Has anyone else had this problem? On 8 1/2x 11 paper, I would get about 5 blackish drops of ink at the edge of the page, outside the printed image, in the white border area. I returned one printer (on Epson's advice), but the next one did the same thing. I thought I had the problem licked when I realized that I had been forgetting to use the backing sheet. This seemed to fix the problem on glossy photo paper, but the spotting still occurs with photo glossy film. This does not happen with 4x6 paper (the only other size I have used).

The drops are wet when the page emerges from the printer, and actually cause lines to streak across the back side of the page, as if the roller touched the ink drops.

Epson tech support offered no insight (they didn't even ask me if I was using the backing sheets---I had to discover that on my own). It seems odd that the replacement printer would do the exact same thing.

Anyone else?

-Tom

-- Tom Keramidas (krmidas@ix.netcom.com), September 15, 1998

Answers

The Epson printer is only too happy to print past the end of the paper (if you inadvertantly tell it to do so), and the black plastic paper support is a great place for wet ink to hide. You might check that area for "loose" ink.

Also, I have found that it really pays to turn the printer off when not in use. Otherwise, it seems to consume ink all on its own.

-- martin reynolds (martin.reynolds@dataquest.com), October 05, 1998.