Horizontal Lines on Plain Paper using "Standard" mode

[MichaelKnight]

I am using an Epson L3060 printer.

If I print a photo on plain paper using "Standard" setting, it prints with thick horizontal lines.I tried so many printer-head cleanings, it sometimes gets minimum, though still very thin horizontal lines exist.Then the next day problem repeats and I start getting thick horizontal lines/banding.I even tried Power Ink Flushing option, but nothing changed.

If I use "High" quality setting to print on plain paper, then it prints good, without lines/banding.

When I print nozzle check, generally it prints perfect, but even when the nozzle check looks perfect, the same horizontal lines problem appear if I use plain paper with "Standard" print quality setting.

So I wonder if still the printhead is clogged or the problem is caused by using a low quality setting...

Here are the photos, I scanned, one of them was printed in "Standard Mode" , the other one was "High" mode, on plain paper:

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Did you ever try a printhead alignment via the driver ? But beyond that you cannot expect best photo quality with the driver settings for fast text print.

 

[MichaelKnight]

Thanks for your answer.

Ink stained Fingers wrote:​

Did you ever try a printhead alignment via the driver ?

Yes, I did in the past. After reading your comment, I did it again. The problem is, on the head-alignment paper,in the 1st set which it prints black squares only, they always have lines/banding, sometimes thin white lines,sometimes additional thicker gray lines/banding, but they always have, it doesn't matter how many times I play with alignment settings and realign, all the squares in the first set have always vertical lines/banding...

Though I should say, I am not able to decide between these two: Should I select the square with thin lines or with thicker but gray like square as best, during alignment?(though I tried to go with both oof them)

Also I noticed that, even if I only print a fully black rectangle instead of a photo, it still has horizontal lines/banding.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not clear about your description - which squares etc in the alignment process, but you would need to do an alignment only once at the time of printer installation.

How much have you printed with this unit - the total pages printed are listed on the nozzle check.

Please do a nozzle check, scan it and post it here to start with - just crop to the nozzle check print - don't post the complete page.

I'm printing with the matte/normal driver setting if I have images in the document to be printed - the overall color space on normal paper is very limited , and this gives me a little bit more color saturation

 

[MichaelKnight]

Thanks for your answer.

Here is the result of nozzle check:

Here is the problematic 1st set squares when I try to do head-alignment:

I never be able to get perfect one square from 1st set on the printed head-alignment pages.

It has printed 2726 pages in total.

The horizontal banding problem seems with black color only, it seems it doesn't affect other colors, though I am not 100 percent sure.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

That nozzle check looks very good, I have seen variations in the past that one of the nozzle lines was deviating from the stepping pattern.

The boxes you are showing deal with the bidirectional printing and not with horizontal white lines, that test pattern comes next with 2 adjacent black boxes. Your print voume is not very high for this type of printhead but you may clean the coding strip which is a small gray stripe which runs through the back of the printhead. You may disengage the printhead - pull the power plug shortly after power on - and cautiously wipe off this strip with a kitchen towel wetted with a windows cleaner. I'm using tweezers this way

https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/blurry-prints-epson-workforce-wf-2810dwf.15181/post-132694

You have similar test patterns for the other colors, you can verify the settings by printing some test with a small font size and look for sharp edges.

Got through the alignment settings, it should be the last page dealing with the vertical paper movement - causing small horizontal line gaps.

 

[MichaelKnight]

Thanks for your answer.

Ink stained Fingers wrote:

but you may clean the coding strip which is a small gray stripe which runs through the back of the printhead. You may disengage the printhead - pull the power plug shortly after power on - and cautiously wipe off this strip with a kitchen towel wetted with a windows cleaner. I'm using tweezers this way

I hesitated a bit about that, I didn't trust myself that I could do it in the right way, so I took the printer to an Epson service-center. They checked the printer then phoned me and told that it was normal, that it was an expected thing on plain paper and that I should used photo paper instead of a plain paper to print photos. I have some doubts because not only photo but even just printing a big black rectangle is causing the same problem on plain paper.Also I remember like I was able to print photos on plain paper without horizontal banding in the past.

Ink stained Fingers wrote:

I'm printing with the matte/normal driver setting if I have images in the document to be printed - the overall color space on normal paper is very limited , and this gives me a little bit more color saturation

Do you mean you are using matte setting on plain paper? I will try that when I get the printer back.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Do you mean you are using matte setting on plain paper? I will try that when I get the printer back.

Yes, please give it a try .

A let's have a look to the last page of the alignment settings; you posted above the 1st page - just pick the
one with the smallest gap , and if several blocks look the same just pick one.
Printing on Photo/Glossy paper is something else in terms of the driver settings, let's keep that separate.

 

[MichaelKnight]

Thanks for your answer.

Ink stained Fingers wrote:

A let's have a look to the last page of the alignment settings;

There is a thin black line in some of the rectangles which seperates them, I chose "4" numbered one which doesn't have a seperator line.I think the scanned image lacks that black seperator line detail.

MichaelKnight wrote:
Do you mean you are using matte setting on plain paper? I will try that when I get the printer back.

Ink stained Fingers wrote:
Yes, please give it a try .

I tried that and the result is, there is no banding on the printed page.


When I opened the scanner a few minutes ago, I noticed a print which the Epson service printed.There is no horizontal banding on the printed page although it has intensive black but unfortunately they printed in b&w/gray-scale mode not color mode and all my test prints were in color mode , I never used b&w mode for test prints and I hadn't shown them my problematic color test prints..Maybe that's why they came to the conclusion that printer is working fine on plain paper, maybe they just tested using gray-scale mode. Though like I wrote, while using plain paper if I choose "matte" setting it prints without horizontal lines or banding.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Yes, that's the test sheet for the fine tuning of the vertical paper movement, I can tell you from my experience that the number yu enter does not give you the best print result at the end - I don't know why - but do a test and enter the highest number #7 and do a testprint on your normal paper with normal paper setting, and check if that makes a difference on prints to your previous setting with #4.

You scanned the alignment sheet, be aware that the jpg compression is averaging away very small details in an image - like single pixels or very thin lines.

If all that does not help you are left to print with the matte paper setting, but as disapointing as it may appear this banding on normal paper is rather typical, and this not just with Epson printers but with some Canon models as well.