printer, the bigger the ink capacity, which with you printing out 500pages in a day ( OK so you did it once) is worth concidering.

[Paddy]

Would you recommend or discard any of the above models?