Ink smear when printing envelope...Canon ip4000

[jbclem]

This doesn't happen when I print a normal page but I just printed five envelopes in a row and every one has ink smears, not huge ones but just enough to affect a part of the return or the delivery address, or both.

Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening?


John

 

[ghwellsjr]

I print envelopes all the time feeding them from the rear with no problem. Is that what you are doing?

 

[jbclem]

Yes, I'm using the sheet feeder which is in the rear.

 

[Mowerman90]

Under "media type" make sure you have envelope selected. It raises the printhead a bit so that it won't smear ink.

 

[jbclem]

That was it, I hadn't set the media type, or the paper type. A good lesson learned. Thanks.

John

 

[emerald]

I've had older printers that left ink smudges on envelopes. My first attempt at fixing the problem was to set the printer for envelopes using a printer profile specifically for envelopes. I also tried the procedures under Printer Maintenance-Custom Settings-Prevent Paper Abrasions and Bottom Plate Cleaning. Some advise printing several envelopes on both sides and from opposite ends to clean off the ink that's causing the smudge but that method works poorly and wastes envelopes. These procedures help but don't fix the source of the problem.

To fix the problem you must clean the ink residue from the bottom of the print head carriage assembly:

Lift the printer lid to allow the carriage to park in the middle. Pull the AC power plug. Remove the ink cartridges and the print head. Fold a piece of paper towel into 4-6 thicknesses about 1 1/2 inch wide and dampen it. Slide the carriage to either side by hand. Center the dampened strip of paper towel under the path of the print head carriage assembly. Carefully move the carriage assembly over the towel by hand. Adjust the thickness of the towel so that it makes contact with the bottom of the carriage assembly. Move the carriage back and forth across the damp towel by hand while exerting modest downward pressure on the carriage assembly. The towel will be blackened by ink. You will probably need more than one towel strip. Repeat until the towel is clean.

 

[The Hat]

One of the ways of preventing the build-up of waste black ink on the bottom of the print head
is to print in standard mode all of the time when using plain paper and text.
Printing in high quality only wastes a lot of ink unnecessarily and doesnt improve the print quality any..