Troubleshooting—Banding on Epson inkjet proofs

Symptom

Printed output shows banding artifacts.

Cause

The most common causes of banding are:

• Plugged or deflected print head nozzles preventing the ink from ejecting
• Improper step adjustment, causing the paper to advance too much or too little

Solution

When banding occurs, the first thing to do is print a nozzle check pattern and look for artifacts. Then perform the following actions to identify and remove the banding artifacts.

Removing banding by cleaning plugged nozzles:

1. Print a nozzle check pattern following the instructions in the Epson Printer Guide for the applicable model.
2. The naked eye cannot see some artifacts, so use a loupe to examine the printed output. Look for:
   • Lines that are broken, missing, or fuzzy
   • Sharp lines without any stray droplets
3. Print the nozzle check pattern again and see if there is improvement. If there is improvement, print the nozzle check pattern up to five times to correct the problem.
4. If banding still occurs, do a cleaning cycle or a power cleaning following the instructions in the Epson Printer Guide.
5. Leave the proofer overnight and print a nozzle check pattern the next morning.
6. If the printed output still shows banding artifacts, perform a power clean following the instructions in the Epson Printer Guide.
   Note: For the Epson 9800 printer, do not perform a power clean except as a last resort because that uses a lot of ink. Repeat the nozzle check pattern at least five times before performing a power clean on the Epson 9800 printer.
7. If there are still banding artifacts, perform the following step adjustment procedure to correct the problem.

Removing banding by paper feed step adjustment:

1. In the Media Configuration Manager, select the media configuration that is showing banding, and click Edit.
2. In the Paper Feed Adjustment box, click Reset.
3. Set Number of Targets to 11 and Number of Steps to 4. Click Next to print the targets.
4. Select the patch that shows the least banding, and enter that number in the Current Adjustment box.
5. Repeat the above two steps until there is no banding and enter that patch number in the Current Adjustment box.
6. Select Done, and click Next.
7. Print a nozzle check pattern. If there are still banding artifacts, print the status check, following the instructions in the Epson Printer Guide, and contact a service representatitve.