imagePROGRAF PRO-300 "pizza wheel" dots on first prints

[jonrev]

Greetings. New to professional printing... I've completed setup of my new Pro 300 printer and began my first test prints last night. I printed two photos on Canon SG-201 4x6" Semi-Gloss, and two sheets of Pro Luster LU-101 to produce a couple 8x12" photo prints. All paper settings were adjusted accordingly. There appears to be a hardware issue consistent with the metal gears/rubber rollers that feed paper out of the printer, past the print head: the teeth of the gears are leaving pinpoint dots on all of my prints, visible against dark ink. I've learned the term for this is "pizza wheel" dots; they are not severe enough to perforate the paper, but they are bad enough to ruin the print.

I made and cancelled three attempts after adjusting paper thickness (raised the print head) for the Luster paper, none corrected the issue. Raising to the highest setting was too much and left additional horizontal lines across the print. I'm stumped now... is there a separate adjustment for this gear/roller train to relieve pressure the teeth put on the fresh print; a means to dry the ink faster before it passes by these rollers; or did I just happen to land a defective printer?

Dots on A3+ printsDots on a 4x6 borderless printGears in question

Thanks!

[SLH-Photography]

I have a pretty new ImagePROGRAF PRO-300 (purchased last September, but not used much until lately), and it has the same or similar problem.  I did some small (4x6) prints today on Red River Palo Duro Baryta paper, and each has one area, roughly the size of a nickel, that looks like a series of fine scratches, spaced close together.  I haven't made any adjustments yet, just started searching this forum to see if this is a known issue, and found your post.  Have you received any responses from Canon?  I plan to call customer support, see if they can assist...

[jonrev]

No comment from Canon, will attempt to call this week.

[print_fanatic]

Same problem over here. No matter what I do, I get pizza wheel marks on all my luster or gloss prints. I've tried slowing down the printing and it didn't really help. Curious if Canon ever got back to you? I'm really worried I spent over $700 on a useless printer 😞

[jonrev]

Update: replaced the printer with another unit and the dot pattern persists. Radio silence from Canon, not much help from Reddit, either.

[Danny]

Hi, jonrev!

This community is designed for your fellow Canon owners to help each other out with any problems they may encounter. If this is a time-sensitive matter, click HERE search our knowledge base or register your Canon gear HERE to access additional support options.

Thanks and have a great day!

[Canon300User]

It's been a while since you posted, are you sure you select the correct paper type in both driver and on the printer panel? if the printer expects a thin regular paper but you load it with a 300gsm baryta for example, it might use more force than necessary to pull it. Just a thought.