Expensive Epson 4800 lesson...

[boulder1259]

I made the mistake today of turning off the machine while it was printing. Unforutanely, that throughly confused it, and, when I turned it back on, it decided to recharge the ink system. Some $90 in ink later, it was done.

First, I'd like everyone to learn from my mistake, and, second, does anyone know how to get around this problem? The reset button is just too damn close to the power button, and so I'm guessing that this may not be the only time this happens (and, no, that's not waht happened today -- I turned it off on purpose, but I can see it happening...).

Thanks,
Greg

[Peter McLennan]

Wow.  Thanks for sharing that little tidbit.

[thompsonkirk]

It's not just the 4800 - on the 4000, the power button is threateningly close to the pause/reset button, too.

[Mark D Segal]

I strongly recommend you send an email to Epson's email Tech Support, ask them if what happened to you is normal, if so how to avoid it in case you make that mistake again, and if it is not normal what firmware version you should re-install to correct it. They are usually responsive and helpful.

[boulder1259]

I strongly recommend you send an email to Epson's email Tech Support, ask them if what happened to you is normal, if so how to avoid it in case you make that mistake again, and if it is not normal what firmware version you should re-install to correct it. They are usually responsive and helpful.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=78437\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I tried to contact Epson by telephone, but the printer is out of warranty, and I didn't want to pay a service charge just to let them know what had happened (I didn't expect any help so it seemed silly to pay to tell them about a problem with their product).  I'll take your advice and write them.

Strange thing is that I've turned the printer off like this before and have never had a problem.  I did install new firmware recently, and perhaps something has changed...

-Greg

[photophil]

sorry to hear of your problem...we resorted to putting a post-it note  OVER the powerbutton on our 4000 so we HAVE to reach for it when we want to press that button...

-p

[Jack Flesher]

I know my 7800 dos NOT do that because I've done it to kill a large print job that had already spooled and started o print.  Maybe it's firmware?  Are you running the latest firmware on your 4800?

[Marq4800]

I made the mistake today of turning off the machine while it was printing. Unforutanely, that throughly confused it, and, when I turned it back on, it decided to recharge the ink system. Some $90 in ink later, it was done.

First, I'd like everyone to learn from my mistake, and, second, does anyone know how to get around this problem? The reset button is just too damn close to the power button, and so I'm guessing that this may not be the only time this happens (and, no, that's not waht happened today -- I turned it off on purpose, but I can see it happening...).

Thanks,
Greg
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=78297\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'm gonna get a good 'Back-ups' UPS finally now that I got a 4800 and
good PC. The thunderstorms, power spikes and brown-outs wear out equipment.

Regards,
Marq.

[Paul2660]

If it happens again, and you are using Windows, stop the spooler service:

from start==run, type net spooler stop.

This will stop the spooler, you now need to actually kill the print job so go to the spooler with windows explorer and delete the print job. There will be two files, the actual print job and a 2nd file, both should have the same date, delete them both.

Now from start==run type net spooler start.  

If you don't do this, the job will just sit out there and keep trying to print.  As for deleting it from the printers icon in windows most times the jobs are too large and for some reason windows can't delete them.


Paul c.

[Mark D Segal]

If it happens again, and you are using Windows, stop the spooler service:

from start==run, type net spooler stop.

This will stop the spooler, you now need to actually kill the print job so go to the spooler with windows explorer and delete the print job. There will be two files, the actual print job and a 2nd file, both should have the same date, delete them both.

Now from start==run type net spooler start. 

If you don't do this, the job will just sit out there and keep trying to print.  As for deleting it from the printers icon in windows most times the jobs are too large and for some reason windows can't delete them.
Paul c.
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From my experience, you don't need to go to all that trouble. In "Control Panel" go to "Printers and Faxes", double click on "Epson 4800", click on "PRINTER" , click "Cancel All Documents" in the drop-down menu, then exit the menu and you should be fine. In fact, I created a desktop short-cut to this driver utility so that in case of emergency I can click into it in a second.

[Nick Rains]

From my experience, you don't need to go to all that trouble. In "Control Panel" go to "Printers and Faxes", double click on "Epson 4800", click on "PRINTER" , click "Cancel All Documents" in the drop-down menu, then exit the menu and you should be fine. In fact, I created a desktop short-cut to this driver utility so that in case of emergency I can click into it in a second.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84194\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This should work, and I use it, but it can take ages for Windows to actually remove the doc from the spool list and sometime the printer displays 'printing' for ever. I then hold the pause button down until it resets.

Stopping the spooler service clears the spooled queue and is indeed a good method.

Does anyone know how to clear a paper jam on a 4000 without turning off the machine? This does not trigger an ink recharge, fortunately,  but seems a clumsy way to deal with a simple mis-feed.

[Paul2660]

Nick brings up my same point.  If you have a large print anything IMO over 150MB, windows will take up to 1 hour to cancel the print.  Until it's done you can't print antying else.  If you are printing small items then sure you can try to cancel via the other method.  What happended when he turned off the printer, trust me you will never get that job to delete via the other method, it will be trapped in the spooler.  

Your mileage may vary as always.

Paul C.

[Dale_Cotton]

Nick Rains wrote:

Does anyone know how to clear a paper jam on a 4000 without turning off the machine? This does not trigger an ink recharge, fortunately, but seems a clumsy way to deal with a simple mis-feed.

Raise then lower what Epson calls the paper lever, which is the lever on the back right side of the top of the printer near the paper spool feed. The firmware is looking for some signal that you've dug into the innards of the machine and done something.

[sallysal58]

when I want to kill a printjob first cancel the print in the driver and secondly push 3 seconds on the pauze key to clear the nv ram of the printer.
this works, have done it many times!
windows take a long time to cancel the job, when it take so long i restart windows...

[eSBee]

When I want to stop a print-job immediately I remove all the paper.

Every printer that is out of paper will stop (ofcourse :-)  
and give me time to think what to do next.

Most printers pop up the question "what do you want to do .... ",
very often you have the option to cancel the printjob.

[Mark D Segal]

Nick brings up my same point.  If you have a large print anything IMO over 150MB, windows will take up to 1 hour to cancel the print.  Until it's done you can't print antying else.  If you are printing small items then sure you can try to cancel via the other method.  What happended when he turned off the printer, trust me you will never get that job to delete via the other method, it will be trapped in the spooler. 

Your mileage may vary as always.

Paul C.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84208\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes, my mileage does vary - ALOT - because I intentionally never send huge amounts of data to the printer. Depending on the size and resolution of print you are making, but at least up to A3, it isn't necessary to send the printer more data than Windows can quickly delete. I work in 16 bit and always save a fully layered file for future reference (excluding the layers of PK Output Sharpening which creates alot of data and should be repeated for every change in output size anyhow). Such files can be very large, usually ranging between 150~375 MB each. However, for printing I typically flatten the file before sending it to the printer. This typically results in  a file ranging between say roughly 64 to 80 MB depending on size/resolution somewhere between A3 and A4, in the range of 240~360 PPI. When this file gets sent to print (with Photoshop determining color management), the prnter driver anyhow reduces the file to 8 bit depth, which halves the file size - you can see that directly from the file data in the job queue - hence the file the printer deals with is in the range of 32 ~ 40MB. This amount of data Windows can delete in less than 30 seconds - at least on my present computer which is 2.2 GHz, Pentium 4 and four years old (I took delivery yesterday of a brand-new Dell Precision 670, now staring me in the face, which I need to be begin installing today - hopefully short-term pain for long-term gain).