An interesting reply from Epson Support.

[davidh202]

On another forum someone questioned Epson Support via e-mail as to whether or not the 4900 should left powered on after use as he had with his 2200.

"I asked Epson Support and told them that I always left my 2200 on. I asked whether to do the same with the 4900 and they said to leave it on all the time (see below)".

Reply....
"Thank you for contacting Epson regarding your Epson Stylus Pro 4900. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry.
 You can do the same and leave it on. This also helps keep the vacuum pressure through the system and minimizes head drying that can cause clogged nozzles.
 Should you require further assistance with this issue, please reply without history (when possible), as our email system contains all previous correspondence. If you have a different technical support issue, please submit another email request via our website (http://www.epson.com/support), and we will respond in a timely manner.
 Thank you again for contacting Epson.
Gary Fong"
This response seems to be contrary to all I've read about the need to turn most of the printers off so that the head parks on the capping station to reduce the chance of ink drying on, and clogging the nozzles.

There is no definate recommendation as to power (on or off),in my 7900 manual either.


Is there a very different design between models that would elicit this relpy for the 4900 as opposed to the 7900 or others?Is there anyone that can shed some definitive light on this subject?

[stefano]

David,

I normally turn off both my 4900 and my 9900 when I am not using them. If I recall correctly, when I forget to turn my 4900 off it does so itself within a few hours of non use... Not sure if that is a settable behavior or not, but in that case it would be hard to leave the printer on all the time.

I always run a nozzle check print before each batch of prints, and occasionally I have to run a cleaning cycle, especially if the printer has been off for a week or more, but I never had an issue I could not resolve with a manual cleaning.

Of course, temperature, humidity, phases of the moon and position of the planets can make a difference YMMV.

Stefano

[Mark D Segal]

David,

I normally turn off both my 4900 and my 9900 when I am not using them. If I recall correctly, when I forget to turn my 4900 off it does so itself within a few hours of non use... Not sure if that is a settable behavior or not, but in that case it would be hard to leave the printer on all the time.

I always run a nozzle check print before each batch of prints, and occasionally I have to run a cleaning cycle, especially if the printer has been off for a week or more, but I never had an issue I could not resolve with a manual cleaning.

Of course, temperature, humidity, phases of the moon and position of the planets can make a difference YMMV.

Stefano

It's contrary to all advice I've ever been given by Epson. This should be followed-up.

[stefano]

Hi Mark,

I have heard similar advice in the past, even if no such statements are in the user manuals of either my 4900 or 9900. On the 4900, it is apparently not possible to leave the printer on - it turns itself off (not standby, really truly off, including releasing the roll paper) after a couple of hours of inactivity. I have not tested that on the  9900 (I only had it from a couple of weeks) but given that the 4900 designed behavior is to shut off autonomously, I figured there would be no reason to leave it on after I am done with it for the day. I have taken the same approach with the 9900, even if I have not verified if it also has the auto shut off behavior.

Will be interested in any additional info you might have.

Stefano

[Farmer]

The 4900 is different to preceeding *900 series models.

It has a "soft" power button.  If you power on whilst holding the pause button down to enter user maintenance mode, you can move down the menu to the Power Management options which allow you to enable or disable the option to power off after a certain period (another menu option allows you to set the time to power off).

This counter comes into effect once the normal sleep timer expires (which can also be set or disabled).

Previous models technically have a soft power button, too, as in pressing it does not instantly cut power, but there is a distinct position and click in or out corresponding with on or off, and they don't have this menu option.

My advice is to turn a printer off when not in use unless you expect to use it within the day (in which case leave it on until you have finished using it for the day).

With the options in the 4900, you could set it to, say, 4 hours as a good compromise and then not worry about it.

[stefano]

 Hi Farmer,

Thanks for the info on the maintenance mode for the 4900, I had not used it previously. What you describe is pretty much what I do with my printers. I don't recall ever having an issue with an auto turn off during a printing session (I tend to print in batches most of the time), so whatever the timer is set at seems to work for me. Occasionally I get a less than perfect initial nozzle check print, and in those case a manual clean of the affected color (pair) seems to address the issue 99% of the time. Only once I recall having to do more than one cleaning cycle.

Stefano

[davidh202]

If I am reading Marks reply correctly, he says Epson recommends leaving the printer turned on always.

"It's contrary to all advice I've ever been given by Epson. This should be followed-up".

And Farmer says turn it off.
"My advice is to turn a printer off when not in use unless you expect to use it within the day (in which case leave it on until you have finished using it for the day)".
.

Once again, I was under the impression that the reason for turning off the printer was to have the head park on the the capping station to help prevent ink drying on the nozzles. The head does not 'park' unless the printer is turned off.

David

 

[Mark D Segal]

No. Misunderstanding. My intention was to convey that the advice you got from Epson to leave it on is contrary to any advice from Epson I had ever received. The consistent advice I always received whenever the issue arose was to turn it OFF when not in use.

[Mark D Segal]

I wouldn't tar ALL of Epson support because one agent made a mistake. Yes, they should ALL know better - I would normally expect that if it's brought to their attention the person concerned would probably be retrained and that would be the end of the matter.