Epson S80600 head strikes

[swordguy3222]

I have 2 S80600 and both now seem to love getting head strikes. The media will ripple along the length of the media so when the print carriage travels I get strikes. Ran a long time with the same settings with zero issues, then it just started out of no where. Had Epson in to look at it and they told me never to run on the lowest platen gap, which is funny seeing there media settings have it set to 1.6. Even on the highest setting I get strikes. Anyone else come across this issue? Tried so many combo's with the printer settings to try and get it resolved.

 

[Alebaba]

This normally happens to me only in 2 scenarios:
- when the vinyl roll doesn't get loaded perfectly well when feeding in and when rolling out.
- you will get those ripples towards the end of the roll. On the last 5-10 feet. Check the end of your rolls and see how they are attached to the paper tube. I used to use vinyl rolls that just had a little sticker that attached the vinyl to the paper tube. The sticker would just detach and didnt cause a problem. I then changed to another brand that actually uses glue to attach them and the printer sometimes has enough force to detach them while pushing and sometimes it does. All that strain ends up causing the vinyl to ripple and you get head strikes.

Please note, this is a serious issue. The printhead will get damaged eventually and will stop working. After about 50-60 head strikes my printhead died on me. The entire first nozzle line (cyan) from left to right stopped printing in about 80% of the nozzles overnight. I always worried about nozzle clogs in the past and never had one. It was the head strikes that eventually took the print head out. Just FYI. I print on an Epson S40600.

 

[swordguy3222]

This normally happens to me only in 2 scenarios:
- when the vinyl roll doesn't get loaded perfectly well when feeding in and when rolling out.
- you will get those ripples towards the end of the roll. On the last 5-10 feet. Check the end of your rolls and see how they are attached to the paper tube. I used to use vinyl rolls that just had a little sticker that attached the vinyl to the paper tube. The sticker would just detach and didnt cause a problem. I then changed to another brand that actually uses glue to attach them and the printer sometimes has enough force to detach them while pushing and sometimes it does. All that strain ends up causing the vinyl to ripple and you get head strikes.

Please note, this is a serious issue. The printhead will get damaged eventually and will stop working. After about 50-60 head strikes my printhead died on me. The entire first nozzle line (cyan) from left to right stopped printing in about 80% of the nozzles overnight. I always worried about nozzle clogs in the past and never had one. It was the head strikes that eventually took the print head out. Just FYI. I print on an Epson S40600.

This can happen at the start of a roll, or every foot. No consistency in where it's happening, happens on think vinyl and thicker banner stocks.

 

[balstestrat]

The weather? Cold and dry, lots of static etc.

 

[Alebaba]

This can happen at the start of a roll, or every foot. No consistency in where it's happening, happens on think vinyl and thicker banner stocks.

This happens at the beginning of the roll for me only when the roll is not new, I have previously printed on it, the heaters have previously warmed it, and now the vinyl is all wrinkled. I normally turn on the heaters and let is heat up for at least 10 minutes. I also attach the vinyl to the second uptake roll to add some pressure to it. Never had a problem doing that.

 

[ewded]

Happens to me in cold weather if I leave media in printer overnight, just take it out at the end of the day or leave 20 inches unprinted next day. Never happens twice a day no matter how long the pause is between prints.

 

[Tatonka]

I had that problem on my S80600 fairly often and I've started lowering the heat settings for the pre-heater and platen heater. In fact, I have the pre-heater turned off and it seems to eliminate almost all of the little strikes.

It could also be static on the post-heat area causing the media to drag a bit.