Some time ago I wrote a happy little post about printing panoramas using roll paper on my Epson 3800.

Here the other day, I wanted to try a pano of a 9 image stitch I made using the RRS pano head. It was just for fun. I think the aspect ratio was about 5:1, wich is far too wide for comfortable viewing. I had a 30cm roll of premium luster lying around, and I discovered that I could use the box it came in as a roll holder. I turned the printer and put the roll in our guest bed. Then I pulled out some paper, and fed through the rear feed. I made sure to add some slack so the printer didn’t have to pull paper itself.

Back to the computer, I fired up ImagePrint, which has a roll paper option where it will stop the paper immadiately after printing the image so you can cut (probably for printer with manual cutters). The 3800 is not intended for roll, and has no cutter at all, but I thought I just could run a scissor along the back feeding slot when the printer was finished. So the plan was layd down, and I pushed the print button.

The printer started its swooshing, and I made sure to pull out paper to maintain the slack, and to manage the paper coming out of the printer to avoid damagin the surface. All is well until we reach the end. This is where the 3800 really proves that it is not made for roll paper. As soon as it is finished with the last head pass, it started to eject paper at a stunning speed. And it was determined to keep on ejecting until all paper was out of the printer, which would make a lot of mess since I had more than 20 meters left on the roll. I did not respond to any buttons, it even refused to turn off when I pushed the power button. After approximately 2 meters of paper, I pulled the power cord, and it went silent.

Time to calm down, cut the paper and clean up the mess.

So, the conclusion is that the Epson 3800 is really, really not a printer made for roll paper. Don’t try. You can make panoramas, but then you must pre-cut the sheet, which is what I will do the next time.