Happy New Year everybody. Each year I look back and ask what's different now than then. What's better. And, of course, what's worse. Jan 1 a year ago this 7900 was clogged and Epson was my go-to source for answers. None helped. After three calls google replaced them which brought me many different places, including here. The rest is history.
Thank you everyone for contributing to this journey. Hopefully it's been a "better" for us all in 2012 - that was, and will continue to be, the goal.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming; Ken you're crazy. And now I am too apparently - I watched that whole Hemo The Magnificent show. Addicted now. Thanks for that. And thank you for the kind words as well.
Let's start 2013 on a positive -
MICRO ENVIRONMENT TEST RESULTS:
Our 7900 has spent exactly one week inside it's prototype micro-climate cover. This cover is essentially a moisture barrier between the machine's environment and the environment of the room it occupies. The 7900's micro-climate is kept humid by water evaporating from two cookie trays left on the floor below the machine, inside the cover which reaches all the way to the floor. It's a rough looking prototype cover, some sections of the back don't even reach the floor, but it is apparently effective enough in it's compromised state to maintain what has averaged over the past week to be a 15% difference in humidity from the outside environment (room).
What I had been seeing regularly during these cold winter times with the heat running so often is multiple clogs in multiple channels in just two days of non-printing. The regularity of these clogs were consistent enough (one-two days idle) but the clogs themselves were rarely in the same nozzles. I exaggerated the duration of time the machine set idle for this test in the hopes that any differences found would be more conclusive. Typically I run nozzle patterns every two days when not printing. And like I said, typically recently I would have random clogs, and groups of clogs, in almost all channels (most times all channels would have at least one clog, sometimes up to two channels would be clear). Today, after seven days of no printing and no nozzle patterns with the 7900 inside it's micro-environment the whole time, the nozzle pattern shows all channels 100% clear, minus two small clogs - one in Yellow, the other in Orange.
I am very happy to report this, as this sheds some light on the second goal we all have here: One is clearing clogs, the other is avoiding clogs. To all who have chimed in repeatedly since day one about humidity playing one of the most important roles in clog prevention, you were right, and thank you. I would like to add to this point a comment HAL has dropped on me repeatedly, about a regular client of his who has consistent problems with his printer - cat hair (which also applies to dust and dirt and lint and whatever else that can cause problems for your printer). Could be this micro-environment prototype cover could help our printers on multiple levels. At the very least I think it's time I make prototype II, which might actually reach the floor all the way around this time... moron