What's causing this?

[costadinos]

Just this morning my R2000 started printing some weird lines on all the prints, not the thin lines associated to clogged nozzles, but wide (~1cm) lines running vertically to the paper path, and always on the same place on the prints (have a look at the following picture).

The problem appears only when high speed (bidirectional printing) is enabled, and also goes away when selecting the high-dpi option with high-speed enabled (quality setting "5"). It's mostly visible in grey areas.

I tried a nozzle clean just to be sure (the nozzle check pattern is perfect anyway), and also a printhead alignment, both manual and automatic, to no avail. The printer is running on a CISS from Inkjetcarts.
Does anybody know what's causing this and how it can be resolved?

 

[PeterBJ]

Just this morning my R2000 started printing some weird lines on all the prints, not the thin lines associated to clogged nozzles, but wide (~1cm) lines running vertically to the paper path, and always on the same place on the prints (have a look at the following picture).

I guess this means that the stripes are in the same direction as the print head travel.

I know nothing about Epson printers, but had it been a Canon printer, I would say the problem is caused by ink starvation. Printing a nozzle check or an alignment page consumes very little ink compared to printing a photo, so often these tests will not show the problem.

As the stripes appear a dull magenta/red, my guess is that cyan is the problem.

 

[costadinos]

I guess this means that the stripes are in the same direction as the print head travel.

No, they are at a 90-degree angle to what lines from clogged nozzles would be (they are perpendicular to the print head travel).

The strange thing is they are always at the same point (more or less in the middle of the printer's width), and only occur somewhere in the first few centimeters of the print, the rest is perfect, no matter how long it is.
Whenever I had an ink starvation problem in the past it would show mainly towards the end of large prints and/or at other random places, never like this...

 

[PeterBJ]

Could the paper be the problem by not being perfectly flat or having other defects? What happens if you turn the paper 180 degrees before printing, do the stripes appear in the same part of the image then?

I think a problem with the timing strip or friction in the print head carriage would cause distortion to the geometry of the image and/or an error message.

I admit this is really strange.

 

[costadinos]

The paper doesn't seem to be causing the problem, it happened with two different types of paper and also with paper cut from the same roll and fed into the printer first in portrait and then in landscape orientation.

 

[mikling]

The problem is likely related to ribbon line flexure and varying pressures as the ribbon bends. A picture of your setup would give further clues.

 

[costadinos]

The problem is likely related to ribbon line flexure and varying pressures as the ribbon bends. A picture of your setup would give further clues.

Here's a picture:

If this is indeed related to the tubes flexing, shouldn't it happen during the whole length of the print? If I print an 80cm long image for example, it only happens for the first few inches, the rest is perfect...

 

[The Hat]

Now from just looking at the tubing on your CISS setup, I would say your problem is down to the layout of tubing, further tweaking maybe needed.

Try shorten the extension bar or even put it on the left side of the printer, it would help first to try printing another photo with your present configuration but leave the top lid open while printing !..
Edit !

 

[costadinos]

Now from just looking at the tubing on your CISS setup, I would say your problem is down to the layout of tubing, further tweaking maybe needed.

I always keep the lid open when printing, so that's not the problem.

I'm not sure how I could put the extension bar on the right side of the printer as per your suggestion though (do you mean on the far right, over the cartridges?). That would leave a big section of the tubing loose, and a big part of it forced to move upwards when the cartridges are in the middle of their path moving to the left.

I previously had a CISS from another company, and I set up the tubing according to their instructions, I kept it the same when installing the new one from inkjetcarts.
I've seen pictures of CIS systems with the tubes coming in from the left of the printer, that could work too I guess, but I think the way it is now minimizes tube motion and bending.

 

[PeterBJ]

The freeware program Irfan View can do a RGB separation. By inverting the image before the separation this will approximately be a CMY separation. After the separation the separated images are inverted again. This is my result with a rotated crop of your uploaded image, It is seen that the problems are mainly in cyan and yellow. This is consistent with the magenta cast in the stripes:

Following the ink lines in your photo of the printer it is seen that cyan and yellow are at the edges of the ink tube ribbon, I think this makes mikling's pinching theory very plausible.

With a Canon printer you can open the lid to centre the print head for cartridge change, and then pull the power cord without using the printers on/off switch. This allows you to move the print head from side to side to check for friction problems. Could this be done with the Epson printer? You could then move the print head from side to side and observe the ink ribbon.

Can you trick an interlocking switch to operate the printer with the lid open? This could show how the ribbon flexes when printing, and if striping also occurs with the lid open

Maybe pinching problems only will will show with the lid closed, if so the lid may obstruct the free movement of the ribbon.

Edit: The Hat and costadinos posted while I was typing.

I wonder if this bend is too tight: