Epson T50 printhead alignment done, but still prints misaligned.

[Bigs11]

Good morning,

My problem is when printing text, I get ghosting (vertical alignment), in particular at the top 30mm of the sheet. Probably about 1mm out of alignment. Also minor ghosting towards the middle and bottom of sheet. I’ve done the Epson alignment procedure numerous times, modifying the numbers to get it slightly better each time. Then I can usually get it pretty close. If I print a page of text after that, it’s still ok. Bu the next time I come back to print (a day or so later) it’s back to being misaligned again. Is this a printhead issue that can possibly be fixed? I’ve never removed it and cleaned it, only done the printer cleans. Would the maintenance tank have something to do with the issue? I run a CISS ink system which I don’t think has anything to do with it, as the printhead runs smoothly when connected to it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[websnail]

Might be the timing strip or disc that has soiling (grease, ink or similar).

It's a thin clear strip or disc that has tiny markings on it and is used by the printer to step count it's position for the printhead or the paper feed/roller.

The timing strip runs behind the printhead from far left to far right while the timing disc is on the left side of the tip paper roller, if memory serves. Look for those and gently clean with Q-tips (cotton buds) but be careful not to damage or displace them.

Let me know if that works as I've interested to see if that's the genuine cause.


Oh and the waste ink pads won't cause the problem although they may have caused a little ink spatter. Waste pads tend to cause other issues like ink backing up into the capping station (the are the printhead rests on, etc...