PSA: My plotter jammed right before a big deadline for a Phoenix city permit set.

I was in my home office, about to print the final D-size sheets for a commercial site plan review. The plotter made this awful grinding noise and stopped. A check showed a paper jam deep in the feed path, and the lead edge of my last sheet of vellum was creased. I had exactly two hours before the drop-off window closed. I had to carefully reverse the rollers to pull the torn sheet out without making it worse. Then I re-plotted that one sheet, which took another 25 minutes. I made the deadline with 10 minutes to spare, but my heart was racing the whole drive over. Has anyone found a good way to prevent those deep jams on older wide-format machines?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.jordan1mo ago

Ever tried cleaning the rollers weekly?

samw471mo ago

Honestly that sounds like overkill in most cases. My old printer ran fine for years with a quick roller clean maybe every few months. Unless you're printing on really dusty paper or in a workshop, weekly seems like a lot of extra work for little gain.