Looking at the Epson P5000

[keithcooper]

After a busy period over the summer I've finally finished writing up some of my thoughts about the Epson P5000

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/review-epson-p5000-printer/

Print quality wise it's just like the P7000 I had here last year. After the first few weeks use, I've not seen any mention of a need for cleaning, so I'm assuming the automatic systems are doing well.

The longest period I've been away from the printer was 10 days - I left it switched on and set for periodic checks.

Hope it's of some interest!

PS Please do let me know if any bits of the article are unclear, since I don't have a proofreading service, and it is a bit long...

[keithcooper]

Several people asked if I could do a few more 'real' nozzle checks to see if the auto systems are indeed working properly.

Well, I put some A4 copier paper into the tray and now have a bigger pile of nozzle checks - all working fully.

I was away for a bit recently and completely switched of the printer for 8-9 days - on return everything fine.  I appreciate that it's just one printer, but was wondering if there are any other P5000 users here who have experience with day to day use of the printer.

The one I've got here is getting what I'd call light, but regular use, so several original carts, but Mk/Pk swaps quite often (I'm testing some new profiling solutions)

[Rand47]

Keith . . .   Thanks for the update.

I’ve had my P5000 for a while now.  I had one instance where I ran the starter PK cart on “low ink” until the printer quit printing before changing the cart.  After changing installing the new PK cart I got an error message telling me to do a “powerful cleaning” from the menu.  I mistook that for doing cleanings from the driver option (ended up wasting a bunch of ink doing a pairs cleaning, then full cleaning.... before I finally realized what the error message meant).  After doing what the message told me (going into the menu and doing a “powerful cleaning”) all was well, and has remained trouble free.  I will often not print for a couple of weeks.  No problems so far!  I’m very happy with this printer, and plan to change ink carts sometime between the low ink warning, and the printer stopping because of “empty” cart.  It may have been an anomaly “this one time,” since all my other Epson printers have been able to be run until they stop printing in the middle of print before changing ink carts, but I’ll not take that risk again.  I’m sure I wasted way more ink w/ the “powerful cleaning” than I’d have left in the cart had I changed it earlier.

When I’m not printing for longer than a couple of weeks, I’ll fire it up and print a granger rainbow file I have (forget where I got it) that hits all the colors very well in the HDX inkset.

Rand

[keithcooper]

Thanks for the comment - I let a couple of carts go all the way for the review, no problems, but since then I've also been happy to leave a ml. or two in the cart if I'm doing a long panoramic, since for a live swap not to fail or show you almost need to be standing there with a cart ready to slot in. If the printer is unattended for a while the job will fail.

I've been doing a lot more looking at B&W printing with the P5000 and now know which papers I'm happy to print with directly (ABW or with a profile) and which I'll make a simple linearising PS curve for - mainly to fix the shadow crunch that many papers exhibit. I've been looking back at some B&W work when I was testing the PRO-1000 and PRO-2000 and performance sometimes needs tweaking there too.

Whilst for many years I've used QTR 'correction' profiles (effectively as curves) I now only tend to use the QTR Create icc profile tool to crunch the measurements from a 51/21 step wedge (on my BW Test print image) and look at the numbers coming out. I realised when writing about the B&W side of things in the review that I had a lot of measurements and needed to look at things in a bit more detail than fitted in the review.

Since I've still got the printer for a bit, I hope to get a bit more done about this in the next week or two - I shouldn't complain about 'real work' keeping me busy, but I have a very large pile of B&W test prints that are just crying out  for some helpful/meaningful observations about B&W printing.  A few of them...

[Garnick]

Hello Keith and Rand,

I moved my business to my home location back in Feb., and sold my 9900 before I left my previous location.  I had decided to downsize to a 24" again, after many years of a 44" Epson.  I've been working with the P7000 for 4 months and very pleased with the printer and the print quality.  One of the annoyances I have discovered during cartridge replacement is something I had read about concerning the 9900, but never experienced it myself.  This doesn't happen every time I do a cart replacement, but of course I never know when it might.  After installing and new cart and closing the bay door I will occasionally see that one of the other carts is displaying a notice that it cannot be initialized.  If I recall correctly that is the actual wording, but I'm not absolutely certain.  Regardless, when this does happen I have to pull the new cart I have just installed and install it again.  At that point all carts are communicating and I'm good to print again.  The last time I read about this particular issue it seemed that not all printers of that model were infected with such an annoyance, only the lucky ones I guess.  One other thing that was bothering me was the fact that after every "K" ink switch I could not print a nozzle check or anything else without the printer running a full cleaning cycle first, although I have all Auto Procedures turned OFF.  Well, I did manage to find a workaround for that, which is great, since I quite regularly do a "K" switch.  Otherwise it has so far been an excellent printer, compared with my initial experience with the 9900.  I still have the "9900 Issue Log" I kept for that printer.  About half way through the third warranty year the 9900 started to become much more reliable.  Of course by then we had all discovered certain maintenance procedures in Service Mode that most of us were never privy to previously, and once I was on my own(no warranty) I credit those same procedures with the fact that the printer was still in good order when I sold it.

Gary         

[Farmer]

After changing installing the new PK cart I got an error message telling me to do a “powerful cleaning” from the menu. 
...

It may have been an anomaly “this one time,” since all my other Epson printers have been able to be run until they stop printing in the middle of print before changing ink carts, but I’ll not take that risk again.  I’m sure I wasted way more ink w/ the “powerful cleaning” than I’d have left in the cart had I changed it earlier.

Random timing.  There's no need to change before the printer reports they're actually empty.

[DeanChriss]

...
The longest period I've been away from the printer was 10 days - I left it switched on and set for periodic checks.
...

I've had the P7000 for about 1.25 years and investigated the "timer cleaning" function very thoroughly. I don't know if the P5000 works the same way, but on the P7000 this function works EXACTLY as the manual says. Specifically, it ""Performs an automatic nozzle check and head cleaning if the printer is turned on or woken from sleep mode and the printer has not printed within the set length of time." The words "turned on" here mean powered on from a powered off state, not left powered on.

1. The printer does not wake itself from sleep or power off under any circumstance, regardless of settings and whether or not paper is loaded.

2. If the printer is powered off and the set amount of time has elapsed it will check nozzles only when it is next turned on. A person must obviously be present to turn the printer on.

3. If the printer is left powered on and asleep, and the set amount of time has elapsed, it will check nozzles only when the next print job is sent. A person must be present to send the print job unless you have set up a scheduled task on a connected computer do it automatically.

The Epson SC P7000 and P9000 printers do not have the ability to automatically (without help from a computer and a scheduled task) maintain their nozzles while the printer sits unused, regardless of the duration or any nozzle check settings. All of the nozzle check settings have an effect only when the printer is in use, or first put into use after a period of being unused. With that said, mine has sat powered off and unused for as long as 5 weeks and has never produced anything but a perfect nozzle check pattern. Things have definitely improved in this regard.

Edited for clarity.

[keithcooper]

Random timing.  There's no need to change before the printer reports they're actually empty.

Not always true, as I mentioned above. You get a feel for how much ink is used for a large print (helped by an occasional job list print, but not the win only accounting software) and I did swap the LLk early before making a 15 foot print - mainly since I was not going to be standing by the printer other than to check the paper was coming out OK.

I just whipped a cart out and shook it to see - I could have weighed it If I'd remembered to weigh truly empty carts ;-)

[Farmer]

100% true.  Until the printer tells you that the cartridge needs to be changed, there's no need to change it.  The previous observation was not an accurate correlation.  The unit didn't run a clean because the cart was low.  It may have held off doing a clean if it decided there wasn't enough ink, but that's a different situation.

If you are printing a very large image and you're worried about it running out part way through, that's an entirely different scenario again.  You can put a more full cart in, do your large print, and then put the nearly empty one back and do other, smaller prints until it tells you to change it.

Don't waste ink by deciding to throw out nearly empty carts instead of waiting until prompted - there's no need.