This is my take on the CJ 500. With the heat strips in the back platten and another set in front will allow the media to warm up as it gets close to the print area. Once it prints if the media is warm enough the ink will soak in a bit and not pool or look grainy. Of course profiles will also help, as you now know, to control the amount of ink on that media. After the media is printed and it moves far enough forward to reach the front heat area, this helps dry it a bit more (still will be wet and tackey) and again helps the solvents soak in and bite better.
If you can have your heat strips as close to the edge (closest to the print and vaccume area) as you can this helps reduce the cool off of the media in that section. I think you already seen when the heat was too high the media can buckle and not lay flat so too much heat is not good but too little is also not good. I found that you might get a nice print with no heat on some media but the image would scratch off easier when dry, than it did on the same media printed with heat. So the heat helps it bit better.
Some guys in warm climates never use heat on these old printers and had done ok. So if the room is cool you work in it may not be as easy to keep the media warm. You will find some media are better for lower heat settings than others. You are kind of mainly using that one media and it is thick so harder to heat but should also not cool off as fast, being thicker, so that time it takes to go past the print area back to the front platten and warm again should not be a big deal. I do think you need a profile for that media and that would help. Again as we talked, my temp on the front and back platten, are the same and I have been doing ok with it that way.
I also once you media is set up and ready for print, I will use the arrow forward key to move the media forward enough to heat the start of print area, and leave it there and hit send. While it rips and takes a min to send the file, this warms that section enough so that when it starts to print it will move to the print location and scroll back the media to the original print location (which should be warm) and start printing. You may notice if you do not do this that first 3 inches would not print the same as the rest due to the lack of warmth on that area.
