Settings for Auto Nozzle Check and Cleaning -Epson 79/9900- REVISITED

set to automatically perform check  and clean before each job

2 (12.5%)

periodically check before each job clean if necessary

3 (18.8%)

setting turned off and checks done manually

11 (68.8%)

Total Members Voted: 15

[davidh202]

I know many of you have posted that you use or own the 79/9900 series printers and have been using them much longer than myself.
After this weeks unhappy experience, I am curious as to how owners of these models have these settings made, and whether or not you are satisfied with the resultant performance from your printer?

I should have also included having the auto clean turned on along with the check.

[DeanChriss]

I've had a 7900 since December 2008. I have automatic cleaning turned off and do manual nozzle checks before printing. The printer can go months or just a day or two without clogged nozzles, and there are never more than a couple of colors showing clogged nozzles. The frequency of clogging seems completely random, and not correlated to humidity. In fact I've had it go longer between clogging in winter when the humidity goes down to around 20% than it goes in summer with 55% (controlled) humidity. Once in a great while I have something like your "comedy of errors" post occur. It's frustrating but rare. Because the rather small waste ink tank lasts an incredibly long time, the ink wasted can't be nearly as much as all the buzzing and whirring of the cleaning cycle would make it seem. The printer has its quirks, but if I had to buy another printer today I'd get the same thing.

Also... when a cleaning is needed I used to use the service mode CL1 "color pairs" to save ink, but I stopped doing that some time ago. Now I use the normal "color pairs" cleaning because switching into and out of service mode is somewhat of a hassle and the printer just doesn't use enough ink overall for it to matter, to me anyway. I did turn on all of the automatic cleaning features for a while and that all worked fine too. In fact I'm tempted to go back to that. The only real reason still have everything set to manual and do the nozzle checks is that it's somehow reassuring to physically see that every nozzle is firing properly. I'm probably just old fashioned about this, and for no good reason I don't quite trust all the built-in gizmos to make these determinations.

[fjmcsu]

Although proported to be a great feature-auto nozzle check et al-the 7900 unlike my previous 7800 & 7500 clogs as much and probably more thena the older Epsons did.The image quality is wonderful  and thus I live with the random clogs as you will. I never use the auto nozzle cycle but start in service mode to check nozzles via the printer utility and clean in that mode also in  pairs. Ink usage has not been an an issue after the initital wastage using the supplied ink tanks.I do not like the time it takes to get the machine going but all in all it probably is only 20 minutes in the day. Sometimes I am surprised at not having a clog and also at the same time surprised at having one so soon! I, like others , cannot figure out any pattern. I live in the arid southwest and humidity as measured in my printing environment generally is quite low. Many have said that this low contributes to clogging but I can't change that fact(humidifying the room is a difficulat and costly task - which i have tried and did not help).I recall using my old 7500 with Piezo inks and rarely had a clog & again the 7800 had far lesss clogging issues as it became older(not true for my 7900 now at ˜18 + months ). Finally one tip I learned which seems to help is keeping the printer OFF betweeen usage. Good luck!!

[Ken]

I keep it on auto clean and turn off the printer when I'm finished printing for the day. For the first month that I had it, I ran a nozzle check before every print if there was an hour or more between uses. Since then I run the check before the first print of the day. Most of the time it's perfect. On the occasions that the printer is not used for more than five or six days, the nozzle check indicates cleaning needed. Usually, one normal cleaning cycle is all that's necessary. A few times in the 16 months that I've had it, two cycles have been needed, and one time it took three. I have never used the power clean. In mid-winter, on days that I get static electricity shocks, I turn on a portable humidifier next to the printer and wait about a half hour before printing. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I switch between matte and photo black inks two or three times a month.

[DeanChriss]

FWIW, the nozzles on the 7900 have a smaller diameter than the older Epson printers. It's reasonable to assume that anti-clogging measures like ink repellant coating, etc., are why the 7900/9900 clogging issues are only as bad as the older printers instead of being far worse. The smaller the nozzles increase print quality as well as the likelihood of clogging. When you come right down to it, there's no free lunch.

[dtsiapas]

I've had a 7900 since December 2008. I have automatic cleaning turned off and do manual nozzle checks before printing. The printer can go months or just a day or two without clogged nozzles, and there are never more than a couple of colors showing clogged nozzles. The frequency of clogging seems completely random, and not correlated to humidity. In fact I've had it go longer between clogging in winter when the humidity goes down to around 20% than it goes in summer with 55% (controlled) humidity. Once in a great while I have something like your "comedy of errors" post occur. It's frustrating but rare. Because the rather small waste ink tank lasts an incredibly long time, the ink wasted can't be nearly as much as all the buzzing and whirring of the cleaning cycle would make it seem. The printer has its quirks, but if I had to buy another printer today I'd get the same thing.

Also... when a cleaning is needed I used to use the service mode CL1 "color pairs" to save ink, but I stopped doing that some time ago. Now I use the normal "color pairs" cleaning because switching into and out of service mode is somewhat of a hassle and the printer just doesn't use enough ink overall for it to matter, to me anyway. I did turn on all of the automatic cleaning features for a while and that all worked fine too. In fact I'm tempted to go back to that. The only real reason still have everything set to manual and do the nozzle checks is that it's somehow reassuring to physically see that every nozzle is firing properly. I'm probably just old fashioned about this, and for no good reason I don't quite trust all the built-in gizmos to make these determinations.

This has been my case too. Up to now I have been manually nozzle checking through service mode menu. Now I am ,also, tempted to go back into autonozzle checking but I don't know if the latest firmwares have actually improved anything on autonozzle checking.

Would you suggest periodically or before every job?
What exactly periodically stands for? Does anyone have a clue?
Also when the autonozzle check detects clogs does it clean the specific color pairs with the clogging? (In the first firmwares it used to clean all the colors! Maybe there is an improvement to that...)

[DeanChriss]

Would you suggest periodically or before every job?
What exactly periodically stands for? Does anyone have a clue?
Also when the autonozzle check detects clogs does it clean the specific color pairs with the clogging? (In the first firmwares it used to clean all the colors! Maybe there is an improvement to that...)

When I've used ANC I've had is set to periodically. If memory serves me correctly I think that's the default. In this case it appeared to check at power up, but it may check at other times as well. I always assumed it cleaned only the channels (perhaps the "pairs") where clogs were found because the clogged channels appeared to use more ink, and the more channels that were clogged the longer it took to clean. Beyond that I don't know much, but when turned on the ANC made things pretty easy. It may be too aggressive, but with it on I never did manual nozzle checks and never had a print messed up due to clogged nozzles.  If you print a lot on mat papers or canvas you might want the "before every job" setting It seems that some media affect the frequency at which cleaning is needed. I doubt all of this is due to actual clogging. It's more likely due to fibers from the media deflecting ink from the nozzles. In either case, cleaning is the remedy. 

[dtsiapas]

Thank you Dean. I might try again the autonozzle check and see how it goes.

I have had my print head, aid board and pump changed on my Epson 7900 since I bought it and I hope that now it will behave better with the new firmwares because it is a huge waste of time opening it in service mode-nozzzle checking-cleaning and going back to normal operation to print!

[Wayne Fox]

Recently I switched my 7900 to check before every print.  It seems the ANC system is much more reliable now, the printer almost never initiates and auto clean on its own, and the few times it has one was all that was necessary.

I still don't trust the concept completely, and so the 9900 I'm bringing in will have to prove itself before I trust it, using manual checks and manual cleans.

[dgberg]

My anc is still off on both my 7900 and 9900.
Just a quick nozzle check before printing and good to go.
The 9900 usually takes at least one pairs clean 50% of the time.
The 7900 less then 25%. The only factor that really makes any sense is the 7900 gets used about twice as much.

[Garnick]

An observation
    Despite having 3 carts at 1% it does not tell me it needs to have the carts changed in order to do the cleaning as it did before,(which is a royal PITA and probably wastes even more ink),when doing the checks manually, doing pairs cleanings, and the printer telling me I had to replace the low carts.
If I didn't know better I'd swear the engineers have the printers set up to function as automatically as possible, and any deviation  

My experience with the 9900 has, at times, been a bit of a nightmare. In the past I have posted on several occasions concerning this but I'll refrain from doing so now. I've had four warranty service calls, two new pump/cap assemblies installed on one new head as well. Since the last call it seems to be doing much better, but it is a bit of a nuisance having to swap out low carts to run cleaning cycles. However, perhaps I'll try the "Periodic" check also. According to your last post that seemed to overcome the necessity to swap low volume carts for cleaning. Please let us know if that changes in the near future and if you once again have to insert newer carts to run the cleaning cycles. That doesn't seem logical, but if it works that's great.

Gary

[dtsiapas]

My experience with turning the Auto-nozzle check feature on again hasn't been bad up to now.

Only one time I had a print that came out with signs of missing nozzles and I think that this has to do with the number of Auto Cleaning Times I had set on my printer a few months ago, when I used to manually nozzle check and clean.
I had my Auto Cleaning Times set to 1 and I think that this might not be enough if there is a stubborn clogged nozzle.
Now I have set the Auto Cleaning Times to 2. I'll see how it goes.

Auto Cleaning Times
http://www.cwaynefox.com/myBlog/Printing/Entries/2009/10/16_New_firmware_for_epson_79_9900_printers.html

[dtsiapas]

After one month of switching back to Auto Nozzle Checking I have come to the conclusion that it might be working as it is supposed to but I don't like it's disrespect for the ink it wastes.
Today I did a nozzle check before starting to print and I saw that the whole black channel was missing. (note that yesterday everything was fine) I started printing feeling confident that the Auto Nozzle Check would do its thing and take care of the missing black channel. Indeed it did a fine job BUT it also drained about 30ml of ink during the subsequent cleaning cycles (about 12euros in the drain!) Then I noticed in the Printer Job Utility some other excessive ink usages which where most definitely due to cleaning cycles of Auto Nozzle Checks (15ml, 18ml now and then)
I am sure that in most cases a CL1 cleaning would be more than enough, as it was the case up to now.

I don't know if there is something that I am missing but I don't feel comfortable with my printer eating up the precious ink and I really think about switching back to manual cleaning and nozzle checking.