Fixing the Paper Basket

I've mentioned that the fabric basket that's supposed to catch prints as they exit the 7900 seems a less than ideal solution. In my 1 December posting I showed a photo of the corner of a panoramic print, as it emerged from the printer, catching on the fabric of the basket. I mentioned I'd rigged a temporary "fix" for this.

Today I ran a small print job for a client. These weren't large prints; they were made on paper from a 17" wide roll. The cut length of each was 19 inches (a bit over 48 cm). Shown here is my hardware hack.

Ugly, but cheap, and effective for reasonably sized prints. Note the extensions
to the Velcro straps, which allow the basket to hang open a bit, providing
an edge, of sorts, to catch the print.

The cardboard sheet is obvious; it provides a smooth and rigid surface over which the corners of the paper slide easily. Less obvious in the picture are the extensions to the pair of Velcro straps that normally hold the paper basket in its closed position. If these straps are released, the paper basket in its front-feed mode becomes a ramp; when the print emerges and is released (or cut) by the printer, the paper slides down that ramp onto the floor. But at least it does that with the print side up. I've sometimes put my large self-healing cutting mat on the floor so the prints could "land" on its smooth, slippery surface rather than the concrete floor.

If the basket is arranged so prints are fed to the rear, the prints drop (or in the case of long panoramic prints, coil up) under the printer, and do so with the printed side down.

My temporary fix to this is for feeding prints to the front, and allows them to exit smoothly, without catching on the fabric. They are caught and held by the basket. Prints are not dumped onto the floor. Of course, for large prints this hack isn't appropriate, and would no doubt present its own set of problems. I think for large prints the basket should be deployed as designed for front-feeding, a piece of cardboard or foam core should be used to prevent the paper from catching on the fabric, and a protective mat, something like the cutting mat I've used, placed on the floor.

If you've found a good solution to this, please share!

Prior to making today's client prints I'd had MK ink loaded. These newest prints were made on Canon HW Satin paper, which I use for most of my contract print jobs, so it was necessary to switch to PK ink. I removed the roll of matte paper and then pressed the printer's ink swap button. The process took a couple of minutes, displaying a progress bar on the LCD. When it finished I inserted a sheet of plain paper and initiated a nozzle check print. The LCD showed "Cleaning" for about six minutes, and then the nozzle check printed. It showed no clogs. I then installed the roll of HW Satin and printed as usual. The prints dropped nicely into my "improved" paper basket.

  --Jay