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#1 Posted : 9/27/2021 7:11:47 PM(EST)
mountainmama821

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I have an Etsy sticker shop and really love the quality of the OL177WJ for my products. I did a lot of research on affordable printers for sticker businesses and ultimately settled on the Epson ET-2720 in July of this year. It seemed so promising with the ink economy and print quality. I read a lot of reviews on different retail sites and tech blogs and noted quite a few that use this machine for printing stickers, and even a few that specifically use Online Labels products with it.

Unfortunately, I've had a fair bit of trouble with this combination of paper and printer. On every sheet that I print, there are horizontal planes in 2-3 places on each page where the design is printed out of alignment with everything else. So on a sheet of 10 stickers, for example, only half or less are actually without flaws and are usable. That adds up to a lot of waste (of material, ink, and $) for a small business.

I also have a bleeding issue when I print red on this material - there's always a yellow halo around it making all of those designs unusable too.

I have run maintenance on this printer, have made sure I have up-to-date and correct drivers, and have messed around with print settings many times, but nothing seems to fix these problems.

I reached out to Online Labels support about it initially, but they referred me to Epson. Epson support had me do a nozzle check (it was fine), then told me that as long as I am using anything but Epson paper in my printer, I can expect print quality flaws and incompatibility issues. They disregarded my warranty and I got no additional help or explanations.

I have already raised the issue with Epson support again as I found it completely bizarre that in none of my research did I find incompatibility issues with certain sticker papers and certain printers, much less the products I use.

Has anyone else run across this issue, or anything similar, specifically with an Epson EcoTank? I really want to believe that I just have a defective machine that can maybe be replaced if my warranty will be honored. It would be very telling to know if this is a consistent problem for other users of these products.
 1 user thanked mountainmama821 for this useful post: RusteCreates
#2 Posted : 9/28/2021 12:05:31 PM(EST)
Josh


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I'm sorry to hear about the issues that you're experiencing. I haven't had an opportunity to use the Epson ET-2720 printer model, but I do have extensive experience using their very similar ET-2650 model, which is also an EcoTank printer. Based on my knowledge and testing with the ET-2650, I may be able to provide some suggestions that help resolve some of the issues that you're running into.

If you haven't already, you may want to try running the "Print Head Alignment" options located within the Maintenance tab on the LCD screen of the printer itself. There are options for both vertical alignment and horizontal alignment. Running both of these print head alignment options could potentially resolve the alignment issue that you described in your post. It could also help with the yellow halo appearing around the red print. Just make sure you have plain copy paper loaded in your printer before running the print head alignment options.

If you're still experiencing bleeding issues after trying the print head alignment options, there are a couple of other print settings that may help improve the overall print quality. I've used the weatherproof matte inkjet material frequently with my Epson EcoTank printer, and the most important print setting to check for is the paper type setting. You'll definitely want to avoid using the default plain paper or bright white paper options. In my experience, these settings result in print that's easily smeared and smudged with our weatherproof materials. When running the weatherproof matte inkjet material I achieved the best print quality and durability by using the the premium presentation paper matte option, but the premium photo paper glossy option provided good results as well. If you haven't tried using these paper type options yet, it's definitely the first adjustment I'd make.

If you've already adjusted the paper type option and are still experiencing issues, then you may want to take a look at the quality settings. The default option is "Standard" and that's where I've seen my best results. The combination of the premium presentation matte paper type setting and the standard quality option provided me with excellent print quality and durability when using the weatherproof matte inkjet material. If you're using the "High" print quality setting, that may be oversaturating the page with ink, which could potentially result in the bleeding issues you mentioned in your post.

One last adjustment that could potentially help with the issues you've reported is disabling the high speed or bidirectional print setting within the options. This may result in a slower feed through the printer, but is listed in the troubleshooting section of the ET-2720 user guide as a potential fix for print quality issues.

I hope these suggestions help. If you need any additional information please just let us know.
 2 users thanked Josh for this useful post. mountainmama821RusteCreates
#3 Posted : 9/28/2021 12:25:21 PM(EST)
mountainmama821

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I really appreciate all of the suggestions, Josh, and am happy to know you do have really helpful experience with a similar EcoTank!

I've tried all of those fixes, however, and none have totally resolved my problems. You're absolutely right about using the Standard print quality option with the Premium Presentation Matte as far as how it affects that yellow halo bleed, but it never completely made it go away...only reduced it.

I tried adjusting the print speed most recently, and it actually made that alignment problem a lot worse. Not only is the misalignment of the image still present, but now those sections of the page and graphics that are misaligned are also streaked with fine black lines. It's so bizarre!

In working with Epson on this problem, I've come to learn that they really cannot and will not help unless you exclusively use Epson paper in their machines. Using material from other brands and using the printer in a business capacity renders the warranty, and I guess their support team, null. I accept responsibility for not reading the fine print that outlines that, but it still doesn't account for the glowing reviews and recommendations I've read about the ET 2720 and related Epson EcoTanks for the type of work that I do. I firmly believe I have a faulty machine, but Epson refuses to be of assistance.

Now I'm shopping around for a new printer, and it seems like an awful time to do so with supply chain issues and microchip shortages. $120 printers I looked at at the beginning of the summer are now close to $300 or are altogether out of stock. Everywhere. Yikes!!

I hope my willingness to pull the trigger on a new printer anyway speaks to the quality of OL177WJ as it is taking precedence in this equation. There's really nothing better. I have a business to run!

Edited by user Tuesday, September 28, 2021 12:30:11 PM(EST)  | Reason: Not specified

 1 user thanked mountainmama821 for this useful post: RusteCreates
#4 Posted : 9/28/2021 3:43:47 PM(EST)
Josh


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I'm sorry to hear that you weren't able to resolve the issues when working with Epson. I've generally been very pleased with the performance of the ET-2650 over the past couple years that I've been using it, so I'm surprised to hear that the ET-2720 is causing you so much trouble. It certainly sounds as if there could be an issue with the unit you received.

If you're shopping for a new printer model and looking for a different brand, I've had a ton of success with some of the more recent Canon PIXMA models. I've used both the Canon PIXMA TS9120 and the Canon PIXMA TS6420 extensively with a variety of our inkjet printable materials, including the weatherproof white matte, and have been very pleased with the print results. I believe that the Canon PIXMA TS9120 is discontinued at this point and I can't speak to the current availability of the TS6420, but I'd imagine other similar PIXMA models would provide good results as well. It may be worth pulling up the specifications for both of those printer models and seeing if Canon has anything available with similar features at a similar price point.

I'm really happy to hear that you've been so pleased with the material despite the recent struggles with your printer. If you need any additional information please just let us know. We'll be happy to assist however we can.
 2 users thanked Josh for this useful post. mountainmama821RusteCreates
#5 Posted : 9/28/2021 4:26:04 PM(EST)
mountainmama821

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Thank you so much for the printer recommendations! I went with a Canon Pixma ix6820. It was first on my list last time around, but I wanted an all-in-one and was charmed by the EcoTank. I'm going to keep the Epson because I don't have any problems at all with the print quality on other paper and need the all-in-one capabilities that the ix6820 doesn't have. The Epson is actually phenomenal other than this sticker paper problem! So this has been quite disappointing - I know it has so much potential. But it seems like the ix6820 is much more friendly with speciality papers and I like having the wide-format option for exploring making my own art prints in the future.

If you have any experience with that printer in particular, I'd love to hear about it! So far I've read a lot of favorable things about it for crafting and art businesses like mine.
 1 user thanked mountainmama821 for this useful post: RusteCreates
#6 Posted : 9/28/2021 4:52:30 PM(EST)
Josh


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I haven't had a chance to use the PIXMA iX6820, but I just took a look at the specifications on Canon's site and it compares very favorably with the PIXMA models I've used previously. I think you're very likely to see great results using our inkjet compatible materials with this printer model. Just make sure you select one of the photo paper type settings before printing for the best possible print results.

If you have any questions after setting up your new printer please just let us know. Thank you so much for your business!
 1 user thanked Josh for this useful post: RusteCreates
#7 Posted : 2/3/2022 10:53:11 PM(EST)
RusteCreates

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Heyo heyo mountainmama821... and Josh from OnlineLabels..... just wanted to say thank you to you both, for posting this about your ET-2720 and for your help with settings n such!!! I have an ET-2720 and also LOVE the OL177WJ. I haven't had the same issues you have, mountainmama, maybe it's just we have different species of Gremlins hiding in our printers hah, but..... I struggling with what settings to use and was "wasting pages" trying combinations of settings until I found this!!! The Premium Presentation Matte with Standard quality has finally given me the BEST results with this printer/paper combo yet!! However, now I think I just need to color correct my original images a bit, hah..... always something to frickin tweak, hey?? Anywho... hope you're printing the pages of your dreams these days mountainmama821, and thank you Josh for being an awesome Cust Support Ninja!!
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