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Author Topic: Black Ink Switch on 9900  (Read 8690 times)

DeanChriss

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #20 on: April 24, 2010, 11:06:18 am »

I hesitate to chime in here, but…

Yes, Epson printers “waste” some ink in keeping heads cleaned. But, I don’t quite understand why no one complains about Canon printers “wasting” print heads for exactly the same purpose. Mapping out nozzles when they can’t be cleaned leads to the need to replace heads after a few years, and it’s a big expense. I don’t know if they “waste” less ink in their periodic cleanings. but that may well be the case. I’m honestly not sure which system is cheaper, but it’s certainly not as clear cut as saying one "wastes" ink and one does not.

I also do not consider all ink that doesn’t end up on paper “wasted”, since it performs a required function without which the printer will not function. Nozzle and head replacement perform the identical function in other brands, and it's not as if they use zero ink in attempting to clear clogs before nozzle replacement is required. The only difference is whether the money goes into ink or ink+ nozzles and heads. When you spray ink from nozzle that’s thinner than a hair, clogs are going to happen no matter what system is used. Pumping ink to clear the clogs is just one way to solve the problem, and replacing clogged nozzles and print heads with new ones is another. The simple fact is that piezo nozzles (Epson) are very expensive, so the nozzle and head swapping method is not an option. Flushing the nozzles with ink clears clogs with the least cost and is just what makes sense. Thermal nozzles (Canon, HP) are relatively cheap, and replacing or mapping them out is what accomplishes the clog clearing task with the lowest cost on these printers. It’s simply what makes sense if you’re using thermal heads. One method is not particularly better or worse. It’s a fundamental difference in the technologies, each of which has distinct advantages and disadvantages. There's a lot more to selecting a printer than ink usage, which is indeed a small part of the cost of photography and print making.
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deanwork

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #21 on: April 24, 2010, 11:16:56 am »

It is not a matter of just ink cost, though 10% would be pathetic,  it is a matter of wasted time, not only in this ridiculous switching procedure that is antiquated, but having to do nozzle checks all the time so that a 30x40 print doesn't end up with banding due to clogged nozzles. Every minute of every day someone is doing a nozzle check on an Epson. You don't think that adds up big time for them?

Now if all you are doing is proofing and output on rc media all day, avoiding rag media, I'm sure everything is perfectly fine. But for those of us, and they're thousands, who are switching media constantly, often on two printers, like Ernst and I are, it is a total waste of time and energy.

I did bring this up to the Epson reps at Photo Expo in NY back when the 9800 was first released and the HPZ3100 and the Canon IPF were first released. The Epson rep just grinned a sarcastic grin (reminded me of Kodak) and said, well maybe you need to buy two of them. I said I'll walk over here to the HP and Canon booths and talk to them, and that is what thousands of us did.

j
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deanwork

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #22 on: April 24, 2010, 11:38:56 am »

Buy the way Ernst, I don't  think I agree that this major limitation exists with piezzo heads in regard to making them perform with clean running nozzles.

We both had an Epson 10K back in the day and I never ever had clogged nozzles, even with the most lint producing rag papers like William Turner, roll after roll, and even after 8 years of use.  These heads just run clean, as they did on the Rolands they were also licensed to. I never remember people complaining about the Roload Hi Fi Jet or the Mimaki clogging and sputtering like that. The 10K certainly didn't. Those were good heads that didn't do these constant cleaning cycles. And their big size sprayed out a lot of ink at a time. And I never even had to reset a waste tank after all that mileage. Maybe moving from 1440 to 2880 caused all this problem, who knows.
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DeanChriss

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #23 on: April 24, 2010, 01:16:42 pm »

Sorry for being a bit off topic previously, as the original post was about black switching and not clogging. The difference in black switching between brands is still due to the difference between piezo and thermal print head technology. Putting matt and photo black inks online at all times in a piezo head would increase the head size significantly, and it would raise the cost of the piezo printers, which are already more expensive, beyond reason. When using thermal heads it makes sense to add an ink channel to the head since it can be done while maintaining a reasonable size and cost. All of this could change with advancing technology, but for now it’s what we’ve got. So, yes, in terms of black ink swapping the thermal head printers are better, and will be for a while. Whether this is a big consideration depends entirely on how you use the printer. If you have to switch black inks “constantly” you’re likely better off with a Canon or HP. If you only need to switch once in a while it probably doesn’t make a big difference and other considerations may be more important.
 
I’ve personally pretty much abandoned matt papers since the baryta papers came on the scene, and the performance of the Epson 7900 on these papers was a large part of the reason I bought that printer. But once in a while I have to switch to matt papers for a client, and less often I want to do it for myself. Because of that I wanted black ink swapping that was easier and less expensive than the previous Epson printers provided. The X900 printers satisfy that acceptably for me, though not perfectly. I’ve had the 7900 for 16 months and given my requirements it has been wonderful, meaning stunning output on my media of choice with some annoyances thrown in for good measure. I guess the key point here is that one has to evaluate a printer based on personal requirements. None of them are “best” for everyone.
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DeanChriss

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #24 on: April 24, 2010, 02:08:21 pm »

Quote from: deanwork
... Maybe moving from 1440 to 2880 caused all this problem, who knows.

I don't know, but I'd bet on it. The droplet size on the 10Ks was around 10 pl and it's 3.5 pl in the X900s, with correspondingly smaller nozzle size.

Added -- But honestly, I've had two clogging incidents in the last five months -- since the November firmware update. Before that I had many more, but it was very manageable. I wonder if it's more to do with matt papers...
« Last Edit: April 24, 2010, 02:14:12 pm by DeanChriss »
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k_p98

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #25 on: April 24, 2010, 10:02:47 pm »

For me with my Epson 4800, it wasn't so much just about clogging, or the time as another poster mentioned, it was all the unecessary thigns that were going on.  Cleaning cycles were run randomly with no way to turn them off, and what was worse was that the cleaning cycles were causing entire color channels to drop out.  I know another poster mentioned that my problem was a simple fix of just swapping out one component, I'm not even sure which one, but after ready these boards for quite a while, it seems like far too many people with Epsons just have a teach come over with a box full of parts and start swapping them out.  I'm sure that there are many more happy people than unhappy ones, but my frustrations with the printer will take a long time to be forgotten and Epson would have to drastically redesign everything, right down to giving the user more power about what the printer is doing before I bought another Epson printer.  Or perhaps just have the printer keep track of how much ink it wastes, and when I reach 220ml, Epson sends me a new cart of my choosing to cover the lost ink.  The ink costs that go on paper aren't usually the issue for most people, it is ink that they are paying for which will never be used which is the problem and the fact tha Epson designs their printers to waste ink to help their bottom line!!!
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Farmer

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #26 on: April 24, 2010, 10:54:27 pm »

Quote from: k_p98
and the fact tha Epson designs their printers to waste ink to help their bottom line!!!

What a load of BS.  This is the problem - people make absurd, emotionally driven comments that bear no realtion whatsoever to fact.  The better option would be to provide feedback and to vote with your wallet.
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Phil Brown

k_p98

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #27 on: April 24, 2010, 11:11:06 pm »

Quote from: Farmer
What a load of BS.  This is the problem - people make absurd, emotionally driven comments that bear no realtion whatsoever to fact.  The better option would be to provide feedback and to vote with your wallet.

You'd start to cry too if you knew that turning your printer on would waste more ink than the ink used to actually print out an 8x10!  And I did vote with my wallet by buying a Canon.  Feedback is pointless.  An engineer at Epson doesn't want to be told how to do his job.
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Farmer

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #28 on: April 25, 2010, 12:37:54 am »

Quote from: k_p98
You'd start to cry too if you knew that turning your printer on would waste more ink than the ink used to actually print out an 8x10!  And I did vote with my wallet by buying a Canon.  Feedback is pointless.  An engineer at Epson doesn't want to be told how to do his job.

It doesn't use ink to just turn it on.  If it runs a clean, it will use ink.

An engineer doesn't want to be told how to do his job, but he will want to know what the customer wants and try to deliver such a product.
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Phil Brown

k_p98

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #29 on: April 25, 2010, 11:31:44 am »

Quote from: Farmer
It doesn't use ink to just turn it on.  If it runs a clean, it will use ink.

An engineer doesn't want to be told how to do his job, but he will want to know what the customer wants and try to deliver such a product.

Well I'm nearly not as smart as an engineer, but as a consumer, I would think that a printer shouldn't randly just run clean cycles if I turn that feature off.  Perhaps let me do a nozzle check pattern and run it myself if I want.  But the Epson isn't designed this way.  It will still continue to do what it wants to do.  And when a clean cycle ends up cause more trouble by leaving entire color channels missing after the clean, then you would understand the frustration.

As for the second point, DPReview has been saying forever that Canon should have a direct button on their bodies for mirror lockup instead of being buried in the menus.  I think they have mentioned this for at least 5 years.  They could have easily mapped this function to the useless print button since other buttons are customizable.  But has this happened?  No.  I would think at least one person high up at Canon would be reading the reviews coming from one of the most popular sites in the world.  I'm also sure lots of people have complained about only a 2 stop range in the exposure bracketing mode.  But this hasn't changed either.  Now I'm not saying they aren't listening to this or unaware, but some big guy at Canon is I'm sure not wanting to do it just yet, leaving these so called upgrades for when they need to add something new to a camera and have nothing else.  So these major companies don't give customers what they want, they tell customers what they should want, give them as little as necessary to ensure they get more money out of them, and do it all over again in another year.  Luckily in terms of the major players for printing there are other options now so we can vote with our wallet, which is of course the best way, and not just send messages and feedback which I don't believe are all that usefull.
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Wayne Fox

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #30 on: April 26, 2010, 08:19:37 pm »

Quote from: k_p98
Well I'm nearly not as smart as an engineer, but as a consumer, I would think that a printer shouldn't randly just run clean cycles if I turn that feature off.  Perhaps let me do a nozzle check pattern and run it myself if I want.  But the Epson isn't designed this way.  It will still continue to do what it wants to do.
Untrue.  If ANC is disabled, the ONLY time the 7900/9900 will do an Auto Nozzle Check is during the time you prime the machine, and when you swap blacks.  All other nozzle checks are disabled if you turn the feature off.  So with it disabled you do run your own nozzle checks, and clean only appropriate colors.

Agreed it should be disabled when swapping blacks, I assume someone just spaced that function when they updated the firmware.

And it's not like Epsons drink ink ... I only have to clear nozzles a few times a month at most, have only had nozzles fail during printing one time, and if the humidity is decent I have gone months with no clogs.

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dgberg

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Black Ink Switch on 9900
« Reply #31 on: April 27, 2010, 06:29:36 am »

I agree with Wayne. My clogs have almost disappeared on my 7900 and 9900. At most I am doing nozzle checks 2 or 3 times a month. I now have the 9900 set up for pk and have not switched black ink on either printer for at least a month. That can change quickly as the first person through the door that wants a 44" mk print will get it.
The ink used in the switch is quite minimal. Now if you switched inks every day I could see this being a pretty costly issue.
If It was't for reading about ink switching usage every time I read this forum I would probably never give it a second thought.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2010, 07:12:44 am by Dan Berg »
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