Question about printing on Epson Velvet Fine Art/Epson 3880 settings

I am getting ink splatters on the top of the page and horizontal banding on my prints. I have tried Paper Thickness of 5 and Platen Gap of Wide as well as Paper Thickness 1 and Platen Gap Auto. This is a matte paper with a thickness oi 19 mil. Before wasting anymore paper could someone advise me on the correct settings for Paper Thickness and Platen Gap using LR and a Mac? The same thing is happening on Hot Press Bright, also a matte paper with a thickness of 18 ml.

From my experience with Epson printers (non photographic models), banding is usually solved by recalibrating the head, and the spots can be due to the incorrect profile. It happen to me sometimes when using a profile not dedicated to the paper in question.
Dont know if the banding can also be due to the thickness being off with the settings.

I print with Hot press Bright and don’t change anything for the Platen Gap. I have seen the ink spatters and the solution was to run the automated nozzle check, not the manual check to force the printer to make sure the heads are completely clear.

I sometimes get this problem if I use the back paper feeder for paper that’s too thick. I have an Epson P800 printer which has a separate feeder for fine art paper. I believe that the gap and thickness settings only work for that feeder. I suspect you know that already but it could have been an oversight.

Thanks for all the replies. I cleaned the print head and did an automatic print head alignment because I was also getting horizontal banding. Apparantly for paper 19 ml thick the correct “thickness” in the advanced controls is a setting of 5. I left the platen gap on auto and made a print. All is well.