Epson 3800 problem

[hellah fresh]

Hello everyone i i was wondering is you guys can help me? I have an Epson 3800 printer and i have been owning it for 3 years now and would say i use my printer maybe 6 times out of a year and as of lately i notice ink spilling out onto my prints. I only use the printer to print out black images on the glossy film for my screen printing. As of last week it has gotten bad to where i have replaced all my low ink and still nothing. So i was hoping you guys can help me out on how i can fix the problem.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TFtxOssjTc
A video i made to show what it is doing. The black isnt printing out only leaving leak marks.

[Joe O'Hara]

Assuming you're using epson ink and the same kind of film that worked for you before, I suggest you run a nozzle check using regular inkjet photo paper just to make sure nothing's clogged (although clogs usually lead to no ink rather than ink blotches). You might want to increase the platen spacing in the printer driver and see if that helps. Long periods of non-use are not friendly to inkjet printers, your unit may need service.

[tom thomas]

I'm no expert, but it looks like a film problem, ie the film is not flat or it is very flimsy so the drive rollers are pushing it like water in front of a broom when cleaning floors. The film appears to be rubbing on the printhead near the edges when the head stops and returns. Try some other film.

Tom

[Brian Ellis]

It would help if you could provide a little more detail about the problem. When you say "ink spilling out onto my prints" do you mean a large quantity of ink just kind of gushing out and creating a standing pool of wet ink or are you talking about a few smudges in the corners or what? If it's smudges you can try widening the platen gap, that helped me with very small smudges that my 3800 was creating in a corner of the prints. If it's a pool of wet ink that sounds like something broken in the printer.

It probably would be a good idea to run something through your printer more often than six times a year. I don't make a lot of prints but I keep the printer active by printing a short document every now and then if I haven't made any prints for a while.