Epson 7900 - clogged or defective print head

[cliff0108]

I am new to this forum and hope I'm posting in the right place.
I am an hobbiest photographer and own an Epson 7900 which I print on maybe once a week. Every morning however I print out a nozzle check to prevent clogging.
In the past week I notice approximately 3 lines in middle of the nozzle pattern of Vivid Magenta to be blank. I undertook normal cleaning, 2 power cleans, several SS Maintenance cleans and several attempts at the "Windex method" - so far to no avail.
I contacted Epson and eventually spoke to their technician. In order to diagnose whether this is a persistant clog or a print head failure he would have to travel out (45 miles to my residence) at a minimum cost of approximately $400-$500. If it is a head failure the repair costs are of course prohibitive. If a clog then maybe he can fix that or I can continue with what I'm doing.
Looking at some of the postings I thought maybe someone might be able to give me some advice. I'll attach the nozzle pattern in case that helps.
Thanks, Cliff

[DeanChriss]

In doing all of those cleanings, did the nozzle check pattern change or did it remain the same from start to finish? If it remained the same I'd say you have a head problem.

I went through exactly the same thing with my 7900 a few months ago. My missing nozzles were in yellow and there were more missing than in your example. Ironically, yellow was a color that for some reason almost never clogged before. With the exception of one or two nozzles, all of the missing nozzles remained missing no matter what cleaning was done or how many times it was tried. Over a period of three days I did about 20 normal color pair cleanings with printing of a test image between them, two power cleanings and two SS cleanings. With nothing to lose I also tried the Windex method twice (overnight) but there was absolutely no change. In the end it took a new Epson P7000 to solve the problem.

Before having this problem the printer worked fine for 7.5 years and I had just made a large print without problems 2 days earlier. As the farmer said when his cow died, she never did that before.

[HowardG]

I went through three 7900 printheads in two 7900 printers and had the exact same problem as you demonstrate, also having gone through the required cleaning and power cleanings only to determine the printhead was dead.  The internet is rife with these types of reports about the 7900. I was more unlucky than most with my printheads lasting anywhere from only a few months up to 3.5 years. Once they die it is most cost effective to simply replace the whole machine as I think the new head replacement guarantee is short. I recently decided to replace my 7900, after the 3rd printhead died, with a Canon IPG 2000 which I have now had for just a week or two. Why did I decide to change brands? The new Canon printers have received great reviews.  That, and this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EniWF9Nvrqs

 

Howard
www.howardgrill.com

[Garnick]

Unfortunately I have to agree with the previous two posts.  I purchased a 9900 in April 2010 and extended the warranty for the maximum period, three years.  During the first two years I had several service calls from D1 and three new print heads as well as accompanying parts, cleaning station etc.  However, after the second warranty year the printer seemed to settle in and has worked very well until last February.  At that time I had the same issue you have encountered, except in the green channel.  I was pretty sure it was a head issue, but tried a number of cleanings in service mode, as well as printing a full 8x10 green page on numerous occasions.  I finally decided to try to find someone to at least look at the printer and give me an estimate.  With a huge helping of serendipity I was directed to a tech who lives about a 25 minute drive form my business location, a fellow who knew everything about these printers and especially the Epson models.  He had trained most of the Epson techs across the country and had worked for Epson for a couple of years I believe.  We had quite a conversation the day he came in to take a look at my situation, and he replaced the print head two days later for $2,250.00CDN.  He's a very professional fellow and went about his business with great care and knowledge.  The way I figured it, the printer owed me nothing at that point and I was not in the mood to pop for another $3,000.00 for a P7000.  In my case it was a good decision, since I use the printer every day and depend on it for my business.  Your particular printing volume does not seem to be perhaps enough to keep these machines happy, and printing a nozzle pattern will never put enough ink through the head to keep it in good working order in my opinion.  I wish you well, but I do believe you are looking at either a new print head or a new printer.

Gary     

[MarkJohnson]

I also had same problem in green channel of my 7900, starting in central area and enlarging. Helpful engineer felt this pattern was more typical of electrical head failure, rather than nozzle blockage, especially when lots of cleaning didn't help. Head was replaced. I described problem in this thread:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=87423.msg711648#msg711648
A similar problem was described in this one:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=90897.msg740194#msg740194

[Garnick]

There's one thing that I was going to mention, but forgot.  If you look carefully at the magenta pattern you will see an anomaly at each end.  It appears that the pattern is bowed out to the right, exactly the same situation I was seeing when my 9900 had this problem in the green channel.  Before I met the tech I had sent him a scan of the green pattern and he commented on that particular anomaly, saying that it almost always indicates a dead print head.  And as with mine, this is almost exactly in the same mid pattern location as well.  Unfortunately your situation seems to have all of the symptoms of an unrecoverable print head.

Gary   

[cliff0108]

Thank you so much - all of you - for your kind and thorough responses to my 7900 printer issue. I purchased the printer in 2009 and have made hundreds of beautiful prints on all sorts of media. I had one more try at the Windex effort - but notwithstanding an overnight 'soaking' last night, produced exactly the same pattern. Hence I think I have to reluctantly conclude there is something wrong with the electrical system in the print head. I am a tad dismayed this occurs with such regularity (see above posts !) and that Epson seemingly has not addressed it. Clogs yes - understandable spraying ink through tiny holes with residue drying, but you would think the print head itself would be more built with more robust engineering !

I have noticed that images using little magenta seem to print out just fine (for now) - such as a portrait - so I think I can just continue to use the printer until it gets worse. I have alot of media including 24" rolls of paper and canvas as well as canvas stretcher material etc, so I think I'll consider replacing the printer, in due course, with another printer of the same size.

I don't believe Epson will be my first choice, so if anyone has any further suggestions for a suitable non-Epson replacement for the 7900 I'd be glad to hear !

Meanwhile, many thanks again for taking the time to assist me with all of this aggravation !
Cliff

[HowardG]

Cliff, as I noted above, I feel your pain. However, on the brighter side you did get 7 years use out of it which is not too unreasonable at all. It might be worth printing out magenta only and looking to see if there is any banding - unfortunately, I suspect there will be some. You can check with an image designed to act as a 'purge file' for the 7900 which can be downloaded here; http://www.marruttusa.com/printer/support/epson-stylus-pro-7900-help.php#purge

In terms of a replacement printer - I had the same concerns about another Epson 7900 after I had to trash two of them in a much shorter time than you did.  By the way, at one point their was an attempt at a class action suit against Epson for this model printer but it apparently failed, though I don't know the details.

After speaking with a particularly knowledgeable owner of a business that sells printers (I don't know if it is appropriate to put that info here but if you contact me off the forum I would be glad to tell you who) I was informed that the current 24 inch Epson printers that replaced the 7900 use a new generation of the same printhead, meaning that although there may have been some tweaks, the design is essentially the same.  At that point the new Canon printers were not yet out but the person knew they were coming soon and I waited a few months.  I ended up purchasing the Canon IPG 2000, and though I am still experimenting with it and learning how to get the most out of it I can say that the prints are really beautiful and every bit as 'good' as the ones from the Epson in my opinion.

The printhead on the Canon printers are a user replaceable part!!!! They aren't cheap by any means (I think about $650) but they just snap in place and auto-calibrate.  As a matter of fact, the machine comes with the printhead in the shipping box and not in the printer.  Like I said it easily goes in place in ten seconds by opening two 'locks' , dropping the head in (carefully) and closing the two levers to lock it in place. How long a new one lasts I couldn't tell you at this point.

Keith Cooper has a superb review of the 2000 on his website:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/printer/canon_pro-2000_setup.html
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/printer/review_canon_pro-2000.html

Also I think there is an ongoing discount on the machine if you 'trade in' an Epson when you buy your Canon. Unfortunately that wasn't going on when I bought mine so I don't know how it works.  Anyway, I suspect you may get many opinions about Epson vs Canon vs HP, but the 2000 is one I would definitely suggest you look into.

Howard
www.howardgrill.com

[Royce Howland]

I'll simply echo the comments of the others, and say that based on your posted nozzle check pattern the head is dead. The pattern Gary (Garnick) pointed out is, in my experience, specifically diagnostic of head failure. Many Epson x900 heads have failed (more recently joined by 11880 heads as well) in this way; I've seen at least half a dozen myself. If you keep running and/or cleaning the head, the dead zone on that one channel is likely to increase in size. And it may also spill over to impact the other ink channel in the shared pair.

As for replacing your printer, it's as yet unknown whether the new Epson models address whatever plagued the x900 head design. Our print shop is committed to Epson for a variety of reasons, but we are jumping up to the new 10000 and 20000 models which have a substantially different head design for the first time in many years for Epson. We're hoping these new heads are going to be as reliable as the older, pre-x900 heads used to be. If you don't want any Epson model, though, you're looking at Canon.

I had a lot of experience with the big Canon x300's and x400's awhile back. I didn't mind them, though they had their issues too. The new Canon models just introduced seem very worth looking at. I'm going to get my first in-person look at them hopefully within the next couple of weeks. As Howard mentions, you will replace Canon heads because by design they are a consumable part. It's a straight forward user-swappable part, but you'll need to budget for it as an on-going cost.

[DeanChriss]

...
It's a straight forward user-swappable part, but you'll need to budget for it as an on-going cost.

I think that's the real trade-off. In 7.5 years I'd have spent about $1720 on replacement Canon print heads. If nothing else failed in that time I'd still be using the printer but it would be getting quite old. As it is I spent $880 more than that ($2600 total) on a new printer of the latest generation with inks that have twice the fade resistance and a wider color gamut than the printer it replaced. If it lasts as long I'll be happy. IMO neither approach is wrong, or cheap, they're just different.