banding calibration

[tez06]

hi, i am trying to find the option to do a banding calibration, i go to "At the printer’s front panel, choose the printer icon, then Utilities >
Calibrations > but there is no option for " Banding > Recalibrate." i am wondering if this has been done before on the paper type (bright white paper)  and thus this is why the option is not available, i can only think of deleting the icc profile then re-installing the profile but that doesnt seem like an option because i can not find the profile anywhere to download!

any help much appreciated.

[D Hook]

From the Service manual:

Banding Calibration
The banding calibration is intended to eliminate the problem of
banding, by optimizing the media advance settings to suit the
printing material, and the environmental conditions such as
humidity and temperature.
It is available only for paper types with short drying times; all HP
coated papers, plus HP Bright White InkJet paper, HP Productivity
Photo Gloss, and HP Productivity Photo Semi-Gloss.
The Banding Calibration is most likely to be useful in the fastest
print modes (Max Speed and Production).
To perform the Banding Calibration:
1. At the printer’s front panel, choose the printer icon, then Utilities >
Calibrations > Banding > Recalibrate. The printer will print the
calibration print nice times using nine different media advance
settings, in the print mode currently selected in the front panel. This
takes about seven minutes, depending on the print mode and the
printing material.
2. When prompted to select a print in the front panel, choose the print
that shows the best image quality in your opinion; or select Cancel
to cancel the calibration.
The Banding Calibration has now been completed for the selected
printing material. Whenever the same printing material is used in
the future, the media advance settings chosen will be used.
If required, the process can be repeated for another printing
material.
If the Image Quality is worse after the Banding Calibration, the
original settings can be returned: choose Utilities > Banding >
Restore Factory

I would be reluctant to delete any ICC profiles because they're difficult to find anywhere and even more difficult to install.  Have you tried any other calibrations?  Have you tried to use a higher print setting like "Best" when printing to eliminate the banding problem?

You can print the entire menu tree from the front panel.  It's in the Demo Print file, IIRC.  That might lead to another way to get to the calibration you want.  I've owned a couple of these printers but don't recall ever doing that calibration.

[tez06]

hi, thanks for your reply, yes i have tried it with max quality and everything is fine on that setting but like to use production mode (where i sometimes have the banding issue), i have tried other calibrations and they dont produce any error codes so i think everything is fine at that end, it is mainly on the colours pink, my lm was 6% and noticed there was air in the line so i drew all the air out of the ink line and replaced with a new ink cartridge,all printheads are about 3 months old and in date. also you are right i dont think i will delete the profile that would be a bad move.

[Repairatrooper]

Are you having this issue with all media types or only one media type? Might be an issue where the plotter just has problems with this brand of media. 

[D Hook]

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Printing in Best will lay down more ink closer together  and look better when printing images.  But paper will also make a big difference in the final look.

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[tez06]

hi, yes i never get any issues when in best quality mode, i suppose i was just conscious of the printer using a lot more ink in that mode, not sure if it uses a great deal more ink that i would considerably notice ink usage, also i am using 140gsm paper,

[tez06]

hi, just seems to be this 140gsm matt paper, i have the icc set to "bright white paper" as i cant seem to find a matt paper icc profile and not sure which one best matches that paper.

[D Hook]

I think the amount of ink will be negligible.  And the result is so much better in "Best" when you're doing images.

You might do a little test just so you can see how many more passes the carriage makes when printing in "Best" and "Production".  Paper advance is much less in "Best".

[tez06]

just done a test the results were as follow's

production :- 27 passes

best :- 53 passes

on the same madia and image, so it definitely lays more ink and less paper advance on the best setting, i am not printing any high quality digital images at the moment just text and vector images at the moment thats why i wanted to get this sorted with production mode.

thanks for the help also.

[D Hook]

That makes sense.

I don't think you'll ever completely get away from the slight banding you see when using Production mode.  I assume you're printing large text letters and that's why you're concerned about the banding?  Most of my printing is done on either an 800PS or a 60" 5000PS and I see more banding on the 800 than on the 5000 when in production mode.  But for our purposes, it's more than acceptable.  Best mode turns out beautiful prints but takes considerably longer than Production mode.  And yes, does use more ink.

Maybe you could post a picture of the two modes to see how severe the banding is?