Editor’s Note: There was a very interesting article in the New Yorker recently about the engineers at Xerox who work on resolving paper jams. That article gave me the idea to research some tips for avoiding paper jams in large-format printers.
By Ed Avis
There aren’t many things in this world as frustrating as a paper jam. They come in all sorts of varieties, from the accordion-like jam up at the paper feed to the impossible-to-find shred of adhesive-backed media gumming up the printer deep inside.
But, like any printer tech will tell you, jams are mostly preventable. Here are six tips from a couple of people who have decades of hands-on large-format media and printer experience.
1) Choose your media wisely. Sure, you can save a few bucks buying a roll of paper from some unknown internet reseller, but is it worth the risk in jams? Your printer was designed to work with certain media, and following the manufacturer’s recommendations is a great way to reduce jams.
“Any time you’re dealing with roll paper, you have multiple types, widths, weights, thicknesses and other characteristics,” explains Tim Horn, vice president of sales for KIP America. “Printer manufacturers take all those considerations into effect. So it’s important for the end user to read the owner’s manual and understand what media are approved.”
Regular 20- or 40-pound bond media is pretty standard so there’s less to worry about when you’re using that type of media. But things definitely get tricky when you switch to photo gloss, cling media, or other specialty types.
“When you’re using specialty media, that’s really where you get into the specifics of the manufacturers’ approved media,” says Horn, who has been in the reprographics industry since the 1980s.
2) Store your media wisely. It’s likely that your media arrived at your shop in a box or bag. Don’t throw it out! You’ll want to store your roll in that container to keep humidity and dust away. If your media arrived shrinkwrapped, stick it into one of your own plastic shipping bags if you don’t use the whole roll immediately after opening it.
“Keeping those bags closed and the moisture out is key,” says Andrew Brockhaus, vice president of IT for National/AZON who was previously in charge of Azon’s technical paper development. “So if you open the bag but don’t use the whole roll, put it back into the bag.”
Keep your core plugs and end plugs, too, and put them back onto the rolls when you store them. That will help the core keep its shape and prevent crushing.
Speaking of shape, some media – especially soft media such as canvas – develop flat spots if you lay the rolls horizontally on a table. Those flat spots may prevent the media from smoothly unrolling, causing jams. So store your media vertically, but with the end cap on the roll so it’s not resting on the floor.
3) Be careful about leaving media in the machine. Most production printers have media drawers that provide a somewhat stable environment, so media can be left in them. But that’s not always the case.
“A latex printer puts tension on the media when it’s loaded, so that it’s ready to print when you need it to,” Brockhaus says. “But that tension is never released until you remove the media. So if you leave that media in overnight it will stretch, and it’s almost guaranteed to jam in the morning.”
The cleanliness of the printer and its surrounding environment also plays a role in jamming. If there’s a lot of dust accumulated on the media, or the humidity is too high, jams are more likely. Even vibrations can cause problems.
“I was on a ship once with a printer installed near the engine, and the vibrations caused the media to unroll as it was sitting there,” Brockhaus says. “The machine would jam as the it tried to take up the slack.”
4) Handle the media with care. If the core of the paper roll gets out of round – i.e., the end is no longer a perfect circle – that can cause jams, too. The most common cause for a crushed or out-of-round core is dropping the roll – so be careful when you’re handling the rolls! What should you do if a roll arrived with the core crushed in transport? Don’t use it. Instead, call your supplier and tell them to send you a replacement roll.
It’s also a good idea to protect the surface of high-end media, such as photo gloss, from residue from your hands. Wearing cotton gloves will help with that, Brockhaus says.
5) Skip the last few feet of the roll. The end of your media roll is either taped to the core or tucked under to keep it in place. Either one – the tape or the fold of the tuck – entering your printer can cause jams. Even if the media comes off the roll cleanly, because it’s flapping loose, it can screw things up.
“So just write off the last few feet of every roll,” Brockhaus recommends.
6) Maintain your equipment. Your choice of media and how you handle it greatly affects the prospects of jamming, but naturally the condition of the printer itself does, too. Every printer has a paper feeding mechanism and some kind of leading edge process – those parts must be kept in perfect order to keep the media moving smoothly. The same goes for the other steps of the paper path – a well-maintained paper path is going to have way fewer jams than one that’s ignored.
And of course the external conditions matter, too. “In some cases the environment pushes the print systems to the limit, such as the dusty conditions on a construction site,” Horn says. “All environmental aspects have a bearing on machine performance.”
The bottom line: Use the right media, handle it properly, and keep your machine in top shape, and you’ll spend a lot less time cursing as you try to unravel jams!