I have been using the Epson 3880 for about 5 yrs and Epson 11880 for 3years.
Why I ended up going only for Epson? I was told it was the best for Fine Art Prints, and
I just went with it. Yes, risked all that much $$$
Epson Stylus Pro 11880 is a phenomenal printer that epson has made, in my opinion (No im not being paid by Epson for this
) .
I have printed for at least 8-10 exhibitions on that, from the smallest size being 2ftx1.5ft to 9ftx4ft.
Super happy with it, and will use it for at least another couple of years, until I scrutinise the results of its replacement.
For the past month and a half, I was having this really bad issue with banding.
So much so, that in just one week, I filled up one maintenance tank because of cleaning nozzles.
It started with every 4th or 5th print having very fine bands, which you probably couldnt notice unless you look closely and carefully.
I would perform the power cleaning, and it would work great again.
in about a weeks time, the bands got thicker and more prominent, and in just about every print.
Once in a while, I would get a good clean print without any bands on it.
Got in touch with the Epson service center, and they sent their technicians who checked the printer and the head,
and used some sort of a cleaning liquid on a tissue paper and placed it at the edge of the printer,
where the head goes once you switch off the printer.
After about 20 mins, they took the tissue paper out and performed a nozzle check. No Luck!
The nozzle check showed everything clean, except for the Epson Light Black (LK)
We performed a Power Cleaning and then a Nozzle Check... nope! The LK still had the bottom part blank.
And then another check, it seemed something we can deal with and we let it be.
Made a print.. but it wasnt all that good. and then another print and that came out well. I was like, ok now its repaired; and the technicians left.
Next morning, after power cleaning (just to be on a safer side) I performed the nozzle check. The LK had the bottom lines missing completely. So back to calling the Epson technicians, (who by the way, were really prompt with their service here) who came over to the office again, and this time, they used a pink liquid to clean the head in the earlier similar manner. This time we left the pink liquid soaked tissue paper near where the print head rests for 24 hours. It was already getting frustrating as my clients were on hold, and I was losing business intermittently over the past month and a half.
The next day again, same story with the nozzle check - the bottom lines of LK were blank. The technicians came, checked and finally gave me the answer to my problems - Print Head is gone and needs replacement.
I said its crazy coz it was replaced just about a year back. They said well... looks like there is
too much of dust in this
closed, air-tight, air-conditioned room of yours, which got into the print head and spoilt the head, and the only solution is replacement - $2000+ USD
That was a huge expense. So I started researching about these problems with a vengeance. Youtube videos, forums, blogs, posts, websites... anything and everything that said "11880 banding".
In one of the subsequent night searches, i came upon this link
http://www.davidebarranca.com/2014/02/epson-11880-printer-head-deep-cleaning/I thought to myself, anyways i am changing the head, so why not give this a shot.
If it goes bad, it goes bad! But i kept on searching for more before i would want to go with this solution.
Then I came across this video by Eric Gulbransen and his genius buddy Steve
Its about changing the head of 7900/9900 and maybe 11880. I watched it out of curiosity
and also to know how its done so that I can be around when the technicians come over
to change the head of my 11880.
Very detailed video and i liked his attention to detail about the smallest of things like the screws in tape.
I went over to his website and came across a post about cleaning and 11880
http://myx900.com/ss-cleanings/And finally this other one -
http://myx900.com/cleaning-cycles/After all that reading and understanding, this is exactly what I did -
1. Start the 11880 in Maintenance mode - Press Pause button and Power on.
2. Once the printer stops making the startup sounds,
scroll down to the menu which says "SS Cleaning"
Click the right button and "Execute".
3. This is the most important step of them all.
After pressing the Execute, I prayed like crazy for it to be rectified. 
And voila!!! The cleanest nozzle check in months.
Note: I did read in more than a couple blogs that SS Cleaning should not be performed.
But as I mentioned earlier, I had nothing to lose as anyways i was supposed to replace the head.
