If you are experiencing paper jams in your iColor 550 printer there are a few scenarios that could be causing the paper jam issues. Below are some common issues and troubleshooting ideas to help resolve your issue.
Static – Static is one of the main causes of paper jams. Climate change (winter) will cause you to suddenly have your “A” sheets (or transparent medias) sticking together causing your iColor 550 to have paper jams.
- Neutralize the Static – Do this by separating the sheets, fanning the sheets (all 4 sides if needed), or rub with cotton or any other tricks to unstick the sheets.
- Add copy paper under the transparent paper – Adding the same size (or cutting down) copy paper under the transparent paper will add more pressure to the paper pickup roller. The plain paper also will help pull some of the static out of the clear sheets.
- If possible, feed one sheet at a time.
- Let paper climatize – Give paper time to adjust to your climate. Paper can be subject to different types of climates while being delivered, or can travel in trucks and be exposed to very cold temperatures, which can then pick up a lot of static in the package of paper.
Humidity - There is a anti-humidity function built into tray 1 of your iColor that helps with humidity issues. It can be turned on through the front panel of the printer. This may cause spooling your job to print to take longer as the fuser will heat up and burns off excessive humidity in the paper tray.
Paper size – Make sure the paper size matches the physical paper tray guides. A4 and letter sizes are close but they are not the same. If the sizes do not match it will cause a paper jam.
Note: New printers more often than not will come with the guides set on Letter size. The iColor 550 standard paper size is A4 or A4 LEG. When receiving your new printer you will need to check and adjust your paper guides accordingly.
Your Image – Image placement or size of your image can also cause paper jams. Leaving approximately ½” of space around your artwork to the edge of the paper is strongly suggested.
Wrong paper tray – Every media has the best paper tray preselected in the ProRIP (if you are a ProRIP user). Do not change the tray settings. Consult the paper instructions from whomever the paper is from for confirmation. The bypass tray is the recommended tray for all media EXCEPT for the iColor 550 standard paper. The iColor 550 standard paper is made to go through tray 1.
Media type mismatch – This will occure when you have the wrong type of media selected in the RIP for your paper. For example: you are using iColor 2 step 550 media. You want to make sure you have the right print mode selected and the paper type is set to “thick to 163g”. If this is set to the wrong paper type it could jam or you will have an adhesion issue. Adhesion issue is when you have a repeating “ghost” of your graphic, or when on one side of the page is a perfect print and the other side is a mess. This means the fuser is not hot enough to completely marry the toner to the page. Adhesion problems can be diagnosed by trying media settings that cause the fuser to move slower and hotter. Usually going up a setting does this. So if “coated glossy” does not work, try “coated glossy 2”, or if “thick to 90g” doesn’t work try “thick to 163g”. On Oki based printers, if “Heavy 1” fails, try “Heavy 2” and so on. Make sure to run 5-10 sheets of plain copy paper through your printer between messy jams to clear out any toner residue and prevent that from damaging your next print.