Don't know if this will help. It's the first idea I came up with and hasn't let me down...yet. Then again, I haven't been printing digital negatives for very long!I print negatives with an Epson SC P900 on Fixxons transparency film. I am having endless problems with the P900's paper path. I'm on my FOURTH printer.
Printer 1: I bought the first P900 from Amazon in early 2022. It arrived damaged in transit. Though it ran, it would not feed paper through the front or rear paper feeders. Epson sent a refurbished replacement.
Printer 2: The replacement also would not feed paper or film cleanly from the rear feeder. The leading edge of the paper or film would catch on something on the front feeder tray, inside the printer, causing the paper or film to roll into a tube under the print head. But I found a workaround: I could push against the front feeder tray, and that give the paper enough clearance to feed through the printer. I got a bit over a year of use from the machine.
Last month, the workaround became unreliable. And when I started trying to print on 17-inch media, the print head would catch on the leading corners and dogear them.
Printer 3: I called Epson a few weeks ago. Epson said the machine was out of warranty, but agreed to replace it with another refurbished unit, with the stern admonition that this was the end of Epson's responsibility. The new (third) printer did move the paper and film from the rear feeder into the paper path. But with this printer, the paper or film caught on something else about 3.5 inches into the print, causing the middle of the paper to buckle and, ultimately, a head strike and jam.
Printer 4: To Epson's credit, it responded to the new development by shippping a fourth printer, also refurbished. It arrived this morning. It prints plain paper fine. But it feeds Fixxons oddly into the paper path, crumpling the trailing edge as it feeds the leading edge into the machine. When it does feed film cleanly into the path, it does the same thing as the last printer -- about 3.5 inches in, the leading edge catches, causing the film to buckle and cause a head strike.
I turned on the thick paper option for the third and fourth printers, even though Fixxons is only 5 mils thick. It did not change the results.
I know a lot of group members are using this printer with Fixxons or other transparency media. What can I do at this point? Has anyone else had these problems?
Should have insisted on a new one for #1 considering it was damaged in transit. Looks like Epson is just recycling other people's returns as refurbishments. They don't really solve the problem but placate the customer for the time being.
Anyway, that does sound like a nightmare. As I understand the physical quality of this new printers (700/900) is not as good and sturdy as their predecessors.
Feeding a transparency is always a crap shoot in any printer though. I learned that long time ago with my HP B9180 printer. As a result, I started printing on a carrier sheet made of baryta inkjet paper 13"x13" with the transparency taped at various spots in the center and fed the sandwich from the front tray designed for fine art media. It's was nuisance and it slowed you down, but better that than trying to retrieve stuck plastic sheet inside the printer and worse, the head strikes that are bound to occur becasue of the curvy transparencies.
After that printer died, I bought the Epson P400. Similar problem with feeding transparencies. Sometimes it worked and sometime it didn't. Using the carrier sheet did the job in this case too. Here, I employed a thicker 4-ply mat board of the same size and used the front feed path to print. Another advantage of front feed is that it disengages the star wheels in the path so no "pizza" wheels show up on the negatives. Lately, I have been prining through QTR which does not have the option to use the front feed so - yet another improvisation - for that I use the top sheet feeder - only now the negative is taped on a thin photo paper. I also removed some of the star wheel assemblies from the middle where the transparency sits to get rid of the pizza wheels. So far it has worked without any mishaps...
:Niranjan.
Are smaller transparencies easier to feed?
I've wanted to try 6 1/2 × 8 1/2. I find smaller is easier all through the process. Kinda obvious I suppose
Thanks to all of you who replied. My first few attempts to use these suggestions have not been successful but I am going to explore more today.
I am having a hard time understanding how "curl" could be the culprit. These printers are designed to use rolled media, albeit fed through a separate path from the rear. Rolled media has a much more pronounced upward curl than a sheet of transparency film! So if my Fixxons is catching on the top of the flat feed tray after it has passed the print head, then how in the world do these printers manage to print from rolls of paper?
Update:
Printer 4 went back to Epson for another refurbished unit. Printer 5 was also defective -- more paper path misalignment issues, plus a phantom paper jam error that disabled the printer. Epson is shipping out Printer 6, also a refurb, this afternoon.
I have to believe that Epson receives defective printers; runs a standard bench test that does not check paper path alignment issues; and then reships returned units that passed the test as "refurbished" printers. I have nothing but praise for Epson's telephone support lines, which are mostly call centers in the Philippines. But I fear that I am caught in a revolving door so long as Epson keep shipping "refurbished" units to me.
Something tells me that Epson won't run out of refurbished units anytime soon. What a mess.
So: It turns out that Epson listened. They said they would ship me a refurbished unit, but that they would run tests to make sure to ship one with a paper path was free of defects.
Friday and Monday passed -- no printer.
This morning, FedEx brings me a box -- a NEW printer, not a refurbished unit. No explanation for the delay or the upgrade. My guess: They found that all the refurbished units they tested showed various paper path issues, and decided to put me out of my misery and ship a new printer.
And it does appear to work! It just now printed an 8.5x11 inch negative on Fixxons without incident. That's just one print, and maybe I just jinxed everything by saying it out loud. But I am going to bed tonight content that I got to print at least one negative, and that maybe I get to do it again in the morning.
I've been monitoring this thread with interest. I've been thinking about upgrading my printer specifically for digital negatives, and almost unanimously been hearing Epson is the way to go, and as a result thinking about getting a P900. Horror stories like this makes me wonder though. Given all this, what is your advice? Should I wait? Look for some other model?
Stick with Epson. I suspect that most Epson printers will be fine. If you do have problems, raise them quickly. The P900 is a wide-carriage printer, and Epson has a dedicated commercial support line for them that is well-staffed by knowledgeable and sympathetic operators. I have nothing but good things to say about them. If you do end up with a problematic machine, they will drop-ship a replacement overnight to you.
The problem, as I have found, is that the replacements are "refurbished" machines that may well have the same problem. I am guessing that bad machines are rare, but that the Epson refurbs may just recycle them out to other end users without fixing the problems. I also suspect the paper path in the P900 has very low tolerances and may be jarred out of alignment through shipping.
Despite my problems with the replacements, I love the printer. It is easily controlled with QuadToneRIP. It does not suffer the printhead clogs that dogged earlier Epson printers. When a head does clog, the printer unclogs itself in a few minutes. It's a good reliable machine.
Hi there...this works for me:Hi, I just bought the p900 as a replacement for my p800 which suddenly started printing pizza wheels on all of my negatives. Looking at these new negatives it looks like the pizza wheel marks are there which is really frustrating!! There does not seem to be a way of changing the platen gap on this or change the drying time on the print head pass. Also the fixxons will not front load. Do you have any advice for me , right now this seems like a giant waste of money!
Hi, I just bought the p900 as a replacement for my p800 which suddenly started printing pizza wheels on all of my negatives. Looking at these new negatives it looks like the pizza wheel marks are there which is really frustrating!! There does not seem to be a way of changing the platen gap on this or change the drying time on the print head pass. Also the fixxons will not front load. Do you have any advice for me , right now this seems like a giant waste of money!
Hi, I just bought the p900 as a replacement for my p800 which suddenly started printing pizza wheels on all of my negatives. Looking at these new negatives it looks like the pizza wheel marks are there which is really frustrating!! There does not seem to be a way of changing the platen gap on this or change the drying time on the print head pass. Also the fixxons will not front load. Do you have any advice for me , right now this seems like a giant waste of money!
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