Epson 4880 / Print Registration Issues

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Has anyone had an issue like this with their 4880?  If you look at the picture you'll see how the left side of the image is fine, towards the middle it gets blurry, and then at the end it's fine again.  This is happening randomly, but rendering the film useless and we're not sure what to do to fix it.  I'm thinking something could be messed up with the rollers.. or a loose print head?

Any help would be appreciated.

[mk162]

are your rollers set for thick paper or thin?

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It was set to a paper a little thicker than our film, so I have adjusted it.  However, this has not changed since we purchased the printer.

[Dottonedan]

A few guesses.

1, Loose roller. The fact that you mention it looks ok top and bottom leafs me to think the paper/film loosens near middles. If it loosened near middle tho, I imagine the film being pushed closer to the heads. If closer, then I imagine the print to be even tighter, not blurry. But maybe distorted as it bends back into being tighter.

2, Try another setting. Some printers can print in one ditection or both (to and from) or left to right.
Switching the direction may bring it back into focus.

If it helps, or fixed the issue, someone may have switched it from what you normally run it at.

You may need to calibrate the printer as well. For our digital printer, once we calibrate it for a speed (#of passes) and hi speed or low speed, we do not normally need to re calibrate later.
Most often tho, at either hi or low speed, you may be able to switch between Uni or BI direction without needing a calibration. I have seen the blurryness disappear once switching to another direction tho, even tho technically we don't need to calibrate for the direction chance
This is all assuming an Epson printer is set up very similar (and I think it is), except that we do not have rollers or film.

[ebscreen]

Is the issue happening in one direction only? IE only the direction of the paper feed, or only perpendicular to it?

Roll film? Are you pre-spooling?

Change the USB cable if you haven't already, it's easy enough and I've seen weird things happen
when a cable is on its way out.

[cbjamel]

1. Question what rip are you using.
2. Can you change the settings.
If you can try these 1440x1440 not 2880x1440. Unidirectional helps a lot.
I have a 4800 for films running 1 color black and Peirre said it was some of the darkest he had seen for 1 color printing and run cleaning solution in rest. Using Ulano WP film roll  and Film Direct ink. Using quickfilm rip aka - filmaker.
Shane

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Thanks for the help everyone.  The most logical issue is a loose roller, just given how random the issue comes about.  I'm attaching a shot of film we just printed this morning.  The text is supposed to be a straight line, but it's all kinds of wavy.  You can't tell based on this photo, but it's also blurry.

To answer the questions:

-  We're using Accurip
-  Running Uni-Directional
-  The issue seems to happen along the length of the film, not the width
-  Roll film.  What is pre-spooling?

Also, we are sometimes receiving the error code 001001D.

Thanks everyone!

[cbjamel]

What size film are you using. I do 17". I would look at getting rid of the printer file for accurip/printer and start fresh maybe corrupt. The film looks to have double image or is it how the picture was taken? Clean crisp other than crooked?
Shane

[SteveS]

Maybe the printer's vacuum pump is out letting the film bulge up off the bed and hitting the print head? Just another guess. We use the same setup.

[Rockers]

We get this or something similar once in a while after doing lots of halftone films. Most of the time it`s due to misfiring nozzles. First half of the print looks fine and then it gets "hairy".