p9000 auto clean issue

[Wayne Fox]

My p9000 just came in about a week ago.  I've been working on getting it setup through the week including building profiles.  Seems solid, dMax is observably darker, on some images this can be seen with a slight improvement in subtle detail in shadows.  Profiles seem to provide a slightly different look than my 9900, especially in areas of magenta's.  AT first I thought the profiles were bad, but then realized the print actually renders those shades closer to the display than the 9900 did.  Not sure why. Maybe my 9900 profiles had an issue, or even the printer.  Will research that a little bit more over the next month.

However, there are two very negative observations I have discovered. Even though the nozzle detect circuitry was introduced many years ago, it still performs just as poorly in triggering nozzle checks despite a perfect nozzle print pattern.  I cannot understand why this technology hasn't either been refined to make it useful, or changed, (or just scrapped).  I left the auto nozzle checks on just to see if there was an improvement, and about 1 out of every 4 prints triggered a clean.  so the function is still as worthless as it's ever been.

which leads me to the second issue which is another thing I can't understand.  With the previous generation of printers, a nozzle check followed by clean (if the check failed) was built into the startup of the machine which wasn't disabled by setting nozzle checks to manual. Since the circuity checking wasn't reliable and triggered unnecessary cleans frequently, it was a real issue. Eventually they issued a firmware update which addressed this, adding an option in the maintenance menu.  The p9000 again will do an auto nozzle check when its starts up, and clean if it thinks it needs to, despite turning the ANC feature off.  But the maintenance menu is now a simple menu with one choice that says custom and no clue what it does, so there appears to be no way to disable startup auto nozzle checks..

I love the output from this new printer, and the usability and build quality of these epson printers is first rate.  but why they don't understand the issue of wasting ink with a useless auto nozzle check feature is puzzling (to say it nicely).

I'm hoping I'm wrong and there is something I'm missing to turn off this function, but it doesn't appear the user has control over it.

[arobinson7547]

Could it be that Epson sells ink and the more ink the Printer uses; the more they sell? Epson can control WHEN Ink Carts trigger empty (physically empty or not) and when Maintenance Carts trigger full (physically full or not)

You could think its a LOT of things but a 'mistake' or 'flaw' or 'oversight'; I don't think so. I think it is by choice and design.

You now only have to ask, Why?

[JRSmit]

Wayne, I got my p7000 yesterday. My p9000 will be januari.
Can you elaborate more?
I do not noticed an auto clean at startup.
I have clean timer set at 60hrs.
Where in your menu you get this "custom" ?

[iCanvas]

Wayne, have you called Epson tech to see what they say? Since you are a dealer in Epson, you would need to know these things to as a selling point to a future customer. What you have observed is very important to me and others. Would like as much clarity as possible because I will be in the market for one of these in a few months.

Thanks,

Gar

[Farmer]

Wayne - two things:

1. Even with ANC turned off, it will check if you switch blacks or after an initial ink charging.

2. If Timer Cleaning is set, then it will check after the specified period has elapsed - this includes if you turn it on and that time has elapsed (which would then look like it was doing it at startup).  You can set Timer Cleaning to "Off" to avoid this.

[Wayne Fox]

Yes, ANC is off.  I have the timer set to off.  The nozzle check and cleaned happening upon starting the printer, I haven’t done a PK-MK switch.

 Now I’ll admit there maybe was a missing nozzle because I wasn’t able to print a test pattern first, but seeing how the printer triggered a couple of auto cleans before printing prints after I had verified with a test print that nozzles were fine, it’s apparent the ANC function is still subject to “false positives” and cleans when it doesn’t need to.

So the assumption is when you turn cleaning to manual you have told the device you want to manage the process and at that point it should do no more cleans.  The previous printers had this same problem at startup which was resolved with a firmware update and after enough complaining they fixed it with a firmware update.  Why they reverted despite the issues last time I’m not sure unless they think they improved the ANC circuitry so it was actually reliable - which doesn’t appear to be the case.

I have not called Epson yet, too busy. 

[Wayne Fox]

I do not noticed an auto clean at startup.
I have clean timer set at 60hrs.
Where in your menu you get this "custom" ?

A clean at startup will not happen every time.  But the printer will check for missing nozzles and thus can trigger a clean even if you set your auto nozzle check function to off.

The “custom” is when I tried to access the “Maintenance menu” (hold the pause button down when powering the printer on).  In the previous printers this allowed access to several other settings.  Now it simply says “custom” with an option of setting a number between 0 and 255.  No clue what this does.  It appears some of the options that were in this menu have been moved to the “Administrator” menu choice in the normal mode.

Just as a comment, it appears SS clean functions which are pretty hard on the head are no longer available in the normal cleaning menu.  They have instead been moved to this administrator menu, which can be locked with a passcode.

[Wayne Fox]

Could it be that Epson sells ink and the more ink the Printer uses; the more they sell? Epson can control WHEN Ink Carts trigger empty (physically empty or not) and when Maintenance Carts trigger full (physically full or not)

You could think its a LOT of things but a 'mistake' or 'flaw' or 'oversight'; I don't think so. I think it is by choice and design.

You now only have to ask, Why?

lol.  yes, I'm sure this is a conspiracy and epson is making so much money in inks they are simply choking on all the profit ..

It's really much simpler than that ... just a mistake, and it seems they didn't learn from their previous experience.

[arobinson7547]

lol.  yes, I'm sure this is a conspiracy and epson is making so much money in inks they are simply choking on all the profit ..

It's really much simpler than that ... just a mistake, and it seems they didn't learn from their previous experience.

You mean the previous experience(s) of the 9600, 9700, 9800 9880 9900? <slow wink>

Occam's razor.

[Wayne Fox]

You mean the previous experience(s) of the 9600, 9700, 9800 9880 9900? <slow wink>

Occam's razor.

your trying to read too much into my post to put forth your own theory. I simply mean the previous experience of failing to provide user the ability to disable all nozzle checks and putting the startup up nozzle check back in.

I’ve owned canon’s and epson.  I’ve had just as many issues with canon’s as I do epson’s.  And my 9900 in 5 years was still on the original maintenance tank and used far less dollars in ink than the canon head replacements I went through, and the canon wasn’t that frugal with ink, still used quite a bit to maintain the nozzles. It’s just the nature of the beast with pigment printers.

As to why the nozzle check is still in there, now very puzzled because they explicitly state in the manual that ANC when off will still do a check after init fill and between black ink swaps.  It doesn’t state it will do one at startup ...

So now I’m wondering if my machine has an issue.  When it goes to sleep, a couple of times it has given me a service 201 error.  Powering off and on clears the error. I haven’t called on it yet, but maybe this is resetting something so it triggers the ANC.  Maybe blaming the engineers/firmware programmers prematurely.

[iCanvas]

Thanks for the unbiased input. Would like to know what Epson has to say when you get a chance to talk with them.

Gar

[Farmer]

201 or 2001 error?

[Wayne Fox]

201 or 2001 error?

F201

[JRSmit]

Wayne - two things:

1. Even with ANC turned off, it will check if you switch blacks or after an initial ink charging.

2. If Timer Cleaning is set, then it will check after the specified period has elapsed - this includes if you turn it on and that time has elapsed (which would then look like it was doing it at startup).  You can set Timer Cleaning to "Off" to avoid this.

I did a change ink this morning, but did not notice any head cleaning. Maybe the check was quick and did not find a nozzle missing?

I had the timer set to 60hrs. But i do not recall any activity of the printer at around 60hrs mark on my agenda. Maybe it checked right after awakening from sleep, but unnoticed by me,   do not know.
Is there a way to figure out the timer count down to 0 ? ( i have looked in the manual but could not find it.)

Will set the timer to 1 hr to see what it will do, just to make sure, as i like this feature very much.

[Farmer]

If it checks and finds no issue, of course it won't clean, so you may not notice that.  The timer only sets off a clean if it hasn't done a clean within that period.

Wayne - Firmware error.  You need to call Epson as you won't be able to reflash the firmware yourself (there is no update posted yet and you can't overwrite the same level of firmware as a user) and it may even be a hardware related fault - either way, you'll need a tech.  Quite likely explains your cleaning issues.

[Wayne Fox]

If it checks and finds no issue, of course it won't clean, so you may not notice that.  The timer only sets off a clean if it hasn't done a clean within that period.

Wayne - Firmware error.  You need to call Epson as you won't be able to reflash the firmware yourself (there is no update posted yet and you can't overwrite the same level of firmware as a user) and it may even be a hardware related fault - either way, you'll need a tech.  Quite likely explains your cleaning issues.

So any manual clean also resets the clean timer?  Does the clean timer  trigger an ANC, or actually force a clean?

Interestingly I downloaded the firmware from Epsons site, and the machine did "update" the firmware.  Not sure what firmware was on my machine.  I think it's resolved the error message, I'll know more in a few days.

So while I still think Epson could improve the ANC function to trigger less false positives, appears I was wrong and the nozzle clean at startup was because of the error which someone set the machine back to the status it has immediately after the init fill.  Sorry for the confusion.

[JRSmit]

Good to read it looks resolved.

[Farmer]

So any manual clean also resets the clean timer?  Does the clean timer  trigger an ANC, or actually force a clean?

Interestingly I downloaded the firmware from Epsons site, and the machine did "update" the firmware.  Not sure what firmware was on my machine.  I think it's resolved the error message, I'll know more in a few days.

So while I still think Epson could improve the ANC function to trigger less false positives, appears I was wrong and the nozzle clean at startup was because of the error which someone set the machine back to the status it has immediately after the init fill.  Sorry for the confusion.

Manual cleans should generally reset the timer.  The timer (and startup) triggers an ANC and then it cleans only if it detects missing nozzles.

Good news on the firmware - it must have been an updated version but I didn't see it posted on the US site, but I may have missed it from down here :-)  Hopefully in a couple of days you'll be able to confirm it's all sorted.

[Dan Vincent]

I too was having an issue like this on a P7000 commercial edition;  same P201 as Wayne. I had notified epson of it a few weeks ago, and the fellow told me to wait for a firmware update. The firmware update appears to have cleared it up (no more errors and failed cleanings in the past few days), so I would recommend updating if you have one of the newer P6/7/8/9 devices.

[Wayne Fox]

Firmware update seems to have resolved the errors but printer did clean on startup today after being off a week. Didn't appear to use much ink