Getting continuous paper jams in your white toner transfer printer?

Here are some tips to resolve the issue and explain what’s happening:

The culprit is usually excessive static, due to the current climate of low humidity (ie this happens every year in the winter). We see this in all the transparent medias that have a tendency to stick together.

Neutralize the static! this involves separating the sheets, rub with cotton, etc. or use other tricks to unstick the sheets. If they are bunched together in a brick, you bet it’s going to jam.

Adding the same size paper under the transparent paper. This adds more pressure to the paper pickup roller and the plain paper helps pull some static out of the clear sheets.

Feeding one sheet at a time. If there is only one sheet to pull it can’t pull two 🙂

We see a lot of users so excited to use their paper that they open it up and use it immediately upon delivery. This is a bad idea.. the paper needs to climatize. It just traveled sometimes across the country in freezing cold trucks. It has picked up a lot of static and was subject to changing climates. Let it settle down in your home before you try to use it.

Note for iColor 540/550 users: There is an anti-humidity function built into tray 1 of your iColor that helps with humidity issues, it can be turned on in the front panel of your printer. The downside to this function is it will take a little longer to spool up your job because each time you go to print the fuser heats up and burns off excessive humidity in the paper tray.

If it’s not a static problem, it’s usually because you are using a paper size that does not match the physical paper tray guides. A4 size media is very close in size to letter but it’s not the same. If there is a mismatch there, it will jam every time!

A big one I see frequently is the image you are printing sometimes is the problem. Usually this happens if you are printing too close to the edge of the paper. Leave around 1/2” of space around all your artwork to the edge of the paper. If any doubt, make the graphic smaller, center it (very important it’s not too high up) and try again.

Using the wrong paper tray for feeding. Every media has been tested and the best paper tray has been preselected in ProRip for you already (if you are a ProRip user). Do not change the tray settings. Consult the paper instructions from whoever the paper is from for confirmation. Use the manufacturer’s website for the latest instructions, not what is printed and included as these change frequently.

The last most common reason for a jam is a media type mismatch. This happens when you have the wrong type of media selected in the rip for your paper. So for example if 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 wrong the paper type it could jam OR you will have an adhesion issue. This is when you have a repeating “ghost” of your graphic, or when on one side of the page it’s 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 doesn’t work, try coated glossy 2...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 paper through your printer between messy jams to clear out any toner residue and prevent that from damaging your next transfer.