Epson 7900 Driver Glitch

[HowardG]

The Epson tech was at my house for the second time today (and it is a 5 hr drive), this time to replace the printhead because of recurrent nozzle clogs isolated to just the green that were unrelieved even with power cleanings.  He did a great job and the nozzle problem appears fixed.  But something else came up and I am hoping that someone out there might take a few seconds to confirm what Epson is telling me and the tech.

He noticed that after all the head alignments were done and all parameters checked out OK that he was generating a test print on doubleweight matte paper and that the blackest ink (that is to say photo black or matte black....doesn't matter which the printer is set to as long as the driver says doubleweight matte paper (if the photo black ink is currently being used the LCD gives you a reminder that it is the wrong ink but then you can just print anyway) that the blackest black prints as a ghost image.....you get a second image set off by a few mm.  If you set the driver to indicate any other matte type paper this does NOT occur even when you keep the doubleweight matte paper in the printer.  It doesn't occur if you set the driver to any non-matte photo paper.  The same occured even after reloading the firmware and printing from both my desktop and his laptop to rule out software corruption.

After some time he was at a loss to explain it and thought he might have to actually replace the main board, but decided to call Epson.  The Epson tech was also at a loss to explain it but came to the conclusion that it was a 'glitch' in the programing of the driver only and had nothing to do with the printer itself.  He couldn't say with certainty but said that was what it sounded like and would probably be resolved with future upgrades to the driver.

I was thinking this would be quite easy for someone with a 7900 to confirm, as all it would take would be to print an image that is either black and white or a color image with dense 100% blacks or black text using doublewight matte in the driver (no matter what paper is actually used to print on) and see if they get the same thing.  If you do that would seem to confirm a glitch....if not the glitch would seem to be in my machine.

I don't print on doubleweight matte but am concerned for three reasons:

1)Before the printhead was replaced I was getting ghost images intermittently on other media without the driver ever being set to DW matte which makes me wonder if something else is going on...however, it seemed very consistent when he was here and occurred each (not intermittently) time we printed with DW matte set in the driver.

2)I am concerned that if there is ghosting on DW matte could that screw up the head alignment somewhat since the alignment is done on DW matte.  Does the printer somehow have to 'see' the alignment printout to adjust the nozzle alignment or is this all done without the printer actually 'reading' anything off the paper?

3)If it is doing that on DW matte could it be doing it to a lesser extent on other papers and thereby not giving the sharpest output it should be capable of?

If any one could do a quick test and see if they get the same driver 'glitch' I would be very grateful!

Howard

[HowardG]

Now that I look at the test print the easiest thing would be to just print a black square or rectangle filled with 100%black with DW Matte in the driver with either ink type.  With that media type selected it looks like on the left edge there is a misalignment with a light black strip extending 1mm to the left of the 100% black square...as if there were two 100% black rectangles printed with one of them shifted a mm to the left.

Anyone want to give it a try?

Howard

[Guigui]

Now that I look at the test print the easiest thing would be to just print a black square or rectangle filled with 100%black with DW Matte in the driver with either ink type.  With that media type selected it looks like on the left edge there is a misalignment with a light black strip extending 1mm to the left of the 100% black square...as if there were two 100% black rectangles printed with one of them shifted a mm to the left.

Anyone want to give it a try?

Howard

I'll try later today or tomorrow, when I get some paper I can afford to waste. Is a little square of 1x1 inch enough ?

[HowardG]

I'll try later today or tomorrow, when I get some paper I can afford to waste. Is a little square of 1x1 inch enough ?

Yup,  just look at the left side of the square and see if the line is sharp compared to the right side.  

Howard

[Guigui]

Hello again,

I printed a 1''x1'' black square with Doublematte Paper in the driver settings (actual media was premium semi gloss). The four sides look perfectly sharp to me, I even used a 8X Magnifier to make sure.

I did it twice, with the same result each time : a flawless black square.

Test 1 : When loading the sheet, I set the paper type in the printer to Premium Semi Gloss but told the Windows Printer Driver it was Doubleweight Matte.
Test 2 : I set both the printer and the printer driver on doubleweight matte.

[snickgrr]

My test came out without any ghosting.

[HowardG]

This printer of mine seems to do weird things at times...

I just went back to retest the same thing I asked you guys to do.  Could you please remind me (since it was the tech that did it yesterday and now I can't figure out how).....if I put Epson Luster in the printer and DW matte in the driver to test for ghosting without wasting ink by changing it....the printer gives me an error message that I am using the wrong black ink type and to either chnge the ink or cancel printing.  When the tech was here there was a very easy way he made it print the test file anyway, but now I can't remember how.  I assume you guys did the same...how do you print with photo black ink and set matte paper in the driver?  Or did you use matte black ink?

Howard

[Guigui]

This printer of mine seems to do weird things at times...

I just went back to retest the same thing I asked you guys to do.  Could you please remind me (since it was the tech that did it yesterday and now I can't figure out how).....if I put Epson Luster in the printer and DW matte in the driver to test for ghosting without wasting ink by changing it....the printer gives me an error message that I am using the wrong black ink type and to either chnge the ink or cancel printing.  When the tech was here there was a very easy way he made it print the test file anyway, but now I can't remember how.  I assume you guys did the same...how do you print with photo black ink and set matte paper in the driver?  Or did you use matte black ink?

Howard

I used matte ink so I didn't have to cope with that. Actually that's a good question...I tried to ask Google but found no clue on how to "force" matte black on a glossy media.

[HowardG]

I used matte ink so I didn't have to cope with that. Actually that's a good question...I tried to ask Google but found no clue on how to "force" matte black on a glossy media.

The Epson rep did it easily when we were trying this out and he said no need to waste ink changing and after the warning came up it took about two seconds for him to print.  Un fortunately it was so easy I didn't ask him how, assuming it was obvious.  

Howard

[Farmer]

The Epson rep did it easily when we were trying this out and he said no need to waste ink changing and after the warning came up it took about two seconds for him to print.  Un fortunately it was so easy I didn't ask him how, assuming it was obvious.  

Howard

You should be able to just set the ink type in the media for those that can use either.  For media that are only suitable for one type or the other, just cheat and tell the driver that you're using a different media to keep the ink the same.

[HowardG]

You should be able to just set the ink type in the media for those that can use either.  For media that are only suitable for one type or the other, just cheat and tell the driver that you're using a different media to keep the ink the same.

But the problem is the issue was occuring when DW Matte was set as the media, not when something else was set.  I may just have to change inks.

Howard

[Farmer]

But the problem is the issue was occuring when DW Matte was set as the media, not when something else was set.  I may just have to change inks.

Howard

I'll be at work in an hour, I'll check if there's anyway to force photoblack onto DW...that said, it's always possible the glitch is caused by using the wrong black ink type - so I'll try both if I have time and I'll test a 7900 and a 9900.

[HowardG]

I'll be at work in an hour, I'll check if there's anyway to force photoblack onto DW...that said, it's always possible the glitch is caused by using the wrong black ink type - so I'll try both if I have time and I'll test a 7900 and a 9900.

I switched the inks and now my printer seems to print with DW Matte in the driver just fine.  I don't know why this printer seems to have so many little issues.  When the tech was here and he printed his test file with DW Matte it was always ghosted....the Epson rep he called on the phone just said not to worry of the customer doesn't print on DW Matte and everything else looks OK.  I didn't think that was the greatest answer.    It wasn't just using the wrong ink because when he used a different matte paper as the media in the driver and printed the test image using photo black ink the image came out fine.  My concern revolved around the fact that I was intermittently getting ghosting on photo paper with photo black (before he changed the printhead), though it hasn't recurred yet.

I think at this point I will just go along printing and not worry about it unless it comes up in prints that I am doing for 'real' as opposed to tests.  In the meantime the new printhead seems to have solved the clogging problem for the moment anyway.  Only 2 minor clogs in two days that cleared right up with one routine clean of the effected color pair each time.

I did run across my first defective ink cartridge.  It was not recognized by the printer which kept indicating there was no cartridge present.  A different one was recognized just fine and Epson sent a replacement.  It seems odd that all these little nuances keep happening to me.

Howard

[Guigui]

I think at this point I will just go along printing and not worry about it unless it comes up in prints that I am doing for 'real' as opposed to tests.  In the meantime the new printhead seems to have solved the clogging problem for the moment anyway.  Only 2 minor clogs in two days that cleared right up with one routine clean of the effected color pair each time.

Reading all this makes me afraid of my printer...

I still have a very basic question about clogging. You say you had 2 minor clogs, but how exactly do you know when there is a clog and what color pairs are affected by the clogging ?
Sorry if this is kinda off topic.

[Farmer]

I double checked - there's no way to print PK onto DW using the driver unless you tell it to use a different paper type (which could cause other issues).

[HowardG]

I double checked - there's no way to print PK onto DW using the driver unless you tell it to use a different paper type (which could cause other issues).

The Epson tech did so when he was using my printer after the printhead alignment and replacement.  Now, he did so from his laptop and I suppose it is possible he had some 'rep only' type of software to allow him to do so easily.  He did it so matter of factly that I didn't even bother asking him how!

I think it is probably time to just make prints and see what happens instead of worrying

Howard