The printer prints horizontal black stripes. Why does the printer print in stripes?

Sooner or later, owners of printers or multifunction devices (MFPs) are faced with deterioration in the performance of their printing equipment. One of the most unpleasant scenarios is the appearance of vertical or horizontal stripes on printed samples. This can happen for various reasons, and all of them, as a rule, are associated with malfunctions of the electronic and mechanical components of the machine. Why do streaks appear when printing from Epson printers? How to solve this problem at home?

Main causes of malfunction

All causes of streaking during printing can be divided into the following main categories:

• Cartridge malfunctions;
• Print head malfunctions;
• Problems in the ink supply loops to the print head;
• Malfunctions of electronic and mechanical components.

From this we can conclude that the occurrence of streaks may be associated with malfunctions in almost all the main components and mechanisms of the printer. Some not very serious faults can be fixed independently without contacting a service center. We recommend starting with ink tanks when diagnosing and taking measures to eliminate problems.

Epson cartridge problems

A cartridge is not just a container from which ink is supplied to the printer. Its design also contains mechanical and electronic components; malfunctions of any of them can lead to a variety of consequences. Diagnosis of ink tanks should begin with checking the ink level. It is possible that the appearance of streaks on prints is due to a banal end or a critically low toner level.

Checking Ink Levels

It's easy to check - just open the printer driver settings window on your computer - Epson Status Monitor 3:

• To launch this utility, press the "Ctrl+P" keys in the program window from where the document is printed.
• At the top of the window, in the “Printer” section, select the connected printer from the list next to “Name”, then click on the “Properties” or “Settings” button.
• Go to the "Maintenance" tab, then click on the "Epson Status Monitor 3" item.
• A window will appear on the screen, in the “Inc Levels” section, graphic images of the cartridges and their ink fill level will be presented.

If the printer uses a CISS (continuous ink supply system), i.e. It uses reusable, refillable cartridges, making it even easier to determine the ink level - just inspect the toner containers. Ink tanks in CISS printers are transparent.

Cartridge damage

The first sign of damage to the cartridges is the presence of leaks on their body or in the installation compartment. This may be due to both mechanical damage to the ink tanks and the formation of gaps (depressurization) between the connecting elements, for example, at the junction of the cartridge body and the ink supply cables.

Refillable ink tanks also have an air intake hole. If these holes are dirty, air will flow into the cartridge intermittently, and at some point too much, which will lead to uneven flow of ink into the printer and the formation of various printing defects.

In such situations, the best solution is to replace the cartridges. Of course, you can try to repair the damage, seal the connections, clean them of dirt, and take other measures, but this will only eliminate the problem for a while.

Clogged nozzles (cartridge nozzles)

This is usually observed in two cases - when small foreign objects and contaminants get into the chamber for installing cartridges, or when ink dries on the surface of the ink tank nozzles. To resolve the problem, you can try the following:

• Remove the cartridges from the printer, then wipe them with a damp, lint-free cloth to remove light surface dirt.
• If the nozzles are heavily soiled, the ink tanks should be soaked by immersing them to a depth of about 0.5 cm in water or a special cleaning liquid. Dried ink will be washed away by water over time (from several minutes to several hours), after which you can try printing.
• You should also check the ink tank compartment for dirt and clean it if necessary.

If the measures do not lead to anything, this may mean that the ink tanks are failing. Faults can be established or eliminated only by installing new cartridges. If this does not help, you should contact a specialist.

Incorrect ink

If streaks appear on your printouts after refilling the cartridges, this may also be due to unsuitable ink. For each individual series of Epson printers and MFPs, you should use only the toner recommended by the manufacturer. You shouldn’t be surprised at the decrease in print quality when using unsuitable inks and especially fake samples.

Print head malfunctions

It is not possible to solve any hardware problems with the print head (PH), such as physical damage or failure of electronic components, at home. However, the reason for the appearance of streaks on printed samples is often the usual contamination of the PG with ink or its miscalibration. You can fix the problem by launching the appropriate service functions. This can be done either from the front panel of the printer or using software (driver) installed on the computer. Let's consider the second option, because It fits most Epson printer models:

• The function of cleaning and calibrating the print head can be launched from the print settings window (driver) or using the Epson icon in the tray (the area near the clock).
• To open the driver settings, repeat all the steps from the previous chapter of this article, which described the procedure for launching the Epson Status Monitor 3 utility.
• To launch the head cleaning function, in the "Maintenance" tab, click on the "Head Cleaning" button and follow the instructions on the screen. At the end of the procedure, run the “Checking Nozzles” procedure on the same tab.
• To launch the GHG calibration function, click on the "Print Head Alignment" button. To perform this procedure, paper must be installed in the printer.
• If there is an Epson driver icon in the tray, right-click on it and select the desired function from the drop-down menu, follow the instructions on the screen.

Malfunctions of paint supply loops

Epson printers made using CISS technology use special flexible tubes (cables, channels) to deliver ink from cartridges to the print head. As with cartridges, they can also become contaminated with dried ink or other contaminants. There are other common problems with CISS printers - the presence of air in the ink supply channels (so-called airing).

In any case, to troubleshoot problems with the cables, they are dismantled and then washed to remove congestion and dirt. But in this procedure, the most difficult thing is to install the cables in such a way that there are no air bubbles left in them. Due to the complexity of repair and restoration work, it is better to entrust this work to specialists.

Malfunctions of electronic-mechanical components

Any printing equipment consists of many interconnected electronic and mechanical components. Malfunctions in the operation of any of them can lead to a variety of consequences - even complete failure of the printer. If we separately consider the occurrence of stripes on printed samples, the following situations may be the reason for this:

• Overfilling of the absorbent lining (absorber, diaper) with waste ink. When the pad becomes full, toner may begin to leak out of the printer body or onto the surface of the print head or other moving mechanisms, which may result in heavy streaks in the form of uniform stripes on the printed sheets.
• Contamination or natural decrease in tensile strength of the rubber paper feed rollers. If the movement of the paper stops at any point, the print head may pass over the same area several times. As a result, horizontal stripes appear. Usually in such cases only one stripe is formed.
• The encoder tape is dirty or the print head location sensor is faulty. These nodes are responsible for determining and sending data about the location of the PG in the horizontal plane to the main printer controller. This allows the PG to apply ink to the desired area of ​​the paper. If the tape is dirty or the sensor fails, some areas on the surface of the printed sample may be skipped or, conversely, printed several times. As a result, the formation of printed or white stripes occurs vertically.

If a decrease in print quality is caused by hardware malfunctions of the printer components, the best solution is to contact a specialist.

When a printer leaves a white line when printing, it is always a problem. Immediately thoughts arise about a breakdown or lack of toner. But these thoughts are not always true.

Reasons

Such image deformation can come from completely different factors. Also, the stripes may be accompanied by greyness, speckling or even black stripes. At this stage, it’s worth thinking about why changes in the image suddenly began to appear. The cause of the malfunction and the ease of identifying the “diagnosis” often depend on this. There can be several types of stripes:

1. One big bold stripe covering the entire sheet
2. The printer produces white stripes that make the image translucent
3. Lots of dark stripes that obscure the original image.
4. Pronounced black stripes that change the image beyond recognition, and make fragments of text unreadable.

Solving the problem

Based on the factors to which the printer has recently been exposed, several conclusions can be drawn: the toner is running out, the photodrum is damaged, the toner has spilled onto the printed elements of the device. The last two can occur due to a sheet of paper jamming inside the printer. If you were careless, you could forcefully pull out the jammed sheet and damage some parts of the printer. But first things first, we’ll start with the simplest and most common problem – toner.

A white line when printing on a printer is a phenomenon that often occurs when there is not enough toner in the cartridge. But how can you be sure that this is the reason? Quite simple - first, remember how long ago you last refilled toner. If this happened a few months ago, and you print very often, then this is most likely the problem.

If you absolutely don’t have time to refill the cartridge, but you need to print documents urgently, then you can use one little trick. Cover a small area of ​​the surface with newspaper or waste cloth and remove the cartridge from the printer (if you don’t want to bother with paper and cloth, you can just go to the trash can). Begin to gently shake the part to distribute any remaining toner evenly. Then use a rag or special wipes for office equipment to wipe the cartridge from dust and dirt.

After everything, you can insert the cartridge into the device and easily print a dozen or two pages. However, remember that you still have little paint and it’s time to start refilling. The second time this trick may not work. The problem is the most common answer to the question “why does the printer print with white stripes?”

Why does a printer with white stripes, dots, or black stripes print every page? If you notice that the printed document always has the same distortion, then the problem is most likely the laser glass. When the cartridge in the device is directly above the laser, toner particles may fall onto it.

To avoid this problem, you will need to periodically clean the cartridge with a rag. If this does not help, then consider other ways to solve the problem in this article.

If you experience dark vertical stripes, then most likely, as in the first case, there is a lack of toner. The bottom line is that the cartridge hopper is already filled, and it can only be filled if the toner is completely depleted. Therefore, the surest way to solve this problem is to go to a cartridge refill company. There they will not only refill your cartridge with toner, but also clean the hopper of excess toner, which will allow the printer to stop distorting printed documents.

If dark stripes appear on the sides and repeat periodically at equal intervals, then the problem is most likely in the drum unit. It must be changed every 4-5 cartridge refills. If this is not done, it begins to wear out and this is expressed in such stripes.

Black sheet full of light stripes

The problem is quite rare, but does occur in Panasonic printers. The cause of the malfunction is contamination of the cartridge contacts. In this case, “treating” the device will not be difficult. First, remove the dirty cartridge from the printer, and then wipe it with a dry cloth. After this, you can wipe it with a damp office equipment wipe to clean it of any small particles of toner or dust.

White stripes that are located along the horizon of the page. This problem usually occurs among owners of pets (usually cats). Small animals love to climb all the uneven surfaces of the apartment and rub their fur against them. Particles of wool get into the cartridge and simply clog it. Animals may not be the root of the problem. For example, if the device has not been used for a long time, then it could just as well be clogged with dust. To solve the problem, you will have to disassemble the device and carry out a general cleaning. After this it should work without malfunctions.

Tip: To avoid contaminating the printer, do not place it on the floor. It would be best to place it between two shelves. Also, many models have a special cover in the paper feed department, which is best closed.

Results

As you may have noticed, most of the reasons why the printer does not work correctly lies in the cartridge. However, you should not blame him for all the troubles. If none of the methods in this article worked, consider taking the printer to a service center. I hope this article was useful to you and answered your questions.

Welcome, dear visitors to our computer site website. In today's article, we will touch on the topic, or rather its almost integral part - the printer. And let's look at a very common problem.

Since you are already on this page, you probably want to know why the printer prints in stripes. There may be several reasons for this. Let's look at them one by one and try to answer what to do if the printer starts printing with stripes. You can read about it at the link.

As for the printer brand, it’s not really worth looking at, since the reasons for the stripes are usually universal. It doesn't matter what kind of printer you have - HP, Canon, Samsung or any other. If it is laser, then the publication will most likely be useful.

Black stripes on the sheet all the time in one place

There are two typical reasons why a laser printer shows black stripes in the same place. The first is the printer shaft, which can become deformed over time due to the obsolescence of the equipment. Or be damaged by a foreign object, such as a paper clip or pen. It consists of rubber, which is not very resistant to external influences. You can inspect it by removing the cartridge. The shaft looks like this:

There is thermal film next to the shaft, which can also cause the printer to print poorly. A foreign object entering the printer may damage the thermal film. Thermal film is produced in different colors - gray, orange, blue, green and others.

You can make sure that the printer is printing in stripes because of it by a characteristic rustling sound or by torn pieces of film that can be detected during printing. If a toner streak appears on the very edge of the sheet. This printer component looks like this:

The stripes change their position on the sheet from copy to copy

The most likely cause of the printer printing with streaks that keep changing their location is the toner cartridge. Most likely it wakes up while printing. There are several ways to determine this. The first, extreme one, pull out the cartridge and shake it. If, after this brave act, you find yourself with toner, you should replace the cartridge with a working one. The second way is to immediately replace the cartridge with another one, preferably a new one. After this, it will become clear whether the cartridge is to blame or not. The cartridge looks like this:

We hope that the publication was informative for you. Come back often!

• VLADIMIR

• Vladimir

  When printing photographs, they come out with stripes, regardless of size. The ink level is normal. Calibration and auto-cleaning of the heads have been performed. What is the reason? How to fix it? The device is an Epson Stylus SX425W MFP. Help please!

• Victoria

• JEMSHIT

• karsar

  MFP nr prints lines half horizontally. The ink level is normal. I cleaned and calibrated the cartridges. The test page is in color, also with a pass. what can you tell me? and if you change the cartridge, what do you recommend?

• Olga

  After the next refill, the printer began to print thin black stripes, both vertical and horizontal. The shaft was changed during the last refill. We use it infrequently and carefully. The printer is 6 years old. HP laserget 1020 printer

• Victor

  Hello.
  I have an HP 1505 printer. After refilling (and then after changing the drum), the text prints faded. In the printer settings, I removed everything that interferes with printing in contrast - this did not help. Now there is a new cartridge (not branded) - IT ALSO PRINTS BLACKLY FROM THE FIRST START

• guest

  Good evening. The EPSON XP303 printer when I make a photocopy, the quality is excellent, but when printing a document, some of the text is visible, some of it is not, in horizontal stripes. I cleaned and calibrated the head to no avail. Tell me what is the reason and how to solve the problem?

• Saule

• Aleg

  Hello! Please tell me the HP 3525 prints perfectly on plain paper when printing in the “photo paper” mode and the quality is “maximum dpi”, the stripes are evenly distributed throughout the entire image and the quality has become more grainy, but before that it printed very high quality (ideally). Washing the head did not help, it is possible to buy a new one but that's definitely the problem. Thank you!

Why does the printer print in stripes? Everyone puts their own meaning into this question: for some, the stripes are always in one place, for others they are located chaotically, for others they are red, for others they are black, others complain about white ones, etc. They can also be vertical or horizontal. Everyone has their own, so let’s look at the main reasons in order.

If the stripes are always in different places

When the printer prints in such a way that the stripes on each printed sheet are located randomly, in different places, then the problem in 90% lies in the damaged integrity/tightness of the cartridge. In other words, the toner wakes up. It’s easy to check it yourself (if you’re not afraid of getting dirty), take out the cartridge and start... shaking it. Got dirty? Take it to the technician, it is likely that the problem can be easily solved.

The black bars are always in the same place.

I see two explanations for this.

1. If the printer is old (3-5 years), then it shaft could well have fallen into disrepair, this is due to the usual obsolescence of technology.

2. Again, the shaft, but it could be deformed due to foreign objects: for example, a paper clip, buttons, seeds, etc. After all, the material from which it is made is ordinary rubber, which, you see, cannot boast of great stability. To give you an idea of ​​what it is, here is a screenshot:

Horizontal stripes.

We check the nozzles, see which colors appear in stripes, and calibrate the print head.

The program will help with this Print Head Alignment

After installation, make sure there are no printing errors,

load A4 paper into the printer,

Click on the printer icon (in the taskbar) and select the appropriate one. item “rint Head Alignment”

Vertical stripes.

If the result is as in the picture, try cleaning the nozzle.

For Epson, this is done programmatically, in the settings, “service” tab, cleaning function. 3-4 times is enough. Sometimes this is not enough, so be prepared to work with your hands, or, what’s easier, take the printer to a service center.

The stripes are located along the edges

It doesn't matter if it's from the left or right edge. This is due to a worn out photodrum. The problem is solved by replacing it, and it is also necessary to clean the cartridge.

General algorithm of actions

In case of any printing problems, first of all, always check the print head; if cleaning it does not help (software), check the nozzles, clean them. If this does not work, the fault is with the cartridge, or with a failed head, the latter is the saddest.

White streaks are visible when printing on the printer.

Most printer owners have experienced this. The reason is prosaic - the paint is running out.

IN average one cartridge is enough for 1200-1400 pages.

If you need to print something extremely urgent, shaking the cartridge will help. Literally. But I don’t recommend doing this often, because... The image drum wears out faster.

Interesting things on the blog:

Sometimes it happens that laser printers begin to produce stripes, blots, dots or other third-party artifacts on sheets during printing.

The causes of such problems can be caused by both low-quality toner and problems with the cartridge:

• incorrect assembly of the consumable after refueling;
• photodrum wear;
• depressurization of the paint bin, etc.

Also, many inexperienced users who prefer to do everything with their own hands often refill the cartridge “to the bitter end.” And this, in turn, leads to the failure of its individual components and parts, which negatively affects not only the quality of printing, but also the performance of office equipment as a whole.

Therefore, today we will tell you why you experience streaks when printing on a laser printer, and we will also share recommendations on how to get rid of it.

TOP No. 1. Vertical stripes along the edges? Wear of the photo drum (photography)!

Perhaps the most common problem caused by the end of the photodrum resource. Often found in cartridges that have already been refilled with toner several times.

If this is your first time refilling a cartridge, then most likely it will be enough to wipe the drum with a clean cloth. In this case, it is forbidden to use detergents, as this will only cause harm!

Vertical stripes along the edges

TOP No. 2. Dots with stripes in a chaotic order? Check the dosing blade!

Small dots throughout the sheet, accompanied by vertical streaks, can indicate three potential printing problems, which are caused by:

• incorrectly installed dosing blade (needs to be corrected);
• an overfilled waste toner bin (it should be cleaned);
• low-quality toner, or when refilling the cartridge with new ink powder, the remains of the old one were not disposed of (the toner needs to be replaced).

TOP No. 3. White streaks or gaps during printing? Refill the cartridge!

As soon as the printer begins to leave white stripes or skip individual elements on the print, then it’s time to think about refilling used cartridges or buying new cartridges.

Sometimes it happens that third-party particles get onto the photo roll, which become the source of the above problems.

White stripes or gaps

TOP No. 4. Horizontal black stripes? Cleaning the waste toner bin and checking the magnetic roller contacts!

The solution to the problem of horizontal black streaks is that you need to clean out the waste hopper and then check the correct placement of the metering blade and squeegee.

Do not forget to also correctly install the contacts between the photodrum and the magnetic shaft.

TOP No. 5. Chaotic stripes and artifacts? Eliminate cartridge depressurization!

If the seal of the cartridge is broken, fix the problem by checking the integrity of the sealing rubber bands, without which, apparently, the toner will spill out.

Have you done all the necessary steps, but the printer still prints in stripes? Contact the MosToner service center for help - 24/7!