Anyone else not in love with the Epson 9890 paper handling?

[vudutu]

I am in IT at an art school, we recently got a new 9890 to replace an aging 9600. My first encounters with the printer have not been good.

First off it is absolutely huge, second it came in broken, cart errors, turned out to be a circuit board issue.

The door over the print area is flimsy and gets in the way when trying to feed paper in.

Our old paper handling system with the 9600 worked great. we had a roll spindle for each paper type and a "gun rack" kind of mount we made for the wall, each spindle was marked to the type of paper, you simply unlocked the paper rolled it back, lifted the roll with spindle out and placed it in the rack, took down the one you wanted and set it in place, never a problem. The 9890 is a nightmare, the "roll media adapters" allow for no way to identify what paper you have in the printer. When changing paper it is too easy to loose track of the paper type and beat damage the roll. I predict lots of confusion and wasted paper and ink. I suppose we could buy a bunch of media adapters and build some elaborate way to rack them, or sell the old 9600 spindles and use dowel rods.  Until Epson figures out how to embed a code in the paper (trust me they are working on this one) so the printer knows what is in it and auto adjusts for paper type and ink amount this method of paper handling is not an improvement. 

[Randy Carone]

Two suggestions:
1. Always put paper back in the poly liner (if it came with one) and store it in the original box, or
2. Cut the label end from the box and put it inside the core of the paper. This eliminates the possibility of not being able to identify the paper. If you forget the paper in the printer, just look for the empty box.

BTW, this is the first time I've heard a complaint about no spindle. Most users are very happy with  the no spindle design and ease of loading from the front of the printer.

[vudutu]

Thanks Randy,
I guess I have trouble understanding why having to directly handle the paper each time you change it is a good thing, sells more paper I guess, I suppose most places don't change paper as much as we do.

If I were the only user your suggestions would be very valid, trouble is this is a teaching environment, a number of different student monitors and faculty use it. Nice thing about racking was you never had to actually handle the paper itself, little chance of damaging or mixing it up. The 9600 spindles are not going to work for storage for the 9890, you have to pull the hub to get the paper off and I can see people leaving the paper off and mixing them up, I think I am going to replace the spindles with 1' dowel rod 50+' long and tape the box label to the dowel, when i unpack a roll I will try and remember to write on the end of the tube what paper it is so if it gets separated I'll know to reunite it with the correct dowel rod. Anyone want to buy 8, 9600 spindles?

[dgberg]

Not quite sure where to start as none of these issues have ever come up with either of my wide format Epson's.

The printer coming damaged or with a faulty part should never happen. That complaint is legit.

Its huge,sure it is the specs are well known.

The door is flimsy and gets in the way when loading paper.
Why do you have the door open? No reason to have that door open especially when loading paper.

Cannot identify your paper.
Put a small piece of marked tape with paper type on the roll to hold it from unwinding and to identify the paper.
I also mark the inside of the rolls with a sharpie to identify paper type.

Roll media adapters,fantastic design,love em.
Buy a half dozen or more to keep on your most popular rolls.
You had multiple spindles for your 9600 didn't you?
I think it takes all of about 15 seconds to put them from one roll to the next. Not a big deal.

Lots of great improvements on these printers.
Hope it grows on you.

This is my rack for print and laminating media.
Simple design using 1" pvc for spindles.

[Randy Carone]

Good suggestions from Dan, as usual.

One modification I'd make to his method. I tape two sheets of copier paper together and write the name of the print media on one edge. Then slip a couple of inches under the paper edge, wrap the sheet(s) around the paper and tape the edge to the copier paper so that no tape touches the medias surface. This works well, especially if the end piece of the original box is not inside the paper core for identification.

[Luca Ragogna]

There's a setting on the 9890 where it'll print a barcode and human readable code with the paper type and paper length remaining. As far as the paper handling goes, I find it easier to load rolls than the older system on 9800 series and loading sheet paper is much better.

[dgberg]

Good suggestions from Dan, as usual.

One modification I'd make to his method. I tape two sheets of copier paper together and write the name of the print media on one edge. Then slip a couple of inches under the paper edge, wrap the sheet(s) around the paper and tape the edge to the copier paper so that no tape touches the medias surface. This works well, especially if the end piece of the original box is not inside the paper core for identification.

Good catch Randy.
I forgot about the issue of not putting tape on expensive papers.
If you look at my picture I still have several pieces of tape on laminates but am using both sizes of "Sooper Clips" from Harbor Sales in Baltimore.
They are cheap and very effective.
You can also mark them with a marker if you wish.

[vudutu]

"The door is flimsy and gets in the way when loading paper."
The door is flimsy. Guess it's just me but I like to see what's going on, our paper gets abused and on the 9600 you had to help it along sometimes, bent leading edge etc.

"Cannot identify your paper." Again we are not the normal environment, the system needs to be "student proof" If I was the only person handling media would be a breeze, we have dozens, had lots of trouble until we got the extra spindles, that worked great. Your rack is almost exactly like ours, right down to the velcro wrap.
 
"Roll media adapters" Problem is cost and having to build a new rack, I think we will sell just the 9600 spindles and go to dowel rods with the label taped on.

"Lots of great improvements on these printers. Hope it grows on you." Prints so far look great, If it serves us as well as the 9600 did it will be worth it, that thing went through a lot of abuse.

Thanks

[vudutu]

"There's a setting on the 9890 where it'll print a barcode and human readable code with the paper type and paper length remaining."

I saw that in a forum post, i am going to look into it, thanks

[davidh202]

Hey Dan,

Nice Rack  


I have one slightly different for all my dry mount tissues and laminates but upon reading the paper info inserts from Epson they emphasize putting the roll and sheet papers back in the packaging they are packaged in as soon as your finished and to avoid handling with bare hands.
 I have been very conscientious about doing this, am I worrying too much?

[davidh202]

Well since your post has been addressed by others already I won't repeat some of the comments made already.
I am curious as to how you are managing to print with the door open? my 7900 locks up with an error message if the door is open.
If it really bothers you that much, can't you just take it off?

No offense but...
 I really don't understand why people buy stuff,and then after the fact do nothing but bitch about how it works or how it's made.I read this kind of stuff all the time on other camera forums.With the amount of free info out there,I sure would have checked out the specs on a piece of expensive gear before I purchased it to make sure it fits the bill ?

Seems  manufacturers can never please all the people all the time no matter how well intended and designed their products are.

[vudutu]

Thanks David,
It sure can't hurt to repackage the media, If I was a single user/operator I would, Again, our issues are a little different than most as we have multiple users, the racking system was simple. Each marked rack space holds a different media, each spindle marked the same, look at the printer to see what was loaded, not the one you need? Lift it off and place back in the empty space on the rack, take the one you want drop it in the printer, no paper handling and hard to screwup dirt simple.

Unfortunately I did not choose the printer, I just have to work with it.

I am a tech so I get called in when there are print issues or paper load issues, I added a hidden switch inside the door area on the left to defeat the door open interlock, this allowed me to observe paper load, assist it if needed and see the start of the print so I could cancel the job if there was a print or nozzle problem instead of waiting until it appeared out the bottom.

Bottom line is unless I buy lots of new paper holders and re do the rack there is no way to see what is in the printer (hopefully they will note the empty rack) and they all have to learn to lock and unlock the holder and handle the paper. So plan for now is to replace the 9600 spindles with marked PVC pipe or dowels.

Thanks to everyone who helped me think through this.