SP300v started drifting as it prints

[dsstrainer]

I've had this printer for about 2.5 years now and its been ol' reliable. I clean it about once per month as I don't print all that much (maybe 6-8 posters per month)
Lately, and not always, while printing it seems like its drifting off to the side. I thought maybe it was the media not feeding straight but doing a media feed shows it perfectly centered.
Seems almost like a pinch roller on the right isn't keeping up with the left or maybe something else... any ideas?

It's not just angled but also the edges are wavy

 

[Solventinkjet]

It's an encoder issue. You might have some ink splatter on it which is causing the print to drift. I'd try cleaning it first with alcohol and replace it if the problem doesn't go away.

 

[dsstrainer]

where is the encoder?
-EDIT- I guess this is it

 

[dsstrainer]

Well I see many videos talking about using alcohol pads to clean the encoder strip.... so I did that ... and now it's MUCH MUCH worse . I see the streaks that the pads leave behind so its not surprising. Not sure why there are streaks from an alcohol pad but I've burned through about 25 alcohol pads and its no better. So now I guess I'll try to replace the strip

 

[Terry01]

Alcohol should be your final clean.. You need to use solvent ink cleaner first, to remove any residue.

 

[dsstrainer]

I read that solvent clean was bad as it might remove the actual lines on the tape. I did switch to 91% alcohol with better results... don't see the streaks anymore. I actually took the encoder tape out and cleaned it.. but all the fumbling to get it back in likely didn't help. Now it's slightly less skewed but blurry as can be. So I think I'm on the right track at least but I may try to find a service center to handle this properly

 

[dsstrainer]

Well spent the last few hours trying to get it working again. I cleaned the scale yet again with 91% alcohol and tried running the Linear Encoder Setup in the service mode... That failed... so I just kept cleaning and retrying and finally the encoder setup passed... now its pretty much back to where it was initially where it drifts... so maybe there's still something wrong with the scale or maybe the reader. This time though, it started printing and about 4 mins into the print it errored with Carriages are disconnected.... which I've read is also related to encoder stuff....

I've purchased a replacement encoder scale and waiting for that to arrive and might get a new encoder board just to cover all bases

 

[dsstrainer]

Hot damn! I took some advice from another thread user saying he just flipped the encoder tape upside down and put it back that way and his worked... after all the fumbling I did to get that to work, I managed to get it back on and BOOM we are printing again perfectly! thx all for the help and hopefully this helps others too. Good to note that there are technically 2 sides to be used on the encoder scale since the reader only reads half of the strip.