Epson L220 - Stains at the bottom edge

[Paloma]

I have an Epson L220 which sometimes leaves some black stains at the bottom edge of the pages. Sometimes, more rarely, at the bottom but on one side of the page. I show you photos:





Do you know what could be the cause of this issue? The technicians at Epson, in my country, don’t know the cause, or don’t tell me about it, and can’t do anything to solve it.


Also, after a service, it began to print with some horizontal blank stripes. Like this:



This issue has improved in the last days, without doing nothing. Do you know the cause of this second problem?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There are probably 2 problems - ink on the nozzle plate and some missing nozzles.

Are you starting any cleaning cycles by yourself -e.g. before a greater print job ? Since when do these stains show up - and e.g. after a longer idle time or ...?
The nozzle plate should be wiped off during a cleaning cycle, and the printer does that once in a while be himself, e.g. after a print job. It could be that there is a problem with the purge unit - the idle location for the printhead.
You may disengage the printhead - start printing and pull the power cord, fill some water or cleaner onto the pad with a syringe and start the printer again, it runs the pump shortly and the water should be gone, or start a cleaning cycle.
Does your paper have a curl so that the bottom end stands up slightly when it is not running between rollers anymore ? You may monitor that during a printing cycle when printing text down to the bottom.

Are you printing regularly or only randomly ? How does the nozzle check look - can you please print a nozzle check, scan it , crop it to the printed range and post it here with - 'Upload a File', run a clenaing cycle , prnt the nozzle check again and post it here as well.

 

[Paloma]

Hi. Thanks for the response.

I did a nozzle check and it looks good, normal. The fact is that the second problem I mentioned, the one about the blank stripes, has not appeared in the last few days, after 2 or 3 months where the problem was evident, but gradually the stripes were thinner, and more irregular, and sometimes with certain irregularities like little dots under or over the texts. But one precise day the printer began to print right, I don’t know if the problem is solved or it is going to return.

I didn’t do the nozzle test while the stripes were present.

This particular problem began when I received the printer from the Epson technical service. Before the service there was another similar problem: shadows under the fonts and other flaws, but not clean blank stripes. So Epson gave me the printer in a similar or worse condition, because sometimes I wasn’t able to read the texts properly. But as I told you, the stripes vanished, at least temporarily.

The other problem, the stains at the bottom edge, I noticed it from the beginning, since I bought the printer. It has better and worse moments. There are periods without stains. But the problem is always there, lurking (literally, because sometimes I see that the paper is stained with just little dots). And Epson wasn’t able to do anything in four services, and not even tell me the cause of the problem.

I use the printer regularly, most of the days, but I don’t print too much. Some days I print 3 or 6 pages. Other days 20, or 50, or I don’t print for a couple of days. I don't think the stain issue is proportional to the quantity of pages I print. Sometimes I just print one page, and it is stained at the bottom edge. I haven't found the logic of this issue. Probably it is completly hazardous.

Are you an Epson technician, or just an user like me?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You got quite some problems with the printer apparently; you should run a nozzle check as soon as white lines or stripes appear in a print, and then run a cleaning cycle and another nozzle check to see whether all nozzles are back again.
Ghosting of letters is typically a sign of a misalignment, there is a function for the printhead alignment on the maintenance tab of the driver, but you only should run that with a clean nozzle check, not with missing nozzles.
The stains are a little bit more complicated, it could be a slight curl of the paper at the end to let the paper touch the nozzle plate or getting too close, or it could be that a small rubber lip at the purge unit is missing or misplaced which is wiping off the nozzle plate during cleaning cycles. It would be helpful to observe if the stains show up when text is printing down to the bottom, or with a particular paper type or with a particular driver setting - quality high vs. normal which changes the paper speed. It would help if you can get the effect into a reproducible condition . You may try - if it occurs again - to use the 'envelope' paper selection for a test, that increases the platen gap slightly . (I'm a user here as you are)

 

[The Hat]

(I'm a user here as you are)

And an excellent one at that...

 

[Paloma]

The stains are a little bit more complicated, it could be a slight curl of the paper at the end to let the paper touch the nozzle plate or getting too close

I load the paper as it comes, I don’t think it is curled.

or it could be that a small rubber lip at the purge unit is missing or misplaced which is wiping off the nozzle plate during cleaning cycles.

I have no idea about the mechanism of printers. But what if there is a tiny mechanic flaw that allows the paper to pass one millimeter higher or lower than it should be, so as the paper touches something it shouldn’t touch, sometimes...? Well, this is an abstract speculation based on my ignorance. But you seem to know the mechanism and you proposed something specific… My point is : would this supposed misplaced rubber lip be a manufacture flaw? It seems to be a rare issue.

It would be helpful to observe if the stains show up when text is printing down to the bottom

Down to the bottom with a margin? Or to the edge? If it is the former, well, I usually print pages with texts down to the text margin, and I usually extend the margin to save paper. Is this meaningful? Once I suspected about this habit of extending the margin, but it is not the case that when I do that there are stains in every page. And if the text ends higher in the page, there could be stains, as far as I remember.

or with a particular paper type

I have only used standard paper, 75g/m2, of different brands.

or with a particular driver setting - quality high vs. normal which changes the paper speed.

I have printed in different qualities. But I usually print in draft quality, because it is just to read, nothing important to submit. I also suspected about this habit, but, as in the case of extended margins, I haven’t reached any interesting conclusion.

You may try - if it occurs again - to use the 'envelope' paper selection for a test, that increases the platen gap slightly

In the “Document Size” options, I see “Envelope #10 (4 1/8, 9 1/2 in)”, which is a smaller size than A4. Do you mean that option?

I will google what a “platen gap” is.

Thanks for the information, appreciated.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Thanks for your detailed feedback.
You state that you are using 75gr paper, could you for a test use 80gr copy paper instead to see whether the frequency of stains coming up would drop ?
The platen gap is the distance of the nozzle plate to the paper underneath, when you choose 'envelopes' the driver is possibly defauting to a standard size but can't you select other paper sizes as well ? This is quite typical with Epson drivers, I'm running a L310 which let me choose A4 and other sizes for envelopes. Envelopes are typically thicker than normal paper, with two layers so the printer is adjusting for that .
The paper is fed from the rear paper bin, picked up with a roller and fed with small rollers to the print path , easily visible when you open the printer cover. The paper is not held at the front until it reaches a row of small pizza wheels in front of the print path and shifted from there to the output bin. The opposite happens at the bottom of the sheet - it leaves the feeding rollers and is only pulled from these wheels in front of the print path, there is not much vertical support at this time - maybe some plastic rails from underneath but the paper can bend upwards slightly at this time. 80 gr copy paper may be just a little bit stiffer than 75gr paper and not touch the nozzle plate.

If you get stains and you reprint exactly this page again - are you getting the stains again ?

The rubber lip at the cleaning unit if misplaced or damaged or missing would not wipe off the nozzle plate correctly in that case. Epson service should have checked for that, it would take a second for them.

 

[Paloma]

In the “Document size” options, only this “envelope #10” mentions the term “envelope”. Do you have an “A4 envelope”? Not me…

“If you get stains and you reprint exactly this page again - are you getting the stains again ?”

Could be. Or not.

I remember that in the other problem, the one of the shadows and print irregularities, reprinting meant getting exactly the same irregularities, in the same places, the shadows under the same words. But this is another story.

I will try 80 gr paper and I tell you. Epson told me to change the brand, but not the thickness…

But anyway, I am sure a lot of people in my city have this printer, and most of them print with 75 gr paper, but the problem is not reported, or Epson decides not to tell me about it, for some reason.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

- Yes, please try the 80 gr paper.

- I installed a L220 driver and can select Envelope, and from there any document size I want, there shouldn't be a limitation



- You are referring to shadows - do you still have them ? Can you please scan a small section of some text with those shadows and post it here.

 

[Stuart21]

A couple of possible solutions to the stain; a temp solution would be to print onto a longer paper, legal or foolscap? - then cut the bottom off.

What might be easier is to run the paper over the 90°edge of a table, etc to give it a 'downward' curve. Of course, if you are printing double sided, then you must do the reverse when you put it back in to print the back.

Good luck.

Actually these might be the same problem - the missing lines may be due to ink on the face of the printhead preventing correct jetting, then that ink is touching the end of the paper as it flicks up as printing is completed. Head cleaning (Epson routine) should fix that.