Epson mega-clogging...

[Lisa Nikodym]

Nothing exciting, Eric.   The replacement printer arrived Friday, I set it up yesterday, it printed two test prints fine, and the broken one is now boxed up to return.  Hopefully this will be the last time this happens!

Lisa

[ErikKaffehr]

Great! As they used to say in Norway...

Best regards
Erik

Nothing exciting, Eric.   The replacement printer arrived Friday, I set it up yesterday, it printed two test prints fine, and the broken one is now boxed up to return.  Hopefully this will be the last time this happens!

Lisa

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Nothing exciting, Eric.   The replacement printer arrived Friday, I set it up yesterday, it printed two test prints fine, and the broken one is now boxed up to return.  Hopefully this will be the last time this happens!

Lisa

That's the happy ending I was hoping to hear. Dull but pleasant. I also hope there won't be a sequel. 

Eric

[Unique Images]

If it really is clogs or air bubbles, and not another kind of technical problem, you should NOT do multiple sequential cleanings. This can aggravate the problem. Epson has recommended to me in such situations to do ONE cleaning cycle. Then run a print of a real image on any kind of cheap paper, then do a nozzle check. If it is still clogged, do a cleaning cycle, redo the nozzle check. If still not cleared up, run another print of a real image on cheap paper, then do a head-cleaning and a nozzle check. Repeat several times as necessary. If after all that the problem remains, call tech support.

Great advice, I have spent hours trying to clean cyan on the epson 9900.  And then tried printing a job, only to find that I don't have a visible fault in the print.

[Mark D Segal]

Great advice, I have spent hours trying to clean cyan on the epson 9900.  And then tried printing a job, only to find that I don't have a visible fault in the print.

I'm very interested that you mention Cyan in particular. Are you (and anyone else for that matter) detecting cyan-specific clogs in the x900 series printers after a period of non-use?

[Sven W]

Of all the 9900 clogs, Cyan is 80%, Vivid Magenta 10% and the rest 10%.
In the same order for 11880, but much much fewer clogs.
Almost everything on the 99 was replaced six months ago, and the printer is fine after that.
But still some mysterious clogs. I thinks it's about low pressure and not a nozzle problem.

/Sven

[Mark D Segal]

You may well be correct about the low pressure hypothesis, but if true, one wonders why it should affect cyan more than the other channels. Another possibility of course could be differences of ink chemistry for the different colours.

[Sven W]

Anyone checked the MSDS for HDR inks?
Alan The Chemist?

/Sven

[Mark D Segal]

Anyone checked the MSDS for HDR inks?
Alan The Chemist?

/Sven

Epson's secret sauce - I doubt even Alan the Chemist would know!  :-)

[Alan Goldhammer]

Anyone checked the MSDS for HDR inks?
Alan The Chemist?

/Sven

LOL!!!  The MSDS sheets are not terribly helpful as they really don't go into the kind of detail that would allow one to make a judgement.  They all are listed here. Basically the only information that is given is the %composition.  Most everything important is claimed as proprietary and they don't have to identify things that are not toxic.  I have created a spreadsheet that lists the 11 inks and it's pretty interesting (these are all for the 9900).  Photo black and the two lighter blacks each use carbon black but not the matte black.  The matte black has the highest level of pigments so if it was pigment concentration, one would expect this to be problematic (but maybe few people other than myself still print on fine art matte paper).  Cyan and Vivid Magenta are next highest but Sven noted very high clog rates with Cyan which would be unexpected if it was the pigment level.  The yellow ink has a small amount of ethylene glycol which is curious and may be an added agent to help the formulation.

I don't know the layout of that printer and whether all the ink lines are the same length.  If they were different lengths that could also have an impact.  My only conclusion is that we don't learn much from the MSDS information.

Alan

[Alan Goldhammer]

Epson's secret sauce - I doubt even Alan the Chemist would know!  :-)

You are quite correct on this count; see my subsequent post!!! 

[Ernst Dinkla]

Paul Roark must have checked all the MSDS docs of all the Epson ink generations, he might be able to tell what is what.
It would surprise me if the matte black pigment isn't carbon too, so far it has been the most stable of all black pigments and has been used successfully in the K3, K2 inks.
Where in the head is the Cyan channel located ?  Are the green and orange taking over substantial parts of the cyan and vivid magenta head work that the last too little to do?
Usually keeping printers/heads busy is the best remedy against clogs.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla



New: Spectral plots of +250 inkjet papers:

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[Alan Goldhammer]

Paul Roark must have checked all the MSDS docs of all the Epson ink generations, he might be able to tell what is what.
It would surprise me if the matte black pigment isn't carbon too, so far it has been the most stable of all black pigments and has been used successfully in the K3, K2 inks.

I was surprised to see that as well.  I just checked all of the other MSDS sheets that they have posted for other pro printers and the matte black ones are identical, <7% proprietary pigments.  I don't think that this precludes the use of carbon black but it's curious that Epson do not separate it out as they do for the other three black inks.

[Mark D Segal]

Are the green and orange taking over substantial parts of the cyan and vivid magenta head work that the last too little to do?
Usually keeping printers/heads busy is the best remedy against clogs.

This is a very interesting angle Ernst. But in the first instance, I'm curious to know whether/to what extent specifically Cyan channel issues have been identified by users of the x900 series printers.

[Ernst Dinkla]

This is a very interesting angle Ernst. But in the first instance, I'm curious to know whether/to what extent specifically Cyan channel issues have been identified by users of the x900 series printers.

Correct, what we see here is anecdotal, hardly worth it to build a hypothesis on which of course will not withhold me to do so :-)

Compare the Z3100 with the Z2100 inkset, HP worries were not about clogging but on the Z3100 they didn't find it necessary to use two Cyan channels like they are used on the Z2100. The extra ink hues, green and blue (violet), taking over part of the Cyan's task. and in HP's view they could do without an extra Cyan channel and still have a nice gamut. One would argue that the Yellow head got less to do with Green and Orange available on both the HP and Epson but Yellow was never split in two but on some Canon dye desktop printers and can not be abandoned for obvious reasons.

On the Epson MK not described as carbon in the MSDS. If I recall it correctly the main part must be carbon pigment with some Epson tweaks that makes it proprietary.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla



Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

[datro]

This is a very interesting angle Ernst. But in the first instance, I'm curious to know whether/to what extent specifically Cyan channel issues have been identified by users of the x900 series printers.

Mark,

I've had my 7900 since December, 2008.  I've kept a log of every nozzle check and any other printer maintenance I've done since day one, and I can say from my data that the Cyan channel is by far most often the one missing a few nozzles when I start up the printer for a new printing session.  Rarely will I have anything missing in any other channel, even after weeks of non-use in a few cases.  I should also note that I print with Photo Black exclusively; the last time I did a PK/MK switch must have been over a year ago.  Also, the vast majority of my printing is B&W (using ABW) so I'm not really using all the colors most of the time (except of course for the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow that is included in the ABW mix).

On a few occasions, I've seen the entire Cyan channel gone when doing that first nozzle check, but most often it is only a few nozzles, always at the bottom of the pattern, and sometimes in the middle of the pattern in addition to the nozzles missing at the bottom.  A single CL1 clean in service mode on the Cyan/Magenta pair almost always takes care of the missing nozzles, although recently I had to do two  CL1 cleans to get everything back. 

Dave

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks Dave, good to know and also given the background of the detailed tracking you are doing. Lately I'm seeing a similar issue on my 4900 when it goes unused for a few days in a row, why I am canvassing for experience. It's either something generic to the x900 models, or its a problem on my printer, and given that many people don't bother reporting such incidents to tech support, I'm trying to help with the diagnosis.