Another interesting 7900 experience today... Follow Up

[davidh202]

 I had yet another very scary experience a few hours ago on my 7900.

Last week...
   After a switch to PK last week ,I put the the old PK,MK, and LK carts (which were all at 1%), back in after needing to swap them out with new ones because of a too low to switch error message. This left me with a totally blank PK channel.
After doing a pair clean the PK channel fully recovered and I printed fine.
(According to the notice on  cleaning, the printer says you can replace the old carts to continue to use them up afterward.

Today...
With 1% capacity left on my PK, MK, and LK carts,
I started a print job for a client (12 -13" x 19"s on EX Fiber), and did a nozzle check prior to printing, which was 100% good.
 To my horror the third print came out of the machine  covered with doughnut shaped black spots (  just about this size -o) all over the print, and very faint horizontal banding in the light areas of a foggy landscape scene.

I had the fine banding once before last year, but after adjusting all the recommended settings adjustments in the users guide, I discovered that replacing the carts that were at 1% with the new carts was the fix, and put all the settings back to default! I had never experienced black doughnuts like today though,and deduced that they were nozzle spits possibly due to  air that had been introduced in the black channels due to the switching back and forth of the low carts with the new ones. Or pressurization problems in the old, nearly empty carts.
I did get a good nozzle check though!?

My intuitive nature told me to put the new PK,MK and LK carts back in, forget the 1% carts, and do a regular full cleaning thinking the print head must be a mess. It must have been since I got a cleaning failure message on the first attempt, but I repeated  a regular full cleaning which worked.

I am now fully convinced that what I experienced was due to either lack of pressurization in the old carts from removing and reinstalling them thus weakening the seals, or when the carts get to a very low point before an " empty -replace" message flashes, the remainder of the ink gets mixed with any air in the cart  (kind of like sucking up air at the bottom of an empty drink with a straw),  which then goes down the tubes and spits through the head. I believe the dampers are supposed to control that but...

Lesson learned...
 I will not worry about a few ML of ink and try to squeeze out the carts when  a cleaning requires a cart swap at 1% left!
A few $ worth of ink is not worth the time and materials wasted
As I said in another thread these costs need to be factored in when charging for your printing, even if you are printing for yourself and selling your prints.

[Mark D Segal]

That's what I call cost-effective thinking! And very interesting experience.

I'm about to learn what happens to a 4900 when it hasn't been "exercised" for three weeks, due to its "trainer" having been out of the country. I expect it to need at least a through cleaning cycle. I'll revert once I've made the first print after this absence.

[Mark D Segal]

Some good points David.

To follow-up on my previous post. All done. Here's what happened. When I started the 4900, it did an Auto Nozzle Check and a few moments later the LCD panel said "READY". I thought that was too good to be true, so I did a manual printed nozzle check and sure enough it was. 7 of 10 channels clogged. So I launched a regular cleaning cycle and redid the manual paper-printed nozzle check. Apart from one tiny blank on each of Cyan and Orange it was all clear. I know better than to launch more cleanings for such minor blips and started printing. All fine. I would say a happy experience and normal for the extent of the non-use interval. I am a bit puzzled about how it passed the first Auto Nozzle check without triggering a cleaning. It means that one shouldn't always trust these automated systems under certain conditions.

[Garnick]

Instead of $500-1,000 rebates Epson should offer extended warrantees or maintenance plans with these Pro machines.

David
 

I couldn't agree more.  I imagine you may have followed my recent thread concerning my "9900 Woes".  My first warranty extension is about two months away from the second and last renewal.  Again, I do not want to pop for the almost $1300CDN, but considering the history of this machine I have absolutely no choice.  My last service call among many was last week.  The left ink bay was replaced due to a yellow leak and yet another cap/cleaning station installed, I believe the 4th.  Since then I've experienced 2 incidents of air in the lines.  Earlier this week in the LC and today in the C lines.  I've also noticed an increasingly annoying issue with MK banding and my next service call to address that problem is scheduled for early next week. 

I don't have the time nor the energy now to go any further with the "history lesson".  Suffice to say that my "9900 Problem Log" now has 90 entries and I'm sure that will be added to soon.  Last week I quipped to the service tech that considering all of the service calls, labour and parts that have been thrown at this printer, the final(out of warranty) total would probably have paid for almost 2 new machines.  With NO hesitation, he agreed!

A quote from Ansel Adams, "there's nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept".  To draw a possible reverse analogy, the 9900 concept is sharp but the execution is very fuzzy in my opinion.  Of course that conclusion is based mostly on my own personal experience, but isn't that generally the case?

Good luck David,
Gary   

[Mark D Segal]

............ Of course that conclusion is based mostly on my own personal experience, but isn't that generally the case?
Gary   

Gary, yes, we are guided by our personal experience. And our personal experience is of course important to ourselves. The real interesting question though is how generalized personal experiences of a particular type really are. Forums are not the best places for making that evaluation, unless specifically structured as a poll, because more often than not forum participants come to a forum because they have "issues". If there were no issues, most would see no need; it is a small minority who come to a forum with something like: "hey guys, I just bought an Epson 9900 and it works fine", because that is not (supposed to be) news. If you see what I mean. This doesn't diminish the pain of the horror stories at an individual level and I feel for the people suffering through them, but that said, I'd be real curious to know what the success ratio of these x900 series printers really is. Only Epson knows the answer to that question, and if it's on the whole good news, perhaps they would tell the world, but not necessarily.

[Randy Carone]

We have sold hundreds of 4900s, 7900s and 9900s and many dozens of the newer 7890s and 9890s. Very few complaints or problems with them. We always advise our customers to call us first with printer issues as we are well connected with Epson corporate. We have had a few issues but nothing like the level of problems that is assumed by users who are experiencing problems. While we are very sympathetic (and empathetic) to customers who have problems - and respond accordingly - the vast majority of our diverse user base are very happy with their Epson printers. This base ranges from casual users who don't sell prints to Service Bureaus who print non-stop all day, every day.

[Mark D Segal]

This is very reassuring Randy. Thanks for the insight.

[Farmer]

Only Epson knows the answer to that question, and if it's on the whole good news, perhaps they would tell the world, but not necessarily.

The problem with publishing that sort of information for any company is this:

Let's say you have a 0.1% failure rate (to keep the maths easy - and that would be a very enviable failure rate I suspect) and you publish it.  Next year, you release a model with a 0.2% failure rate (still word class and enviable for this class of products) - the competition then touts your product as being TWICE THE FAILURE RATE!  OMG!  Or likely more marketing savvy but you get the point :-)

You also have the problem that simple statistics such as this do not reflect the type of problem or the time or costs involved in remedying those problems, so it's a potentially dangerous route to publish that sort of information even when it's good.  Far better, too, is third party references such as Randy has just given.  Most people would just assume good numbers from a company were false or misleading or whatever - people are suspicious by nature of people or companies praising themselves :-)

[Ernst Dinkla]

There is a (very limited) poll done that is published on the Yahoo EpsonWideFormat list. Covers models from the x900 down to the x600 series, models in between the two generations are hardly covered though. About 70% did not need on-site repair in the first 3 years, 30% needed one or more times on-site  repair in the first 3 years. Another result:

6. In regular usage of the Epson wide format printer, do you find that the printer clogs?       
-----------------Response Percent-------Response Count
A lot------------------------6.7%------------------3
More than I thought   -17.8%------------------8
Normally----------------17.8%------------------8
Less than others-------2.2%------------------1
Very little----------------55.6%----------------25

I guess to valuate that outcome one should have asked them also if they ever had experience with another brand wide format. "Normally" for an Epson user is something else than "Normally" for a Canon or HP user. The other gradations are subject to the same subjectivity.

More details there.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

[Mark D Segal]

Ernst, you are correct to qualify this poll as "very limited". A sample response of 45 or so people covering a number of machines makes it of very limited value by the conventional methodology of statistical sampling, and as you point out, it is totally subjective; but it nonetheless provides an interesting insight that about 75% of those polled are not unpleasantly surprised.

[Farmer]

Interesting and not at all surprising.  If the failures were truly as widespread and severe as a reading of forums might suggest, then most companies would be out of business!

Not to suggest that improvements shouldn't be made or that feedback shouldn't be given etc, but removing sensationalism from the equation is helpful for everyone.

[John Nollendorfs]

David:
It seems that Epson users need to do "nozzle" checks on a pretty "regular" basis to confirm their printers are delivering "top notch" results. HP users, however, rarely ever do any nozzle checks. I've been using my Z3100 for 4 years on a pretty regular basis with dramatically less maintenance issues than my old Epson printers. (of course Epson has considerably improved their machine from my old EP3000 and 9000 models)

I'm not trying to start any "my machine is better than your machine" wars, but the Epson piezo head technology seems more prone to maintenance issues compared to the thermal head technologies of Canon and HP.

In any event, inkjet technologies have improved immensely. All the printers deliver great results. There will be lemons for all the printers, just a fact of life. It's how the company stands behind their printers that differentiates the users experiences.

[Alan Goldhammer]

It seems that Epson users need to do "nozzle" checks on a pretty "regular" basis to confirm their printers are delivering "top notch" results. HP users, however, rarely ever do any nozzle checks.

I think this is a gross generalization.  My Epson 3880 has never had a clog in the 20 months I've had it and I'm on the second set of cartridges (3rd light and light light black).  I often forget to do nozzle checks because of this.

[gwhitf]

I purchased an in-house demo 7900 from my local pro shop, about six months ago. I love it when it's working great. But these are my issues:

* I use only Photo Black with Exhibition Fiber.

* I have regular head clogs that even repeated cleanings will not solve; mostly in Light Light Black.

* I'm looking for the very best, most hi-rez settings in the print driver.

* I've done the Head Alignment multiple times, but I'm getting fine "banding" in the prints. Horizontal lines. Faint, but very much there.

* I'm printing mostly on 2880, not on High Speed, and with Finest Detail checked.

* The Print Utility software seems to print out a different Head Alignment chart than simply using the Menus in the printer by itself. I've done UNI and BI-ALL Head Alignments, but still get these lines.

* I am doing head cleaning "by color" and also "power clean". All the Test Nozzle Check colors are clear and full, except for Light Light Black, and only a very few tiny bars are missing. Would those few missing bars create noticeable banding?

Any thoughts on solving? Thank you very much.

[Farmer]

Yes, a couple of nozzles missing can cause microbanding.  You need to deal with that.

"Finest Detail" is only relevant if you are sending 720dpi images to the printer (or something in that range).  If you're doing something closer to 360dpi then there's no point setting the driver to expect 720.  There are numerous recent articles/posts about rezzing up to 720dpi and the methods involved and the benefits perceived but that means the image data first, then setting the driver accordingly.