New 7900 Driver Installation

[dchew]

Yesterday I received a new 7900.  Wohoo!  What a beast.  Had to get it up a tight flight of stairs.  I didn’t have any serious problems getting it going, but I wanted to share what I was told when I called the support line.  

Computer:  Intel MBP, originally purchased with 10.5, UPGRADED to Snow Leopard 10.6 vs. bought new with Snow Leopard (more on this later).

First of all, I never installed anything from the disk that shipped with the printer.  That disk has never been inserted.  I went to the website and downloaded the new driver; the old drivers were never installed on my Mac.  I noticed there was a firmware update as well, so I downloaded that but did not install it (more on this, also).

I got the printer up and running as a network printer (bonjour). I used bonjour because there were FAQ’s on EPSON’s website that said TCP/IP would not work.  See here:
Snow Leopard Networking FAQs
 
My problem started when I tried to update the firmware.  I couldn’t because I never installed anything from the disk, including Remote Panel, which is needed to update firmware.  After going back to the website, I noticed the update for Remote Panel did not have 10.6 listed as compatible, so I called tech support to find out what to do.

I got a very good tech who immediately asked two questions:
1.   Did I ever install the old driver?  No.
2.   Did I buy the computer with Snow Leopard or upgrade from 10.5?  I upgraded.

He then said I needed to delete the drivers and reinstall, apparently because of the Upgrade vs. clean install.  I thought this was curious and worth posting: Even though I never had old 7900 drivers, I apparently still needed to dump, run Repair Permissions, and reinstall.  

Here’s what we did (I may have one of the Restart’s out of order):
Go to Library/printers, dump the EPSON folder into the trash, but do not empty trash.
Restart computer
Empty trash
Run disk utility on the Macintosh HD and Repair Permissions
Restart computer
Get diskimage file for driver and reload driver
Restart computer
Install printer
Select TCP/IP (apparently this is fine, contrary to what the website says)

Printer works fine, although I’m not sure anything was wrong before I went through this. I had printed once out of LR, which seemed fine.  As for my original reason for calling (updating firmware), I can’t do this until they come out with an update for Remote Panel.

Marvelous prints compared to my old 2200.  I love the ABW feature; much better than what I got out of the 2200.  One question if anyone gets this far down my post:  When using ABW with Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, what paper do you select in the driver? I just used Premium Luster and the print came out quite good, although I don't have much to compare it to. Since the printer is managing colors when using ABW, I assume there is no way to use a profile for IGFS...?

Dave

[Scott O.]

Gads...what a massive pain!  Also, something someone on this forum suggested and it works is that when updating firmware, have a sheet of paper loaded in the printer.  This doesn't seem to be documented anywhere.

[Wayne Fox]

Sorry you had such problems.  Trying to understand what might have been the cause.

I just installed a 9900 for a friend, he had snow leopard running on his mac.  Once the printer was running and we finished the head alignment process, it took about 15 minutes to install the drivers, update the firmware and get the first print off - perfect print.  Not sure why this is so problematic for some.  I've talked to several and there doesn't seem to be any commonality between those having issues and those not.

I think part of the process the tech had you go through is sort of a standard thing.  Also I know there are some conflicts with some very old Epson drivers so this is why they are asking users to basically remove anything Epson and then start from scratch with the new drivers.

Hope things are running well now.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Marvelous prints compared to my old 2200.  I love the ABW feature; much better than what I got out of the 2200.  One question if anyone gets this far down my post:  When using ABW with Ilford Gold Fibre Silk, what paper do you select in the driver? I just used Premium Luster and the print came out quite good, although I don't have much to compare it to. Since the printer is managing colors when using ABW, I assume there is no way to use a profile for IGFS...?

Dave

You can get a real nice ABW profile from our colleague Eric Chan.  He has the target at his site and instructions on printing it out as well as some good general instructions on printing B&W from Lightroom.  It will even out the linearity of the B->W transition.  The ABW driver prints a deeper black and you will need to change the tone in the color controls dialogue box from darker to dark.  I have the R2880 and found that the Premium Semi-Gloss setting works best.  I bleive Ilford recommends the Photo Premium Glossy for color work.

Hope this helps.

Alan

[dchew]

Sorry you had such problems.  Trying to understand what might have been the cause. ...

I think part of the process the tech had you go through is sort of a standard thing.  Also I know there are some conflicts with some very old Epson drivers so this is why they are asking users to basically remove anything Epson and then start from scratch with the new drivers.

Hope things are running well now.

Wayne,
Yes, everything is running fine. I agree; I think he sent me through this more as a precaution.  I really didn't have a problem when I called, just a question about installing Remote Panel. My guess is the version that is on the web would work fine. The firmware update says, "This update improves Auto Ink Detection (AID) functionality," which I don't see as a problem, so I'll wait a bit to see if they update Remote Panel for Snow Leopard.  I am glad I went through it because I originally used Bonjour based on the web info, which was incorrect.  Now it's installed as TCP/IP.

This all sounds much worse than it was; I posted not to complain but to let new purchasers know they might want to run 'Repair Permissions' before loading if they upgraded from 10.5 to 10.6.  I am extremely happy with the printer. In fact, I ordered a set of inks, which arrived fine except for the photo black which had a broken bladder.  I called Epson and they sent a new one right out, no questions asked, and I didn't even buy the ink from Epson directly.  I ran a tech and field service department for 15 years, and I know what kind of customer-oriented attitude it takes to do something like that.

I still have to go through the head alignment, but so far the few prints I've made look great even without that.

Dave

[dchew]

You can get a real nice ABW profile from our colleague Eric Chan.  He has the target at his site and instructions on printing it out as well as some good general instructions on printing B&W from Lightroom.  It will even out the linearity of the B->W transition.  The ABW driver prints a deeper black and you will need to change the tone in the color controls dialogue box from darker to dark.  I have the R2880 and found that the Premium Semi-Gloss setting works best.  I bleive Ilford recommends the Photo Premium Glossy for color work.

Hope this helps.

Alan

Alan,

Thanks for that. I knew Eric had stuff for the 3800 but didn't realize he had an ABW target.  I've noticed I like the 'dark' results better than the default 'darker,' so that all makes sense. I'll try Prem Semi-gloss, which now that I look at it seems to have a finish more like IGFS.

Dave

[Wayne Fox]

Wayne,
Yes, everything is running fine. I agree; I think he sent me through this more as a precaution.  I really didn't have a problem when I called, just a question about installing Remote Panel. My guess is the version that is on the web would work fine. The firmware update says, "This update improves Auto Ink Detection (AID) functionality," which I don't see as a problem, so I'll wait a bit to see if they update Remote Panel for Snow Leopard.  I am glad I went through it because I originally used Bonjour based on the web info, which was incorrect.  Now it's installed as TCP/IP.

This all sounds much worse than it was; I posted not to complain but to let new purchasers know they might want to run 'Repair Permissions' before loading if they upgraded from 10.5 to 10.6.  I am extremely happy with the printer. In fact, I ordered a set of inks, which arrived fine except for the photo black which had a broken bladder.  I called Epson and they sent a new one right out, no questions asked, and I didn't even buy the ink from Epson directly.  I ran a tech and field service department for 15 years, and I know what kind of customer-oriented attitude it takes to do something like that.

I still have to go through the head alignment, but so far the few prints I've made look great even without that.

Dave

yes, remote panel seems to work fine with SL.  The firmware update adds another important thing for some.  If you are getting excessive cleaning, the firmware update allows you to fully disable ANC ... even when the printer is cleaning.  The previous firmware only disabled an ANC before printing a print, the problem was every time you cleaned, it would do an ANC and then continue to clean. If you want to know more about the firmware update, I did a little write up ... http://tinyurl.com/yf3jrb6

Glad things are going good.