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Author Topic: Cleaning pair of colors 7900  (Read 7798 times)

HowardG

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #20 on: May 27, 2009, 07:02:57 am »

Quote from: snickgrr
This is a direct quote from my query with Epson support.

"Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry. When going into Maintenance and select cleaning for each color it will clean only the colors that you select"


I have to say that the couple of times I have had two colors clogged that were not 'opposing pairs' on the menu, and cleaned one of the pairs that included the clogged color...only that clogged color came clean and not the other.  Of course, it is possible that the one that didn't come clean was also cleaned and just required two cleaning passes.

Howard

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deanb2010

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #21 on: May 27, 2009, 11:25:46 am »

Every time that I have had non-opposing colors clogged, all the clogged colors have been cleaned on a single pair cleaning selection (except when the printer has stopped on some preceding color because of a low ink level in a cartridge).

Epson support called me and told me that all colors were checked and cleaned (when any color pair cleaning was selected) after I had told the initial support guy that he didn't know what he was talking about and that I wanted to talk with somebody who knew something.  If you time the "pair only" cleanings you will notice, in many cases, they take as long to do as a "start up check & clean".  I have kept every nozzle check pattern I have printed, and notes as to what pair I was cleaning (paranoid after all the issues that I had with a 7600).

I am trying to determine the order in which the pairs are cleaned, because I have seen some indication that as you select pairs farther down the list, only those and the following pairs are checked and cleaned (more a hunch than anything). I just want the printer to do what is implied in the instructions that it can do, and what it can obviously do in the maintenance mode.

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Anthony Howell

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #22 on: May 27, 2009, 03:30:41 pm »

Quote from: HowardG
Anthony...on the 7900 with the latest firmware pair cleaning is a user option obtained in the routine menu with no 'secret' button pushes.  Is the 7900 different or are you using different firmware?  Alternatively, perhaps we are talking about something different when we talk of pair cleaning.

Howard

Hi Howard,
It seems the routine menu pair cleaning is a misnomer. I am running the latest (March) firmware update.

The one time I cleaned by pairs through the start-up menu seemed to work. It only cleaned the Lt Blk and it's corresponding color. No others were cleaned. At least that's what showed in the Epson Printer Utility ink usage.

It's an additional time hassle, from nozzle check, to re-start & pair cleaning, restart again and another nozzle check before printing.... (And as stated before, a serious risk if you initiate the wrong menu item in the start-up menu. Wish I had a manual for this part of the menu.)

Your choice, trade off with time or money. If I have done my math right, it's approx $10 of ink waste per cleaning when all 10 cartridges are subject to cleaning. Bad PR for Epson's flag ship printers. They must be taking an economic bath with part replacements and on-site service.

Anthony
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Wayne Fox

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #23 on: May 27, 2009, 03:46:52 pm »

Quote from: snickgrr
This is a direct quote from my query with Epson support.

"Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry. When going into Maintenance and select cleaning for each color it will clean only the colors that you select"


I had the tech call and confirm what is going on regarding this with Epson when he was repairing my 7900 last week.  Whoever responded to you may not have researched the problem fully, and while perhaps somewhat "technically" correct, it really isn't 100% accurate.

Yes, the printer will clean just one color pair ... the one you selected.  However, it will then perform an Auto Nozzle Check, even if you have this feature disabled, and if any nozzles fail the printer will continue to clean the head as if you selected the Normal Cleaning option which uses the Auto Ink Detect function.

I have never had an occasion where the entire head wasn't cleared, even when cleaning and more than 1 channel was involved.  I have yet to  clean 2 separate channels.  To test this, yesterday I found 8 of my 10 colors showing at least 40% or more clogging ... all 5 channels had at least one clogged.  I had the printer clean the PK/LK channel.

When cleaning was complete, all 10 colors were perfect.



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macz5024

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #24 on: June 05, 2009, 03:18:40 am »

Quote from: Wayne Fox
Yes, the printer will clean just one color pair ... the one you selected.  However, it will then perform an Auto Nozzle Check, even if you have this feature disabled, and if any nozzles fail the printer will continue to clean the head as if you selected the Normal Cleaning option which uses the Auto Ink Detect function.

I have never had an occasion where the entire head wasn't cleared, even when cleaning and more than 1 channel was involved.  I have yet to  clean 2 separate channels.  To test this, yesterday I found 8 of my 10 colors showing at least 40% or more clogging ... all 5 channels had at least one clogged.  I had the printer clean the PK/LK channel.

When cleaning was complete, all 10 colors were perfect.

The problem gets worse if the AID is not working properly - then the printer will start cleaning until you get an error message - after quite a long time and some ink lost. Finally the Epson tech repair guys came and the whole pump-cap-assy system had to be replaced - and now things are working fine! I might even dare switiching the AID on
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Ryan Grayley

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #25 on: June 05, 2009, 03:54:26 am »

Quote from: macz5024
The problem gets worse if the AID is not working properly - then the printer will start cleaning until you get an error message - after quite a long time and some ink lost. Finally the Epson tech repair guys came and the whole pump-cap-assy system had to be replaced - and now things are working fine! I might even dare switiching the AID on

Only this week, a manual nozzle test pattern revealed that almost all yellow and light grey nozzles were blocked on my 7900. This is the worst nozzle blocking I have had so far. I ran a manual clean for just these colours but my AID kicked in and after 20 minutes I had that dreaded error message. I selected cancel and performed a manual nozzle test pattern and not surprisingly it was perfect. I have the latest firmware and the auto nozzle check is turned off in the menus.

I am beginning to think that my 7900 is punishing me because it feels spurned.
(I am now doing about 95% of my printing on my Z3200 which just gets on with the job.)
So perhaps I will buy my 7900 some nice flowers to cheer it up a bit.
It might be worth a try as nothing else seems to work.
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Ryan Grayley BA IEng MIET ARPS
RGB Arts Ltd, London, UK

Wayne Fox

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #26 on: June 05, 2009, 07:45:32 pm »

Quote from: macz5024
The problem gets worse if the AID is not working properly - then the printer will start cleaning until you get an error message - after quite a long time and some ink lost. Finally the Epson tech repair guys came and the whole pump-cap-assy system had to be replaced - and now things are working fine! I might even dare switiching the AID on

Unfortunately the AID circuitry itself is notoriously unreliable, and detects faults when there are none.   Best bet is to  hope the nozzle clogging stays good.  They replaced my pump/cap assembly in February, and it worked great for a couple of months, then clogging became worse than ever.


Quote from: Ionaca
Only this week, a manual nozzle test pattern revealed that almost all yellow and light grey nozzles were blocked on my 7900. This is the worst nozzle blocking I have had so far. I ran a manual clean for just these colours but my AID kicked in and after 20 minutes I had that dreaded error message. I selected cancel and performed a manual nozzle test pattern and not surprisingly it was perfect. I have the latest firmware and the auto nozzle check is turned off in the menus.

I am beginning to think that my 7900 is punishing me because it feels spurned.
(I am now doing about 95% of my printing on my Z3200 which just gets on with the job.)
So perhaps I will buy my 7900 some nice flowers to cheer it up a bit.
It might be worth a try as nothing else seems to work.

I'm with you.  Were it not for the outstanding print quality I would have given up on this printer.  After replacing nearly every piece in this printer 2 or 3 times, Epson finally relented and shipped me a new 7900.  I will be setting it up Tuesday.

The Auto Nozzle Check is a fiasco.  If the printer didn't clog much like my 11880 it wouldn't matter much, but you cannot disable auto nozzle check except for between prints.  If this function is not working properly, you can't turn it off.  After every cleaning choice you make the printer will do a nozzle check, so if your AID system is not working, each cleaning cycle you do will result in multiple cleanings.

You cannot control the cleaning of nozzles manually by printing nozzle patterns and using manual cleaning choices.  I have tried to find out if the service cleaning options use a nozzle check, but cannot confirm whether they do or do not.

Since the AID circuitry seems to be useless (I would guess the majority of us have disabled it, I have it disabled on my 11880 as well.) it seems a firmware update should be offered to all users adding another option, that of completely disabling the printer from performing any nozzle checks.

What would be better is making this feature work as advertised .... if it were reliable it would be a great feature.
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Mulis Pictus

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #27 on: June 06, 2009, 08:21:36 am »

Quote from: Wayne Fox
Unfortunately the AID circuitry itself is notoriously unreliable, and detects faults when there are none.   Best bet is to  hope the nozzle clogging stays good.  They replaced my pump/cap assembly in February, and it worked great for a couple of months, then clogging became worse than ever.
Thanks for keeping us updated. I am looking forward to hear how the replacement printer works for you.

I experience similar problems as well. My 7900 worked OK for about 2 months after the cleaning station was replaced, but now I am having even worse clogs than before. It clogged during print too.

The AID works unreliably, sometimes it doesn't catch small clogs (2 different colors, 1 nozzle each) and sometimes it seems to trigger unnecessarily cleanings, where it then flushes a lot of ink before it stops - 20 or 30ml for one color pair.

It looks to me as if some part of the machine has really short lifetime and breaks after few weeks/months?

Another thing which comes to my mind is that in both cases, before 1st repair and the problems I experience now, it seems to me as if the troubles started after black ink was switched. I mostly print with MK, so it took about month and half after the repair before I switched to PK. It was the first time it started cleaning (I thought it was part of the black inks switch, which I doubt now, as it used much more ink than stated in manual). Shortly after the clogging started again and is getting worse and worse. Might be just coincidence though.

What bothers me too is that when one starts cleaning manually (after visual nozzle check), this cleaning is then not visible in the detailed Job Information. When it is triggered by ANC, one can see the consumption in the job info of which this cleaning was part of, so one can see exactly how much ink was used (33.69ml last time, for job which usually takes about 4ml :-( ) and even how much ink was used in each color channel.

reburns

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Cleaning pair of colors 7900
« Reply #28 on: June 09, 2009, 10:21:03 am »

I'd just like to add a positive note, understanding that we often post only when having problems.  Over two days last week I set a personal record and printed 60 different images to make a portfolio.  A nozzle check print showed some cyan misses, and a "clean each pair" showed cyan depletion of 1% but no measured change in any other ink and resulted in a clean check print.  Nearly all of those 60 prints were quite acceptable straight from soft-proof on the first try.  I never could control the Z drivers to accomplish such a thing.  A couple of those prints contained intentional blown-out white highlights and a spray-coat with PrintShield set a decently even gloss for hand portfolio viewing.

Just to say chin up if you can, and knock on wood if it's working.

In past enginerding work on a large-scale automated chemisty assay machine, I worked on droplet measurement (vs. detection) and it was a daunting task (http://www.gen-probe.com/tigris/animations.htm).  My heart goes out to the Epson guys who struggled thru AID.

Ralph
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