CliffAddy.com - My HP B9180 Experiences

Last update: EDT

Spring 2007: This page still gets a ton of traffic, so let me cut to the chase for those of you who simply want to know what my conclusions were ...

The bottom line is that, after nine months of testing and hundreds of test prints, my B9180 sits gathering dust. It's simply not capable of producing "professional" output, at least not good enough for this professional. I simply can't take the prints from this machine and sell them to clients. It's a good printer, no doubt, and does a really nice job for a home user, but to say that it matches lab prints or higher-end professional printers is simply false. What's interesting is that the problems with banding and pizza-wheel marks also showed up on test prints supplied by HP from their new $4,000 Z3100 printer that I was considering, so these issues seem to be inherent design decisions where HP decided that prints with these flaws were "good enough". Sorry, not for me.

UPDATE 9/30/07: I've heard that HP has put considerable work into redesigning the holddown mechanism for the Z3100. Also, of course, drivers have matured. I just got a new set of sample Z3100 prints from HP and these show no wheel marks or banding at all. With HP's $1,000 current rebate there's a good chance that I'll be ordering one soon.

UPDATE 10/2/07: I've ordered my new Z3100 and started a Z3100 Experiences Page.

In the spring of 2006, I was using White House Custom Color. They did a really nice job printing my jobs over the net, but the lag time of 2-4 days and the minimum order requirement were getting on my nerves, so I was in the market for a printer. I looked at the Epson 4800, but my past experiences with Epson's clogging issues and the whole black ink switching thing turned me off that. The Canon iPF5000 looked nice, but $2000 was just too much right now and the reviews indicated that the print driver was a real pain. Then I found that HP had announced a really nice little pigment printer that was going to be available in May! Of course, nothing arrives as announced and it wasn't until September that the B9180 was released. This page will be an informal little diary of my experiences. I'm not a professional reviewer and your experiences will be different.

Sep 1

Inkjet Art says they'll be shipping Sept 15th. Placed an order.

Sep 6

Amazon has the printer listed for $70 off, shipping Sep 14-21. Cancelled other order, placed Amazon order.

Sep 15

Amazon dropped the price again, gave me the lower price on the pending order. I'd rather have the printer. I'm getting requests to photograph girls for the local middle school's "Miss Photogenic" contest. Since these are just one or two prints each, I could really use a printer instead of eating the minimum order fees from White House.

InkjetArt now says they'll be shipping Sep 25

Sep 22

Amazon missed their estimated shipping window, now they're telling me "We still don't have them, don't know when we're going to get them, but for your trouble we'll waive the overnight shipping charge ". But, since I'm an Amazon Prime member, that's only $4. Sorry, I'm not mollified.

HP says they have them in-stock with a $70 instant rebate and free shipping, it's worth the extra $80 to get it now. Placed the order, supposed to ship this afternoon.

Someone on Photo-i says they were told the same "we'll ship it today" story in early Sep but still haven't gotten one. Great, I've already cancelled my Amazon order.

Hmmm, it's only been two hours and now HP's website says the printer's been shipped. They even include a serial number and a FedEx tracking ID, although FedEx's website says it's unable to find the ID yet. HP's website now shows the printer out-of-stock again. I hope I didn't get fooled.

It's on its way! FedEx confirmed the ID, it's supposed to arrive next Wed, the 27th. Although I'm still concerned that their website was messed up and they're sending me some other printer.

Sep 23

FedEx shows the package has left KY.

Sep 25

FedEx says it's in GA.

Placed orders for several different kinds of paper from Moab, Red River, HP, and Ilford.

Sep 26

FedEx shows it on the truck for delivery. A day early?

Wow, it's here! And it's a B9180! But I have to leave for a meeting!

Back from the meeting. Very pretty box, heavy. My wife and I lugged it upstairs to the office, but it's 11:30 and I'm beat. Off to bed with visions of sugar-plum prints in my head.

Sep 27

5:00am: OK, here we go ...

Unpack the printer: Pretty easy. I appreciate the way the styrofoam of the end caps were split so I could remove the top halves and then get the printer, instead of wrestling the printer out of the box with solid end caps on.

Remove the tape: Tons of tape. Be careful, a paper taped to the top of the printer warns you not to open any doors, especially the top, until told to do so or it will cause the end of civilization as we know it. Each piece of tape has a little tab on the end that gives you a finger hold to pull it off. But the direction that the tape comes off makes it very easy to pop open or bend a door accidentally. The little tab's position should have been reversed in most of the cases.

Turn on the power: Whoa, that power light's bright! After about 30 seconds, the printer's LCD lets you set the printer's language.

Install the cartridges: Easy, except that the 700 watt bright-blue power light is right above the cartridge door and shining right in your eyes, making it tough to see the little slots. Remember to shake each cart before installing. Note that the carts come bundled together, but NOT in order they go in the printer. I'm paranoid, I sorted them first so that I could install them left-to-right.

Cartridge priming: When you close the door, the printer starts making little grinding noises. Seems like one grind for each cartridge. Only takes 15-20 seconds.

Remove setup caps: WhooHoo, we finally get to open the top of the printer! Yet more tape. Flip up the printhead cover and remove four orange caps. The manual says they may be difficult to remove and they aren't kidding. On the first one I thought I was pulling on the wrong part, felt like I was pulling something loose that shouldn't be coming loose.

Install the print heads: Apparently the heads are pre-charged with ink, you have to shake them before installation. Remove two protective covers and use an included moist swab to wipe down the print nozzles. Note that there are gold contacts on the end of the cart that you're warned not to touch, but they're NOT under the protective covers so be careful removing them from the packaging. Again, the heads are not bundled in the order they're installed. Close the printhead cover, making sure you catch it on the little metal retaining bar, it's easy to miss. Close the printer top and enjoy about 30 seconds of grindy noises.

Calibration: Remove the output tray and put in the pack of paper included with the printer. The output tray is surprisingly hefty. The HP paper included has little gold bars on the back, I guess this is some kind of paper type sensing? Press OK to begin.

The first page printed in about a minute, just a black and white page with notes in 326 different languages explaining what the printer is doing. Totally dry and spit-proof, by the way.

I don't know if it's part of normal printing, but the printer is making a lot of really loud clicking noises.

Printer just got really quiet, LCD says "printhead servicing". Hope that's normal ...

Ah, it woke up again.

First real test print popped out, lots of pretty colored blocks. Hmmm, I can see banding in the light gray and one of the other blacks?

Second print: Still seeing banding, if anything worse than the first print.

Third print: Definitely worse, it must be doing this on purpose. Maybe it's not "banding" but purposely left out lines?

Fourth print: Oooo, that looks good. Nice solid blocks of color.

All done with calibration, took 30 minutes. Five sheets of paper used, only 7 left. The Ilford paper should be here later today.

Ink levels after priming and calibration:

Photo Black	78%
Matte Black	63%
Light Gray	79%
Cyan	78%
Light Cyan	81%
Magenta	67%
Light Magenta	69%
Yellow	78%

Why such a difference? It looked like it was printing approximately the same amount of stuff in each color, priming should be the same for each color.

Total setup time so far is less than an hour, even taking time to make these notes.

Time for breakfast, then some work on my real job (computer programmer) and then I'll install the software.

Opened the specialty media door. The printer repositioned the heads for thick media, but made a really horrible noise at one point. Same noise when I closed the door again.

OK, software installation time. I'll be using the network connection.

First, connect the Ethernet cable. The ports are in a little recessed area on the back of the printer. There's a plastic plug on the Ethernet port that has to be removed. I don't have particularly big hands, but I couldn't get my fingers into the recess and grab the plug, had to use tweezers.

Insert CD, click a few buttons. Checks for updates to drivers software, none available.

Now it wants to know if I want to install a full package with everything (600MB) or the Express minimal install (200MB). 200MB is minimal? Not much detail on what's in the 600MB package, I'll go for the "minimal" install for now.

Hmm, now it wants me to sign up for HP "Extended Capabilities" including "Enhanced Technical Support". Probably I'll just get a slew of "special offers" but I'll take the chance.

A couple more button clicks and we're finally installing software.

About a minute of copying and we're selecting a connection type. Chose network and got a warning that Symantec may interfere.

No problem, found the printer on the network.

Busy copying files. The dialog keeps streaming a series of images telling you about various things, which is rather irritating because every time it changes I think something important has happened.

Done! About 10 minutes start-to-finish. Off to the HP website to register ...

OK, creating a new account. Nice little offer for free prints from SnapFish. On the other hand, I just bought a printer, right ... ?

Nice, since I bought it from HP the registration form already had serial number on it. I guess it cross-referenced my email address.

Printed a sample page. "Instant dry" apparently isn't really "instant", the ink is easily smearable in the first few seconds after printing. After 30 seconds it's still fragile but better. I'll check again periodically.

After about 5 minutes we're still smeary if you press down a bit. A gentle swipe does no damage. It's still very sensitive to water.

Fired up PhotoShop CS2. Nice touch, it pops up a dialog telling me the custom print utility has been installed and how to access it. Also, the custom proof setup has all the HP media listed for soft-proofing.

Ran my first real print. 8x10 "best" quality, Photoshop-managed color, perceptual rendering. Took about 3.5 minutes. I tried smearing it a few minutes after printing and it's fine, whereas the "test print" from the driver is still smeary after 45 minutes.

The print is very detailed and sharp, no odd noise like some have seen. Also, no evidence of banding or other artifacts. However, the print is nowhere near as warm and saturated as my monitor soft-proof. It looks a little pale and washed out, with perhaps a bit of greenish tinge in the shadow edges.

Tried another print using "printer managed" color instead of photoshop-managed. No improvement. Somewhat depressing, taking a break.

Tried another print on Moab Kayenta Photo Matte, using the Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art settings. Print looked very sharp, more details in the shadows, but even more washed-out looking.

Took another shot with HP Advanced Gloss, this time cranking up the saturation until it was on the edge of looking funny. Didn't help the overall print saturation, though, just came out oversaturated in yellow.

The is the portrait image I've been using. The printer seems to have a really hard time reproducing the colors, they're all sort of muted. A test print of the image used by Inkjet Art for the samples I got looks just fine, so perhaps there's just something evil about this particular image?

So I decided to try with another portrait that has a much different overall tone. This portrait prints out beautifully! Feeling much better now.

Don't know what the deal is with that test print from the driver. It's been 3 or 4 hours now and it's still easily smeared. All my real prints are perfectly fine.

Tried the problem print again using relative colorimetric rendering intent instead of perceptual. It seems to be marginally better on skin tones but that could just as easily be my imagination. Didn't solve the muted colors on the shirt and backdrop.

Just realized the printer isn't making those loud clicking noises like it did during setup. It's very very quiet, in fact.

I'm now out of the HP Gloss that came with the printer. FYI, after four prints of the brunette on gloss, one on matte, one of the blonde on gloss, and one of the Inkjet Art test print (I'm not counting the test page, it had very little ink on it), my ink levels are now

Photo Black	75%	-3%
Matte Black	60%	-3%
Light Gray	75%	-4%
Cyan	77%	-1%
Light Cyan	80%	-1%
Magenta	66%	-1%
Light Magenta	63%	-6%
Yellow	74%	-4%

The changes aren't surprising, given the plethora of rose tones in the brunette portrait. Assuming $28 a cartridge (the price Amazon had before they stopped listing it), this highly inaccurate, unscientific, and extremely small sample works out to about 90¢ of ink per 8x10. If you go with HP's price of $34, you're up to $1.12 per print.

Did a test with the blonde on Moab Entrada Natural Matte using the Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art profile. Very nice, the off-white tone enhances the skintones where the pure white of the HP Gloss made her look a bit pale. Much deeper blacks than the gloss, but less detail on her sweater. That would probably improve with a proper profile. Overall, very classy looking.

Let me just clarify one thing: The brunette portrait prints didn't look bad, they just didn't look as good as what I was seeing on my monitor.

Sep 28

Ran some prints on the Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl that came in yesterday. I used the HP Advanced Satin profile. My first reaction was that it was an excellent paper. It gives the look and feel of a traditional print on Kodak Endura or Fuji Crystal Archive. But something just didn't look right on the broad areas of black, especially the solid black backdrop of the blonde portrait. On closer inspection, there's a subtle but definite banding in the blacks. In some lights, it looks like color banding and doesn't appear in the sweater area. In other light, it looks like banding in the glossiness that affects any black area. It doesn't look like the normal gloss differential, though. If you get a glare on the paper, it looks like horizontal bands of ... something ... on the areas surrounding the hotspot. I can't tell you exactly what it is, but it's unpleasant enough to rule out this paper/profile combination for dark prints.

I've gone back and looked at the other prints from yesterday under various lights and none of them exhibit this banding at all. Under diffuse daylight, the banding on the Ilford print is extremely noticeable no matter if you have a hard glare or not.

Wondering if the problem could be related strictly to semigloss/satin finishes. So I tried a sheet of Moab Kokopelli Studio Semigloss with the same HP Satin profile on this B/W image. Since it's thicker, I fed this one through the specialty media feed. While it's definitely better than the Ilford, there's still banding evident without looking too closely.

A much bigger issue is what I assume are wheel marks. There are eight sets of lines running down the page, composed of lines of little dots. It's hard to tell, I don't think they're color but rather indentations in the page that show up in hard light.

Tried the same B/W print on Moab Entrada Fine Art 300gsm, Bright White with the Hahnemuhle Matte profile and B/W rendering intent. Banding in the black areas is so slight I'm not sure I'm really seeing it or not. No wheel marks like last time, but the high points on the paper look like they're slightly burnished. I don't think the paper is so thick the print heads are hitting it, but that's what it reminds me of. Tones are completely neutral shades of gray vs a slight bluish tint using relative colorimetric on the Semigloss.

I went back and took a good hard look at all the prints so far. The printer is definitely leaving little pinpricks in the surface of the prints, I presume this is the feed wheels. It's completely unnoticeable on light-to-mid tone areas on the print. But for dark regions on gloss or satin finishes it really pops out in bright light.

Here's a close-up of the pinpricks that appear to be wheelmarks. There are two pairs of tracks, the width across both sets shown here is about 3/8". I think there are 8 sets of these running vertically down a portrait-oriented 8x10. This is the worst example I have and I've played with the image to make it more readily visible.

Getting a decent print on satin/semigloss paper is proving to be impossible. I've tried three different papers with a variety of profiles, including HP Satin and HP Glossy. Here are some 100% crop/scans:

Original Image	Print on Moab Kokopelli Photo Gloss	Print on Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl

As you can see, the image quality on the Pearl in the shadows is awful. This is consistent no matter the paper / profile I tried. HP's own satin paper with the HP profile has to be better. If only I could get some ...

Just got the "Photographer's Choice Sample Kit" from Red River Papers. Wow, that's a lot of different papers! Maybe there is such a thing as too many choices.

Sep 29

Duh! I just realized that I do have an excellent print on lustre/satin paper! It's the sample print from InkjetArt. I've written to them to ask what profile they used. Hopefully they just used one of the standard HP profiles, but most likely it was one of their custom profiles, I think they run $25.

Actually, InkjetArt charges $25 to create a custom profile for your individual printer, since generally printers vary. Since 9180s self-calibrate to a known standard, they can create a single profile for all printers. Hopefully they'll just give that one away to sell paper. That'll be my argument, anyway.

BTW, Moab will be creating profiles for the B9180 "soon". I presume they're having as much trouble getting one as most of us :(

Looking back over my pile of prints, I can say that the one consistent shortfall I see is the glossiness. Basically, the various regions differ in the level of glossiness. This isn't just white vs printed, but even in the color regions. At first I thought that it was pure black vs other colors, where the pure black was glossier. But I see prints some prints where it appears the shadows are flat, like Matte Black was used on a glossy print. On others, certain colors like greens are glossier. These issues even appear on the prints made on the paper which came with the printer, which I'm assuming is HP Advanced Glossy and is the only paper that I have an official profile for.

Of course, the matte prints on art-type papers don't show this. But they have a whole different set of issues. The finish is fragile, very susceptible to burnishing. Just a light scratching/rubbing will produce a shiny spot. Also, the prints so far (without proper profiles, of course) completely lose detail in darker portions of the images, just collapsing to pure black.

InkjetArt responded, very quickly I might add, that they have a free "generic" profile for the 9180. I downloaded and installed it (trivially easy, BTW). One gripe with installing profiles is that you can give it any name you like, that will appear in the "printer settings" section. But apparently the name that will appear under "color settings" is embedded into the profile, so while I was able to name it "InkjetArt Micro Ceramic Luster" I'll have to remember that "HP B9180 MC Luster" is the correct color management setting.

Of course, maybe I don't understand what I'm doing at all.

Running a print now using the InkjetArt profile on Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl. Odd thing, the print dialog won't let me select "main tray" for the paper source. I had to put it in the specialty media tray. Could the profile be tagged as "specialty media tray only"?

The print using the InkjetArt Micro Ceramic Lustre profile on Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl paper was better on banding the black areas, but still visible in bright light. However, the print was very, very grainy, looked like it was shot with ISO1600 film. Here's some scans comparing the HP Gloss vs Ilford Pearl

HP Gloss profile on HP Gloss paper	InkjetArt Profile on Ilford Pearl paper

Looking more and more like, unless you have a correct profile for the paper you want to use, the B9180's results will be poor.

Looking at the specs for the InkjetArt Micro Ceramic Luster, I see it's a 250gsm paper, which exceeds the limits (220gsm?) for the 9180's main tray. So perhaps the profile is tagged as "specialty tray only". Email to InkjetArt on it's way ...

I recall seeing a utility to change the name embedded into an ICC profile. Now, if I can just remember where I saw it.

Hmm, my Light Black / Photo Gray head status has gone from Good to Fair. Supposedly this isn't anything to worry about, routine cleanings will clear it up. It is disconcerting, though.

Red River Paper just responded, they have no plans to develop B9180 profiles right now, but perhaps later.

Having a long email conversation with InkjetArt about proper settings for their Micro Ceramic Luster. It appears they're recommending setting HP Advanced Glossy as the paper type? OK, I'm officially confused.

Someone suggested that the print head may have gone from "good" to "fair" because of being turned off, but the printer's been on constantly since I first plugged it in, except for two times I accidentally hit the power button. That thing should be a little less sensitive, by the way.

NOTE: This post has been updated, I found a 16th print in the scanner, which slightly changed the numbers.

The printer's been on for about 55 hours straight now, with two accidental power-cycles. I've printed 16 8x10s with pretty much 100% ink coverage, mostly portraits (the images seen here) on a variety of gloss, matte, and satin papers. And the ink levels are ...

Photo Black	71%	-7%
Matte Black	55%	-8%
Light Gray	72%	-7%
Cyan	76%	-2%
Light Cyan	76%	-5%
Magenta	65%	-2%
Light Magenta	58%	-11%
Yellow	71%	-7%

So, my "ink usage per 8x10" figures are running at 0.38 percent per cartridge per print. In other words, each 8x10 used on average 0.38% of each cartridge, which translates into about 260 8x10s per set of cartridges. Which, looking back at my first usage report, is almost identical to my use for the first seven prints (.41) and my second nine prints were quite different than the first seven. Again, that works out to around $1 per 8x10, varying from 85¢ to $1.05 depending on what price you use for cart costs.

I'm a little surprised. I know this is a really really limited test set, but that's way way better than another report I had read which was 40 13x19s or 9,880 square inches per set. My 260 8x10s is 20,800 square inches or about 85 13x19s.

Sep 30

I finally managed to get a decent satin-type print using the HP Advanced Photo Paper, Soft Gloss settings. Not as nice as the HP Advanced Photo Paper, Glossy settings on HP Gloss paper, but not bad:

HP Gloss profile on HP Gloss paper	HP Soft Gloss on Red River Polar Satin paper

The print on Red River looks nice, although the blacks aren't as deep as the HP Gloss. Gloss differential is non-existent without careful inspection. Wheel tracks were somewhat noticeable at first, but faded after 15 minutes or so. By far the best satin print I've made.

BTW, the same settings that worked on the Red River paper still produce crappy results on the Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl. The specs on the Ilford say it's nanoporous coated paper, which should be fine. I guess that there's something in the receptor layer that's just not compatible with the B9180's droplet dispersion system?

A side note on the Red River sample pack: I really like the way they label each piece with a stamp along the edge, makes it easy to keep track of the which paper is which. Especially with 20-30 different types running around here at the moment.

A print on Red River 60lb River Linen paper using the Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art profile came out very nicely. Unfortunately, the texture is rather extreme. I think it would only look good under almost flat lighting to tone the texture down. For those people who like this sort of thing, though, this is the sort of thing they like.

Tried a B/W print on Red River Polar Matte 225gsm with the Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art profile and B/W color management. The print looks good except for some definite banding in the very dark areas.

Oct 2

Walking through the office, I noticed one print lying on the printer and thought "wow, that one looks nice". Turns out to be the Red River 60lb River Linen print from the other day that I thought was too textury (is that a word?). I think that it may actually become one of my favorites. It's the only print I've gotten so far that shows no signs of track marks, banding, or burnishing. Under normal room light, the texture is very subtle.

I see that Amazon has got the cartridges for the 9180 listed again, in-stock for $29 which is 15% off of HP's price. Shipping is free from both.

Oct 3

Problem with the Red River 60lb River Linen print: After 3 days, the print smears. At least the blacks will pull over onto the white border. Perhaps the Hahnemuhle Smooth Fine Art profile simply lays down too heavy a layer of black for this paper?

I really wish there was a way to get samples of the HP papers. I'd hate to order a $100 pack of one of the Art papers and decide I don't like it. The printer comes with a little booklet with small swatches of each paper type, but nothing you could print on.

Saw some real weirdness on the HP site today: For a few minutes, there was a $175 instant rebate available. I reloaded the page a bit later and the price was back up to $699.

Oct 4

As others had experienced, my Light Black / Photo Gray head status has suddenly gone from "Fair" back to "Good" with no special intervention.

2007

Jan 14: Well, I'm back. In early October last year, my dad's health took a dramatic turn for the worse. He had been suffering with advanced COPD and lung cancer for several years and died on Nov 20. Between all the hospital trips, funeral arrangements, and settling his affairs, I didn't touch the printer for over two months.

I can report, however, that during that two months the printer's ink level report only dropped 2% per cartridge. At Amazon.com pricing of $29 per cart, that's only about 8¢ per idle day . And when it fired back up for it's first print in over 60 days, it printed flawlessly, no clogging or anything. On that aspect, the B9180 definitively lived up to it's hype.
Jan 19: At this point, after a couple hundred prints with dozens of different papers, I'd have to say I regret purchasing the 9180.

Even the best prints I've gotten on glossy and luster papers show bronzing. On deep shadows, I get banding and pizza-wheel marks.

Matte prints suffer from banding, again in the deep shadows, no matter what paper, and the resulting prints are somewhat delicate.

Let me emphasize that these problems are not atrocious. But they are obvious on closer inspection and I just don't find them acceptable for a "professional" product.

I am, however, still trying out various papers / settings. I've gotten a few pretty good matte prints, perhaps by dialing down the ink levels and using Max DPI I'll get what I want without killing myself on ink costs. I've pretty much given up on any non-matte prints, though, although I'm looking at removing the pizza wheels completely if I can find some paper that won't bronze.

Feb 5

The great bane of my experience with the B9180 has been pizza wheel marks. Despite my earlier contention that they weren't that much of a problem, they bothered me more and more. I finally have a solution for them.

NOTE: This procedure involves disassembling your printer and probably voids your warranty. It also involves various hot things and sharp things. Perform this procedure at your own risk, with full acknowlegement that it's probably a damn fool thing to do and nobody with common sense would attempt it.

The sole reason for the pizza wheels is to hold the paper and advance it while the printer is working on the last inch or so of the paper, after it's left the rear rollers. What I don't understand is why they're needle-sharp pins? While watching the printer run with the top open, I realized the ink is dry by the time it reaches the pizza wheels, why not use simple rubber rollers?

However, my search for replacement wheels was fruitless, I even looked at using wooden beads, but couldn't find any of the right size. While trying to think of a way to make rubber wheels, I got my brainstorm: Wrap the current wheels in rubber! How? Shrink tubing!

If you've never seen it, shrink tubing is a rubbery tube you slide over an electrical wire splice. Apply some heat and it shrinks up tight, sealing the splice.

After experimenting (a lot) I found cutting the shrink tubing a little more than 1/8" wide was perfect. Line up the two wheels with the spring, slip over the tubing, hold the wheels with some pliers, and apply heat with a mini-torch. Note that you need to hold the wheels together with the pliers or else the tubing shrinks between the wheels and forces them apart, making the wheels bind in the holder.

Wheels and tubing in pliers, ready to shrink. Use the spring to help align the wheels.
After heating, the tubing is pulled tight around wheels. Use a pair of small scissors to trim the tubing where it pulls around the sides.
One set of wheels trimmed and installed in the printer. Note that you need to do all the leading (innermost) wheels to keep the paper flat. I tried leaving some out, but the printer was leaving blank lines once the paper left the rear feed wheels. The trailing wheels, however, only appear to be there to fully eject the paper, I only did three of them and left the others out.