# Tiny black dots on my transfers (Epson GX5050n)



## Feezle (Nov 16, 2012)

*Tiny black dots on my transfers (Ricoh GX5050n)*

I've recently been running into an issue where I'm getting tiny black ink dots on some of my transfers. When it first happened I figured it was a dirty nozzle or something. I rant the printer through the head cleaning and nozzle check and it made no difference. 

I printed the same piece 3 or 4 times and the dots were in the same location. The dots were not on my graphic. The graphic was a plaque I had designed with an image of a volleyball in the background that had the opacity turned down to about 35%. After messing with it for an hour or so I decided to just replace the image with a different one and the dots disappeared. 

I ran into the problem again today. Two completely different designs, but each included layers where the opacity was around 20-30%. 

The graphics are created in photoshop and then pasted into illustrator for printing. Aside from these black dots, the transfers are coming out fine. If I move the image to a different location on the paper, the dots are still in the same spot in relation to the image. I've been printing images similar to these for almost two years. Same printer, same type of ink, same type of paper. No problems until now. 

Any ideas here?


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

*Re: Tiny black dots on my transfers (Ricoh GX5050n)*



Feezle said:


> I've recently been running into an issue where I'm getting tiny black ink dots on some of my transfers. When it first happened I figured it was a dirty nozzle or something. I rant the printer through the head cleaning and nozzle check and it made no difference.
> 
> I printed the same piece 3 or 4 times and the dots were in the same location. The dots were not on my graphic. The graphic was a plaque I had designed with an image of a volleyball in the background that had the opacity turned down to about 35%. After messing with it for an hour or so I decided to just replace the image with a different one and the dots disappeared.
> 
> ...


 Epson doesn't make a GX5050n, but Ricoh does. If you identify your printer properly better chances someone can help you.


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## Feezle (Nov 16, 2012)

*Re: Tiny black dots on my transfers (Ricoh GX5050n)*

Yes and when I noticed my mistake I edited it an hour ago but I can't edit the title of the thread. Thank you for your helpful reply.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

*Re: Tiny black dots on my transfers (Ricoh GX5050n)*



Feezle said:


> Yes and when I noticed my mistake I edited it an hour ago but I can't edit the title of the thread. Thank you for your helpful reply.


Yes I see that now. 

On Epson's this is caused by gunk on the capping station and/or under the print head causing some ink to be sprayed out, that is why it is relative to the image location ... and requires cleaning underneath. 

But I can't speak for Ricoh's, so those users should confirm.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Just my speculation based on Epson experience .... Ricoh users might have better input though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uj2gIN6g4A


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## Feezle (Nov 16, 2012)

Thank you very much. That looks like a good place to start.


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## Feezle (Nov 16, 2012)

Ok, I cleaned the capping station (thank you for that). It needed it, but it didn't resolve the issue. 

I got a suggestion on another forum that Illustrator and the driver might not be talking to each other correctly and to try rasterizing the image prior to printing. That did the trick and now I'm trying to find out how to correct it. 

For future reference to possibly help others that might have this issue, here is what I'm talking about:


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Feezle said:


> Ok, I cleaned the capping station (thank you for that). It needed it, but it didn't resolve the issue.
> 
> I got a suggestion on another forum that Illustrator and the driver might not be talking to each other correctly and to try rasterizing the image prior to printing. That did the trick and now I'm trying to find out how to correct it.
> 
> For future reference to possibly help others that might have this issue, here is what I'm talking about:


 Wow, great you resolved this, very strange problem indeed.

Thanks for taking the time for following up, I'm sure someone in the future here will appreciate that when they run across this problem.


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

I'd love to see your original Illustrator image.


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## Feezle (Nov 16, 2012)

It is just a flame background that I used on a plaque.


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