Contact control of print blanket to impression drum

A method of controlling contact between a print blanket and an impression drum, comprising:

• printing a print job;
• receiving a null cycle trigger during the printing;
• and
• in response to the null cycle trigger, repositioning an impression drum to a null position to reduce contact between a print blanket and the impression drum.

A printing device comprising:

• a print blanket to transfer an ink image from a photoreceptor onto print media on an impression (IMP) drum during printing;
• a drum displacer to displace the IMP drum;
• and
• a controller to receive a null cycle trigger, and in response to the null cycle trigger, to cause the drum displacer to move the IMP drum from having a print width nip level contact with the print blanket to having a null width level contact with the print blanket.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a processor of a printing device, cause the printing device to:

• during a print cycle of a printing process detect an interrupt from a printing subsystem;
• in response to detecting the interrupt,
• insert a first null cycle into the printing process following the print cycle;
• insert an additional null cycle following the first null cycle for each null cycle in which the detection of the interrupt persists;
• and
• maintain a reduced contact level between a print blanket and an impression drum during each null cycle.