Printer Friendly Version

Working with ink-jet printers

What you need to know about “pizza wheels”
Understanding media thickness limitations
The path your paper takes

Before beginning to work with GOLDEN Digital Grounds and experimental ink-jet printing, it’s important to take the time to become familiar with the printing equipment you plan to use.

These products and methods are not intended for use with laser printers.

In general, wide-format printers made for printing giclée prints will have little trouble with most of the techniques and substrates these new materials can be used with. Even then, it’s important to be familiar with the various specs and adjustments that higher-end printers are capable of.

For many, the standard home desktop ink-jet printer, or perhaps some of the better photo printers, will be the primary equipment used and so it’s important to address some of the most basic issues to be aware of.

This is especially critical if planning to work with thicker or non-absorbent substrates, where the inks are inherently slower drying.

Pizza Wheels – In most desktop ink-jet printers there are usually rollers or ‘pizza wheels’ that come into contact with the surface of the print as it is being ejected.

If the ink is still wet, these mechanisms will cause the image to smear or tracks to be seen running across the print. While the wheels can be removed fairly easily, doing so will void the printer warranty.

Should you decide to go ahead and remove some or all of the pizza wheels, there are sites on the Internet that will provide instructions. Since there are often several of these wheels, it is a good idea to leave the wheels that are along the edges, removing only what is in the middle and most likely to come in contact with your image area. The wheels on the edges can then continue to do their job of guiding the paper as it exits the printer.

NOTE: If the decision is made not to modify the printer, and to leave these wheels in place, then the safest option is to limit product use to the Digital Ground White (Matte). The White (Matte) dries almost instantly, so the tracking of ink is rarely, if ever, a problem. In addition, the Digital Ground Clear (Gloss) and Digital Ground for Non-Porous Surfaces can also work but only when applied to very absorbent surfaces like paper.

Head Height – Head height refers to the clearance between the print head and the paper, which in turn limits how thick the substrate can be without being hit by the print heads. Unfortunately, with most desktop printers little can be done to adjust this. If there is any adjustment option, whether manual, or through the software driver, setting it on the highest clearance is usually best.

In any case, it is important to know what the maximum clearance is to avoid causing a jam or damaging the print head when working with thicker materials. This information is usually contained in the printer’s documentation or specification sheet, or consult the manufacturer.

CAUTION: When working with any of the GOLDEN Digital Grounds it is critical to understand that damage to your printer is always a possibility, especially as one begins to explore or push boundaries. Because of that, we strongly recommend learning and experimenting with these products using older printers that might have less value to you and are already out of warranty. If your printer is not out of warranty, realize that modifying your printer in any way, or using materials not approved by the manufacturer, will usually void that coverage.

Paper Paths – Take a close look at the printer you plan to experiment with and observe the path that the paper takes when feeding through the printer during an image or document print.

With some printers the paper tray is in the front which means the paper must follow a U shaped path as it prints, feeding from the tray, curving at the back, and then ejecting out the front. This is the least desirable paper path and will severely limit what materials can be printed.

Other printers have paper trays that feed from the back of the printer and follow an L shaped path, feeding from the tray, bending as it enters the print area and then coming straight out the front. This paper path will support substrates that are flexible and paper thin, such as some specialty papers and thin paint skins.

The optimum paper path is a straight through path. Printers with a straight pass through either feed from the back and come straight through to the front, or feed in from the front and automatically position the substrate at the back to print through to the front. Most of the time, in order to work with custom substrates, you will need this type of straight through paper path. Printers with this type of path commonly recommend using it for printing envelopes and other thicker media.

Consult your printer’s documentation for additional information.

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