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I am new to posting here but not to reading here. Hi everyone. Thanks for unknowingly helping me in the past.
I have read about many experiences with the Epson 7900 - clogs, cleanings, power cleanings, utilities cleanings, Epson service experiences, total machine replacements, humidity, ambient room temperature regulation, and on and on. My experience has been different than any I have read so far, so I offer it here. Perhaps someone like me - a year ago, can learn from me - now.
I am not a professional printer or photographer. I am just an enthusiast. I have been printing with two Epson 4800s for a year now - one for PK, the other for MK. I bought them both used after spending way to much money on printing my photos at a lab. One machine had 1,800 prints on it, the other 20,000. They both ran, and continue to run today, flawlessly. In fact the 20k machine is printing panoramas behind me as I type this. By the end of today it will have paid for itself nineteen times since I bought it. I love both machines, never have problems. Considering this great experience I have enjoyed while entering the printing world, I re-invested some of the money that the 4800s earned and bought a current model Epson 7900 with a good friend of mine. We bought this 7900 used, off an active member of this very "Printers, Papers and Inks" forum on Luminous-Landscape.com.
When we first got this Epson 7900 it had a cluster of clogs in the yellow channel, and one clog in the PK channel. I won't bore you with unnecessary details. Familiar story - no amount of any and all possible cleaning cycles cleared either of them.
That disaster amounted to strike 1 - on our Epson 7900 DIY clog clearing adventure..
After over a month of research, cleaning exercises, calls to Epson service (who have always been very polite, but not helpful considering clog clearing advice. Instead they always say "we can send someone out if you like?"), we decided NOT to have an Epson serviceman come fix our machine. Too many threads on this forum suggest these visits amount to no more than some guy blindly bolting new replacement parts onto your machine until finally hitting on a solution. Money comes too hard to me to justify that kind of bleeding. So considering this 7900 is not under warranty, me and my photo/printing genius buddy decided to, figuratively, dive into this Epson 7900 ourselves. Here is what followed:
Clearing print head clogs on the Epson 7900 - Windex and paper towel method:
To revive the entombed Epson 4800s which I rescued from the forgotten retirement home of printers passed, I performed the "Windex on a paper towel under the head for a night" trick. It worked like a charm, I've never had a problem with either machine since. So naturally my first thought for this 7900 was "Go for the Windex". Not so easy though, unlike the 4800, the 7900's head sits vertical. I managed though, ultimately the technique works just the same. The wet paper towel sucked ink from the head of the 7900 just the way it did on the 4800. But it didn't solve the clogs.
Strike 2 - on the Epson 7900 DIY clog clearing adventure..
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/epson_7900_nozzle_clogs.jpg)
This failure lead to our next attempt -
Clearing print head clogs on the Epson 7900 - cleaning solution and refillable carts:
I did about a hundred searches online about clearing clogs on an Epson 7900. I learned two amazing things. First, anything you really need to know about an Epson 4800 is in a video on youtube. Second, nothing you really need to know about an Epson 7900 is in a video on youtube. Always instead these searches ended us up at home-grown printer maintenance websites looking like a sixteen year old developed them. Still I called though, not many options out there for an Epson 7900 do-it-yourselfer. "Cleaning solution" was always the best answer I got. So we bought four refillable carts for the 7900, with the intent to run this cleaning fluid through the head-clogs on ONLY the channels we chose. This worked so well I was shocked. The printer accepted all the third party cleaning carts minus one - which is about on par with what this 7900 typically does with Epson's own OEM carts. They gave me extra chips for the carts, just in case, which once swapped out on the one problem cart worked perfectly. Now for the cleaning cycles..
It took ten pairs cleanings for the cleaning fluid to show up in a nozzle pattern check. That seemed reasonable. After five more pairs-cleanings we did a nozzle pattern print on glossy paper - which when held up to the light just right suggested that all the clogs in the YW channel were clear. You couldn't see the color of the ink in the YW pattern, but you could see the sheen. However from what we could tell the PK clog was still there. So be it, one out of two aint bad. We decided to put the ink carts back in and check our actual results. Here's where things went sideways.
With the lines now fully charged with cleaning fluid, simply re-introducing ink into the line in pairs-cleanings was not effective. Rather than watching the line turn yellow as ink approached the head, which is what we had planned on, the cleaning fluid-filled lines very effectively diluted the ink as it slowly entered the line. This is an obvious result now that I think about it, but we did not see this coming. Instead, theoretically, we could have done pairs cleanings until we went blind and the lines would still have traces of cleaning fluid in them.
So just so you know - oh you reader of internet forum help threads - this method may sound great on paper, but it's gonna cost you in the end. Instead of doing four million pairs cleanings to fully clear the lines of cleaning solution, we did two SS cleanings from the utility window. That charged the line I'll tell you. Bye bye cleaning solution. But also good night to the rest of our ink... Just one SS cleaning filled over 20% of the maintenance tank.
If you think that's a downer, wait till I tell you what happened when we ran a nozzle pattern check. The PK channel was exactly the same. The YW channel was worse.
Strike 2.5 - on the Epson 7900 DIY nozzle clog clearing adventure...
Having failed for what effectively was now the third time, and at this point being psychologically prepared to push this Epson 7900 off a very high cliff with lots of huge rocks below, me and my genius buddy decided to roll up our sleeves and literally dive into the Epson 7900. What follows is what we found.
Clearing print head clogs on the Epson 7900 - according to the Epson service manual:
So we got a copy of the Epson Service Manual - the very manual service men use in the field as they blindly throw parts at your printer. I don't know, maybe you all have copies of this manual. I found it fascinating. If you would like a copy of it for yourself you can download it online - just google it.
As it turns out the dampers should be replaced every year. So my first question was "WTF is a damper?"
In case you have this question too, here is an Epson 7900 damper:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1136.jpg)
Here is where your Epson 7900 dampers live - this clear plastic box which houses all the dampers is called by some (on ebay searches) - the "Selector Unit". Others call it the "Damper Unit". Epson calls it the "Damper Assembly". It's Epson part # 1504216. If you study the image you will see there are two dampers (orange and green pair / PK and MK pair) which are capped by a plastic housing which extends rearward, over a small black box with a tiny shaft exiting it's left side. This is actually the switching station - where your Epson 7900 swaps from PK to MK ink.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1130.jpg)
If you follow the manual word for word, it suggests you should replace each of these dampers once a year. Epson sells these dampers for just under $40. Your Epson 7900 uses 5 of them. Do the math yourself, 5 x $40 = $200. But when you shop around you eventually find out you can completely replace the entire Damper Assembly - manufactured by Epson - for about $250 full retail. In order to replace each damper you really have to be careful. The underside of this plastic Damper Assembly, which consists of lots of tiny veins and arteries where all the colored inks flow to your head, is covered ONLY by very wimpy aluminum foil. Sneeze and you will tear it.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1167.jpg)
We decided to replace it. I shopped around ebay and found a local Epson parts supplier selling OEM units in factory sealed boxes for $230. No brainer. FYI, you can buy third part dampers for just under $20 - but why would you. Just get the whole assembly and be done with it.
Next up is the Epson 7900 wiper blade. Everyone I spoke with told me to replace the wiper blade. Apparently after each cleaning the wiper blade, in a series of passes, wipes the face(es) of your print head clean of any and all traces of excess splooge. With all the talk of how delicate print heads are on this 7900, I consider this wiper blade to play a critical role in the life and maintenance of your printer. I'm not sure what I expected this wiper blade to look like, perhaps some space-age self-cleaning bionic rubber blade from the 22 century? Well it's not. In fact I hate to disappoint you but it looks quite a lot like this:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/7900_flushbox.jpg)
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1162.jpg)
So as it turns out the Epson 7900 Wiper Blade is about as big as the tip of your pinkey, and it's about as high tech as that bowl of Cheerios you ate this morning. I guess that's good though. Maybe it's not so expensive? It's $16 bucks. What keeps it clean is that white(ish) strip of nice soft cleaning pad - or so you think its soft, right? It IS after all called the Wiper Blade Cleaner, and the Wiper Blade is made of soft rubber - so maybe it's felt you think. It's not felt. It may as well be made from concrete. Go ahead bite it, you'll see. Yet somehow, hard as it is, if you look closely this cleaning brick actually got warn out by the rubber wiper?
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1165.jpg)
Trust me that is no small accomplishment - something soft destroying something hard. Our wiper blade did not come out of it's 900 prints unscathed though (yes that's all this 7900 has ever printed, so it's likely your 7900 is worse off than this one). Upon close examination our wiper blade is torn, and has a bit of "listing to the right" problem. This is likely one of our worst problems. I can imagine clumps of dried ink building up wherever this wiper blade does not touch the head properly.
So how do you replace the wiper blade. I could tell you but I won't. Rather I will tell you that the next thing the Epson manual, and anyone you call and ask advice from, suggests is to replace the "Capping Station". Here we go again right - WTF is the capping station? Here is the capping station:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1145.jpg)
This capping station parks itself directly over each individual bank of the Epson 7900 printer head - to form a seal, so no ink dries up on the head. So here-in lies a potential problem. If your wiper blade is out to lunch it leaves gobs of dried ink on your head, which in turn affects the seal that the capping station can make on your head, which in turn causes more ink to dry up on your head. Think of it like Dominos - one element of this chain fails and the whole printer goes to hell in a hand-basket.
Three images up you can also see another replaceable part on your Epson 7900 - the flushing box. It's simple to follow what this does - just behind it are pipes leading to your maintenance tank. It's the dump station for your cleaning cycles - where your head parks itself while spewing all your ink down the drain. Each of these parts are special order items. Wanna know why? Because they all come included, and pre-assembled as part of this great family of cleaning system parts when you buy what most call the Epson 7900 "Pump and Cap Assembly". Epson part # 1523796
So what all this seems to be amounting to are the replacement of two parts - the Damper Assembly and the Pump and Cap Assembly. But we still need to flush out this existing head, which for sure would already have been replaced for just about what we paid for this entire Epson 7900 - if we went with an Epson Service technician coming out to fix this clog. Instead we are hoping to avoid that. I have reservations about our strategy for flushing this head. I just don't think throwing it in the dishwasher is a good idea...
Tomorrow morning I am picking up both of these OEM parts, in factory sealed boxes, for a grand total of $320. I promise to update this thread with our results.
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Fascinating article.
Looking forward to the update.
Regards
Tony Jay
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Can you please share where you found the replacement parts online and the amount of time involved with each of the procedures?
Looking forward to the next posting...
Jeff
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Sure Jeff. Sorry, my name is Eric by the way but Eric G. was taken.
The best contact that I have found for Epson parts so far is a guy named Justin, in San Francisco. I first bought a Black Ink Conversion Kit from him a few months ago, for my 4800. That's how we met. His ebay profile is immaculate. My experiences with him have been just the same. Good guy. Here is a link to his ebay store - http://stores.ebay.com/Ink-Fleet?_trksid=p4340.l2563
As far as time goes, I estimate it took us 1.5 hours to get the Epson 7900 to this state:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1150.jpg)
Mind you we had no idea what in the hell we were doing, or where we were going. The service manual is surprisingly thorough, and very easy to follow. At first we were surprised to find out it had no notes on how to remove the individual dampers from the Damper Assembly. But now that I learned the replacement of the entire Damper Assembly is the choice procedure, it makes sense they don't go into individual damper removal detail. The same rang true with the Pump and Cap Assembly - IE, no instructions on how to replace the cap all on it's own, or the flushing box. Again, because these all come with the complete replacement unit.
I bet first run you could replace your Pump and Cap Assembly in two hours. Next time far quicker. Add an hour and you could replace the Damper Assembly as well, all in one DIY service.
FYI, once you remove the Damper Assembly the head is right there in the open. Four more screws and that's changed too. Be sure to use a magnetic tip screwdriver. Makes life easier. If you are going after your head you will need a long handle, thin shank phillips head. Most of the rest of the printer all you need is a regular phillips head. All the wires and plugs are impossible to confuse - they only fit one place each (every plug is different - thank you Epson).
As far as flushing the head, we haven't done it yet. Still deciding on technique. There are "pizo electronics" inside the 7900 print head. Not something you want to submerge in cleaning fluid I don't think. Dishwasher is out... :-)
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Fascinating, if not a bit unnerving. I'm looking forward to your update.
ken
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This could be huge, and you well may end up famous if successful. This issue is probably the largest single thread generator on the Yahoo Epson Large format printer group forum.
I am very satisfied with my 4900 but have lusted for the next Epson size up through a 4000, 4800, and now 4900. Space for the printer and these unresolved cloggings ( the x900 series were supposed to be the ones with all the bugs finally ironed out, damnit!) have kept me away, but if reasonable expense in yearly maintenance can achieve reliability, I'm gonna be looking to buy...
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I wonder whether it has 5 wiper blades in total (10000 style) or one that does all (9000-9600 style) ?
Edit: two pictures of the HP Z3100 wipers in the capping station. It has a kind of Gillette double blade system per two channel head, 12 blades for six 2 channel heads. The pads + wipers + a lid is a kind of flexible drawer that moves under the head when the last is parked above the capping station. On both sides there is "felt" where the wipers transfer the scraped ink on. In the top left corner a small fixed wiper may be visible which takes off any ink/dirt that may be on the head carriage (also partly visible at the top left) so no dirt is transferred to the pinch wheels on the transport axle. This is a 5 year old Z3100, maybe four times cleaned over that period, still working without much issues.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Eric,
Considering all the time and expense you've put into this printer thus far, do you think it would have been more economic in the final analysis to buy a new one? A lot of what you pay for is ink when you buy a new machine. The machine itself often turns out to be not that expensive. OK, you took the route you did, so two further questions: (1) did the person you bought the printer from ever advise you that the machine was clogged-up (sounds as if it hadn't been used in a long time) and (2) do you live near enough an Epson authorized service center to let professionals refurbish it for you, or for that matter, what would Epson have charged to refurbish it? While your account is indeed fascinating and you have more tinkering courage than I could ever muster, it does raise some nagging questions about the genesis of this whole experience and whether there weren't more cost effective ways of dealing with it, taking into account of course that all the time you put into research, learning, acquisition etc. is money.
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Before anyone starts chewing on Eric you need to know the entire story.
It was my 7900 he purchased. For the 3 years I used it,it has run just about as good as one of these can run including the day it went out the door.
I even ran 3 prints the night before it was picked up. I really wish I had kept my 100 or so nozzle print outs as they show its history.
A very unfortunate dilemma for Eric. Not his fault and not mine. He is in Ca.and I am in Pa. He had a very good friend in the shipping business that could get it to Ca. for a resonable rate.
So he purchased it.
He starts it up and right out of the get go it has these 2 colors that will not clean up. I was of little help only knowing the standard and service mode cleaning options.
Eric never once complained to me,asked me for anything or most important to me never accused me of selling him this machine that now has these clogs.
As a 25 year business owner I take great pride in the business and personal relationships I have built over the years. I did not get where I am today by taking advantage of anyone especially not Eric.
To see him have to deal with this is a very painful experience.
The only thing I can do at this stage is offer my support as he works on getting this thing back up to speed.
Eric,please contact me offline as I have a check here for you to help with your parts.
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Hi Dan,
That is all most reassuring to Eric, no doubt, and for clarity, it was not my intention to "chew" on him. I think he did a valiant job and much more than I would have had the courage to do. My intent, for the benefit of others to perhaps avoid the pain of this kind of experience, is to wonder out loud about the merits of invoking the theory of comparative advantage in cases like this. I too have sold my used Epson professional printers in the past and like you made sure they were functioning perfectly before they went out the door. Fortunately in my case the customers were near enough at hand that I could help them set-up, produce test prints in their own operating environment, and make sure they were fine. From then onward, of course, it becomes their responsibility. It is good that you have written, offered Eric the support he needs and clarified an important aspect of this unfortunate situation. One wonders whether something went wrong in transport, which can happen to any kind of machinery.
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It was my 7900 he purchased. For the 3 years I used it,it has run just about as good as one of these can run including the day it went out the door.
Interesting to read that the dampers should be replaced after 1 year according the service manual. A kind of penalty on the normal warranty. Has it ever been serviced in the 3 years passed? With an extended warranty is there any preventative service done on a printer?
This is not about the second hand deal which seems to me a normal deal, it is more about what you get for your money if you buy the printer new with or without the extended warranty. The damper's predicted life sheds another light on the x900 woes that appear in more forums.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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I have a friend who just bought a brand new 7900 after his 3800 died. I'm going to send him a link to this thread just so he has an idea of what might happen down the road.
I just hope my 3800 doesn't die soon.
Eric (M., not G.)
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Yea Ernst,
I still can't understand how they can go from the 10K series we used to use that never needed the waste tank or dampers or heads replaced after 10 years of daily use to having to replace parts in six months and constantly do head cleanings. It just doesn't make sense. They both had big pressurized carts and both were fast printers. They really screwed something up bad.
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Wow Dan, thanks for the offer. I think this is why I am poor, I won't accept your check. This is not your fault or responsibility. But thank you very much again for your offer. I actually am excited about this 7900, Dan. I know we'll get it printing again, and I know it's not going to cost me an arm and a leg. Maybe just an arm.
In retrospect of course, if I had it to do again I would have waited for Epson to offer some ridiculous discount and bought one new instead. I buy used stuff mostly, to save money. All my camera gear is used. My two 4800s are used. My wife had a kid already when we met. Whatever...
The way I see it I am no different than most of you, now. I own an Epson 7900 with a little time on it and I have clogs. Also like many of you, I am not under warranty anymore. So looking forward, which is my preferred perspective, I've got a mountain between me and greener pastures but I am willing and able to climb it. If sharing this journey me and my genius buddy have set out on helps someone else then that makes it all the more worth while. I am well aware that posting a story like this leaves me vulnerable. Truth is I really could have used something exactly like this thread, for myself, two months ago. That's why I took the time to put this together and post it all here on Luminous Landscape, in case I am not alone in this sea of Epson 7900 maintenance questions.
What I have learned so far:
1 - If a reasonable number of cleanings do not clear your clog, five more cleanings won't clear it either.
2 - SS maintenance mode cleanings stand for "Super Sonic" - they purge a LOT of ink
3 - Don't waste your money on refillable carts for cleaning to run solution through your head. Between them and the ink you waste re-charging your lines you're better off replacing parts.
4 - The wiper blade, of which there is only one, is a critical part which wears out (everything wears out) sooner than you'd expect.
5 - You can change the wiper blade without taking the entire machine apart. Not the whole pump and cap assembly mind you, just the wiper blade.
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Eric,
I think from your current perspective, looking forward is the right way to approach it, and the experience you are having could be valuable for others facing similar problems, so I would encourage you to keep us abreast of your discoveries as you proceed. Not many people are as "gutsy" as you are, so sharing the learning experience could be valuable. Best of luck with it.
Mark
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I should have acknowledged your comment David, you are right that americaninkjetsystems site is super helpful. Lots of good information on printer maintenance.
I have to admit the thought/site of an Epson 7900 in so many pieces in front of you is a little worrisome. But surprisingly the service manual is very easy to follow. Good pictures, descriptions, warnings, and troubleshooting tips.
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Yes David, the capping station moves quite a bit. If you look at your pump and cap assembly, the capping station lives in the big square empty space - when the head is over it.
We took the left side of the machine apart to get to the Damper Assembly - following the service manual to a "T". They make you slide the head all the way to the left as the very first step. FYI, the damper assembly sits on top of the head. Real easy to access it when the left side of the machine is removed.
How did you get your head loose - so you could move it to the side? Reason I ask is I have read people suggest pulling the printer's plug as the machine starts up. This is unnecessary, you can release the head via the control panel. It's all in the service manual
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The capping station retracts back into the machine when the head is in motion. I believe this is why you can't see it, but I can't be sure until ours is back together again to confirm. At this point I can't remember which way let me access it so well - by pulling the plug to release the head, or by releasing it through the menu. Keep in mind I didn't even know what a capping station was before we took our 7900 apart and I held ours in my hands.
Stay tuned, my next post will be fascinating. Major breakthrough on clearing our clogged head tonight - pictures included.
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It's worth noting that, apart from the service manual being proprietary IP belonging to Epson (its publication without their permission being a breach of copyright - it still amazes me how many photographers think this is OK - I'd love for them to send me free copies of their images to print...) it's also not designed for public release or consumption, so you can imagine that additional material is provided to those persons authorised to do the work and use the manuals that puts much of it into perspective. You also don't know if you have most up to date version being pirated and placed on the net.
As per my previous comments on this subject, this is a note directed at those who put these things (from all vendors, of all sorts of products) on the web and not people who simply go Googling and come across them (such as Eric).
Eric's done an admirable job, but whereas he states 1 year for the dampers someone else states 2 years. I'd suggest that recommendations are exactly that and usage patterns and other things come into it beyond what a restricted service manual might suggest.
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Are there 5 wiper blades in the 7900? I'm still curious.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Thank you Farmer, for suggesting to me a perspective that I had not considered. I will take the link to the service manual down now. If anyone wants a copy, just google it and download it like I did. FYI there are at least two available for download versions that I know of. The one I used is a free version. We are also using a $10 version, which is also available online, which we purchased, but I did not offer a link for you to download. Both versions are easy to find.
I feel kind of bad about offering to all of you what I did here, now. Especially the service manual thing. So HERE (http://gotagteam.com/epson/_D3X4580a.jpg) is a free copy of one of my images, for you to print.
Finally, here is my "Epson 7900 from the inside - out" disclaimer: I am not an Epson service technician. This thread on Luminous Landscape is not intended to be a platform for me to teach anyone anything. Like I said at the beginning of this, I am just an enthusiast - offering to you all something which I desperately needed for myself, two months ago. I would LOVE to have found a thread like this back then. So I offer it to you all now.
My statement that the dampers need replacing every year was a quote from a service manual which we are using. I have no idea if it is accurate. In fact I have no idea if this Epson 7900 clog journey that me and my genius buddy have undertaken will even be successful. We both are reserving the "push it off a cliff into the ocean" option as a viable plan - B.
Any of my postings here are intended, quite simply, to share accounts of our unique experience diving into the Epson 7900 ourselves, rather than calling a service tech. I apologize if they come off as my advising anyone. That's not my intent, or qualification.
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Ernst, there is only ONE wiper blade on the Epson 7900
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Eric, congrats on a truly impressive photograph. Thanks for sharing it.
There is, perhaps a somewhat personal - so don't feel compelled to answer - question I would like to put here - not out of idle curiosity but because it may be useful for Epson to know this and better understand at least one other dimension of the "service environment" they are providing or not providing as the case may be. Did you decide to go the self-directed route because the cost of a servicing from Epson was just going to be too expensive, or regardless of cost - too hard to access logistically, or are you doing it out of curiosity to learn how much of the innards of this machine you can master and fix as sort of a hobby for personal satisfaction?
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For anyone who is curious, here is how you remove your head:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1169.jpg)
and here is what your print head looks like if your wiper blade is compromised:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1203.jpg)
Pretty disgusting. I will post tonight about how we cleaned our head. Amazing results
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Mark, sorry I am having a family emergency so can't reply properly until tonight. More later I promise.
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Sure, and sorry to hear that. Hope it works out well for all concerned.
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....What can you do? And then they claim copyright for the service manual. Bravo!
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Very true regarding manuals and schematics with products in the past.
But I don't think I've seen a manufacturer yell copyright protection regarding service manuals yet. (Perhaps they don't want to draw more attention to why some consumers are scrambling for the service manual in the first place...) I think its more cost-cutting and profit incentives that instruction manuals are often scant. I'm surprised that my Epson 9900 came with a decent manual with faux leather case, like getting a new Lexus automobile. ;D Most simply provide a pdf file-----what a pita to print. But to be sure, a nice recommended Service Manual ala Epson would be nice to include. Hell, all the automobile manufacturers including Lexus on down know to include recommended service intervals....
Knock on wood (no problems with my 9900), but I do find the thread fascinating and educational. And to that end, I don't have an issue with looking at a service manual, for services/maintenance that these flagship printers don't need. ::) Perhaps it would be a nice idea to offer some sort of service schedule, similar to automobiles, short of a full-blown what-the-hell-do-I-do call for an Epson Tech or pay for my kid's college tuition.
Many thanks, Eric.
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I've been searching for this repair manual online and not getting what you've obviously found. Could you please email me at cranberrycoho@gmail.com - yes it's so frustrating using this printer! Thanks and looking forward to more posts.
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Eric - firstly, sorry to hear that you have an emergency with which to deal - I hope that everything is OK and works out to be all good.
I wanted to reiterate that my comments were not directed at you. You have, though, responded with such grace and consideration that we should all take a leaf from your book.
Yes, that head has real problems and it's easy to see now why you would have issues.
Also, that is a lovely photograph! I particularly like the two silhouettes under the main arch - a man and a woman it seems to be? Just enough to add a bonus bit of interest :-)
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Great info! As this is a model I was considering when my Z3100 bites the dust it's certainly good to know what can happen and be done. Thank you!
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Bryan, what's your experience been with the Z3100? Happy? Any idea how the print quality compares with an Epson x900?
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Not to derail but I'm still very happy with print quality, couldn't ask for more. It has operational quirks and limitations though that new units don't like the paper loading and such. Big problem with the belt (see my replacement and teardown thread/video). Problem with failing hard drives and very expensive parts. But I LOVE the output.
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Eric....thank you very much for your info on this printer. I am looking forward to your results. I am having very similar problems. TO FARMER !!!! thank you very much for making life much harder for many of us.... I do not believe this manual has a copyright. Besides what many of us have payed for these printers ...plus the money for all the ink waisted cleaning.....the many hours waisted with very poor tech support I think we at least deserve access to the service manual. If you have not had problems consider yourself lucky.....but please don`t make life harder for many of us that have been jerked around by Epson. Once again thank you Eric for exploring this and I`m looking forward to your results.
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I do not believe this manual has a copyright
But all YOUR photos and IP do, right?
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I had my printer serviced four times before the my 7900 actually worked. One of the points the service man made was that the wiper needed to be cleaned every 6 to 9 months. The wiper is a single piece of rubber (small piece) that is used to clean the print head. The wiper ends up with dried ink on it after prolonged use and there is nothing that cleans the wiper. It is a rubber squeegee for cleaning the print head. The Service Man let me rotate the gears that controlled both the capping station and the wiper assembly.
This is what needs to be done to clean the wiper. You will need both the "Pro 7900 and 9900 field repair guide" and the Epson Stylus Pro 7900/9900 Service Manual.
1) The right side skins must come off in order to clean the wiper. Service Manual page 179 steps 1 -5.
2) The print head must be uncapped. This was done manually by "Rotate the White Gear counter clockwise to unlock the Carriage" page 390 field repair guide. The print head is then pushed to left out of the way.
3) The Wiper blade is made accessible by "Rotate the flusing Box/Wiper Blade Motor until the Wiper Blade is exposed" page 189 field repair guide. The Wiping assembly will rotate down and eventually the rubber blade will rotate towards the front of the printer.
4) A foam swab dampened with warm water was used to clean the wiper. Do not use q-tips because lint can be left behind. I bought 50 foam swabs from the following source - Swab-its 74-4501-50 for $14 dollars.
http://yhst-66879715068660.stores.yahoo.net/prso.html
When taking off the right side skins the LCD Display must be removed by detaching a ribbon cable with an edge connector on it. If the cable is not plugged in correctly I was told that power and ground would be shorted and several circuit boards could be fried.
The items that were replaced on my printer: capping station, ink selector(damper), and print head.
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Thank you for your support guys. You don't even know me.
Last night my buddy Steve and I (no he is not my invisible friend), removed our clogged Epson 7900 print head. It was very exciting. Up until that point the only obvious problems we found were the torn, gooey, worn out and cockeyed wiper blade. Yes the capping station looked a little messy but I never got the feeling the capping station was the cause of our clogs. More it was the result of them. The Damper Assembly we decided to change because the manual recommended it - not because it looked like it needed it. Neither of us expected new dampers to make any measurable difference. But the head we both knew would reveal everything. The head would make our journey, or break it. We had to remove it. We had to inspect it. After all this build-up, how could we not..?
As you can see from the image a few posts up, it looked pretty nasty. Obvious, definite connection between the condition of the face of our head and the condition of our wiper blade. As sloppy as the wiper blade was, is as sloppy as our head was.
I had all these visions of taking microscopic macro shots of the face of our head, blowing them and searching for visible clogs. I doubted we'd be able to see them, but I was ready to try every trick in the book in order to do so. Much to my surprise though all we needed to do in order to see them was turn the head over - there they were. PK clog was clear as day. YW clog cluster right out there in the open. These pics were taken of the head exactly as it sat ready to print - no external wiping, cleaning - it wasn't touched.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1211.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1195.jpg)
If you want to look closer, click HERE (http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1199crop.jpg)
In my opinion the cleanings actually added to our problems. With the wiper blade compromised the cleanings just ended up spreading more crap over the head. When we got to it our wiper blade was not just wet with ink, it was coated with layers of ink. The surface area of the rubber wiper which touches the head was dry, but just past those areas the ink began to build up - first just wet, then wet but thicker, then kind of gummy, then simply crusty. I am pretty confident this is what CAUSED our clogs, not what failed to clear them. Think about it - microscopic holes just dying to be clogged, critically sealed over a capping station while not in use, routinely flushed with expensive ink to help keep them clear of any ink build-up - then smothered with a butter knife covered with chunky peanut butter.
No brainer, this is a critical, weak link in our Epson 7900 routine maintenance chain.
Cleaning an Epson 7900 print head:
For a week now Steve and I have lost sleep plotting a safe course through the hazards of manually cleaning a 7900 print head. All you ever read about is how delicate these things are. But what you don't read about is why they are delicate, or how they actually work. Pardon me while I trip over my tongue trying to explain something I do not understand. These heads are far more than a series of nozzles lined up in rows. They're actually not "nozzles" at all. At least not like we know nozzles in the garden hose world. Instead the 7900 print head nozzle technology is built around a fascinating phenomenon called "Piezoelectricity". This is pretty high-tech tiny world type stuff but in monkey language the concept is rather simple - tiny crystals which change their shape when electrically charged. Your Epson charges the line leading to "nozzle" 18b, it flexes and ink squirts out of your print head. Do that fourteen million times in a row over a slice of Gloss Baryta and you and I end up staring into 80 square inches of the final resting place of more technology than we will ever fully understand or appreciate.
So yea, now that you think about it, an Epson 7900 print head is not something you want clean with a shovel. The solution we came up with is something I think is working remarkably well. We suspended the head, face down, JUST over the surface of a mixture of cleaning solution mixed with distilled water. Due to the mysterious characteristics of yet another physical phenomenon, called "Surface Tension", we actually did NOT have to submerge the face of the head into the solution. Instead hovering the face ever so close to the surface of the solution caused the area of the solution just below the head face, to rise up from itself and cling to the head. It was kind of magical actually, but even more amazing is what happened next. The solution instantly began to suck ink from the head. It was oddly beautiful actually. I wish I filmed it. Instead I took a few photos. We left the head hovering there last night. After today's drama I came home tonight to completely black solution under the head. I lifted the head to inspect it. It looks immaculate - virgin.
Been one hellofaday I'm off to bed. More tomorow.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1229.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1231.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1218.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1225.jpg)
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Let's hope for some great prints once the head is back in (and if I may suggest, take extreme care when placing it back in to ensure position is correct and that you don't press too hard on any of the assembly).
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I do not believe this manual has a copyright. Besides what many of us have payed for these printers
What I recall of the availability of Epson Service Manuals is that with each new generation wide formats it became more difficult to get one. It must have been with the 9800 that I was told a SM had a key that could help to find the service man who made it available. At that time the spare part purchase in the US became more difficult too. Copyrights would fit that scheme. It is not that long ago that Lexmark abused the DMCA to protect cartridge chip policies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int%27l_v._Static_Control_Components
An advice to Eric; open up that machine but be careful with your sources.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Last night my buddy Steve and I (no he is not my invisible friend), removed our clogged Epson 7900 print head. It was very exciting. Up until that point the only obvious problems we found were the torn, gooey, worn out and cockeyed wiper blade. Yes the capping station looked a little messy but I never got the feeling the capping station was the cause of our clogs. More it was the result of them. The Damper Assembly we decided to change because the manual recommended it - not because it looked like it needed it. Neither of us expected new dampers to make any measurable difference. But the head we both knew would reveal everything. The head would make our journey, or break it. We had to remove it. We had to inspect it. After all this build-up, how could we not..?
The new dampers will make a difference, the sieves will capture ink pigment particle agglomerations due to the volume printed or ink aging with little volume printed. Having that printer open is enough reason to replace them. You might clean the old unit with an ultrasonic cleaner and keep it as a spare part but usually the membranes (PET I guess) age too and harden.
I see there is nothing wrong with the way you analyse its problems. One wiper blade that has to run over the length of all the ink channels and then get rid of the scraped ink/dirt on yet another surface. It will not be the volume of prints that corresponds with the wiper's wear but the age and the times it is used in cleaning actions including the one just before a print. The wiper blade is not that simple, it can be a sandwich of a fabric with different elastomer surfaces on back and front. Has to withstand glycols and other mild solvents + paper coating particles and paper lint. There will be a huge difference in wear between printing on the rougher art papers and RC photo papers. Polyurethane could have been used as it has most of the properties for the task. The Epson 10000-10600 had 3 wiper blades for the 3 head - 6 ink channel assembly. Many users praised its reliability. The HP Z3100-Z3200 have 12 wiper blades for the six 2-ink-channel separate heads.
Be careful with electrostatic charges while working on the printer and head. Your head cleaning method is nice, avoid too drastic methods later on when not all works as expected. I think your head and damper system now has a lot of air included that has to be removed by an initial fill or otherwise. A vacuum applied on the waste ink tubes running from the capping station was what I sometimes used when it really was difficult, closing other ink channels when one channel showed print issues so that channel was sucked more. That already falls in the more drastic methods category though.
I have to clean my Z3200 capping station, a green head shows banding while it still gets an OK from the sensors. Have done too little maintenance last year.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware now:
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/six-canvas-wrap-actions.htm
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............I do not believe this manual has a copyright. Besides what many of us have payed for these printers ...plus the money for all the ink waisted cleaning.....the many hours waisted with very poor tech support I think we at least deserve access to the service manual. ............
Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean that it isn't correct. You would probably agree that Epson has umpteen patents on the technologies going into these printers. From there it's not a stretch to expect they would also copyright the intellectual property that exposes considerable portions of that technology. Remember, the people given authority to use these materials are extremely likely to be bound by confidentiality clauses built-in to their employment contract with Epson, whether as employees or third-party service providers. In fact, if you look at the user manual that comes with the printer (in my case a 4900), the flip side of the title page in the lower left corner says Copyright 2010 Epson America Inc., but we're entitled to - indeed need - that document so they provide it to us. We are not supposed to need service manuals because we aren't and are not supposed to be printer technicians, so they do not provide the service manuals. If you are having problems with your printer, the correct channel of resolution is that Epson should fix your printer on terms and conditions at least commensurate with your warranty. If they are failing to do so, that needs other kinds of remedies, but not ideally and not necessarily access to their service manuals. Even if they gave the vast majority of their clients access to service manuals tomorrow, that would not be the preferred route of resolution for 99% of them; Eric is an exceptional guy.
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Eric, bravo - really excited to learn whether you end-up making good prints once the whole thing is reassembled. Not that I envision myself doing what you are doing, but anyhow could be useful to know what kind of cleaning solution you are using and in what proportions you mixed it with distilled water. This could be helpful info to other do-it-yourselfers.
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how bad is it ($) if you have to pop in a new head, rather than clean it?
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Good question. I have in the past been informed that with these Epson Pro printers the head is the printer and the printer is the head. That doesn't tell you exactly how bad it is - because I don't know - but indicates it may be pretty bad!
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Indeed this has been a fascinating thread to follow. I haven't had the sides off of a wide format since the 9880. "Popping" in a new head would bring about a whole set of other problems like having the software to calibrate the head. Eric thanks for all the time, photos, and follow thru as we feel like we are taking a journey with you. I to am awaiting for the beast to be put back together and a beautiful print to appear. And Dan although you probably feel bad because it was your 7900 that has entertained us for the last few days I do agree with your handling of the situation and a "mensch" is a perfect description. Mark, Ernst, Farmer,
Jeff, etc. your knowledge, thoughts and insights are always welcomed additions to this forum. And Eric, really your tenacity and attitude towards this project (problem) is remarkable.
Again, thanks for sharing and I anxiously await that first print once you're back together.
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how bad is it ($) if you have to pop in a new head, rather than clean it?
1000 Euro incl VAT in Germany but I think you need special software to calibrate the total. In the past it was a serial number on the head that had to be entered in service mode.
http://www.prosando.eu/index.php?cat=WG708&lang=opfzmshzkv&product=F191010&sidProSando=1d6c034ae5e586c0c3ad3831fb1b983c
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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1000 Euro incl VAT in Germany but I think you need special software to calibrate the total. In the past it was a serial number on the head that had to be entered in service mode.
http://www.prosando.eu/index.php?cat=WG708&lang=opfzmshzkv&product=F191010&sidProSando=1d6c034ae5e586c0c3ad3831fb1b983c
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
Uhuh - interesting - that's about 1300 dollars. The street price for the printer here is about 3000 dollars, then subtract probably about 500 dollars worth of starter-ink, leaving about 2500; so the head is about half the value of the printer before any installation cost; it's not quite as bad as I thought - the ratio of head/total cost is probably higher for the smaller format machines.
Note: final point above confirmed; the same site quotes the same cost - 1000 Euros - for the 4900 head, while the 4900 is a much less expensive printer than the 7900. The 4900 street price net of the initial ink value is about 1500 dollars, so the replacement head is most of the value of the printer - give or take some VAT.
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~US$1800.00 for a new print head here: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/sc.18/category.52335/.f
Replacing the head under warranty, no problem. I'd be scared to do so otherwise---you're already about half-way there to a new printer. (maybe that's part of the strategy to keep you in that lucrative buy my ink business model too). And that's what I'd be doing at that point, absent a warranty, do I just get a new printer considering the wear and tear on the other parts.
I think Mark Segal is right----except it's maybe only 98% that won't do what Eric did here. ;D Count me on that 98%. Perhaps a good middle ground would be an Epson recommended service interval----just like Toyota recommends oil changes every 5000 miles... I wouldn't mind paying a little for a minor service/maintenance for my printer. I do a bit of maintenance on every other piece of equipment in my business, why not the printer? (cuz I'm scared sh*tless in the 98%)....
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Perhaps a good middle ground would be an Epson recommended service interval----just like Toyota recommends oil changes every 5000 miles... I wouldn't mind paying a little for a minor service/maintenance for my printer. I do a bit of maintenance on every other piece of equipment in my business, why not the printer? (cuz I'm scared sh*tless in the 98%)....
I'm not sure this is a workable model. Sure it works for cars but that's because there are millions out there and the dealers have dedicated service departments (and you bring your car to them). Far fewer large format printers and you would be looking at a service call to your home/business for this maintenance. It would probably require a rather large field force to do this type of servicing if all installed users buy into this program. Economically it is problematic.
Regarding the copyright issue, I've yet to see any user manual that isn't copyrighted. Whether the company wants to enforce it is another matter but Phil is correct, this is intellectual property owned by Epson.
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I'm not sure this is a workable model. Sure it works for cars but that's because there are millions out there and the dealers have dedicated service departments (and you bring your car to them). Far fewer large format printers and you would be looking at a service call to your home/business for this maintenance. It would probably require a rather large field force to do this type of servicing if all installed users buy into this program. Economically it is problematic.
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And sadly, you're right because it would basically require altering a business model. I'm just gonna send out for Eric to come visit my studio... ;D
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If the print head is changed there is Non volatile ram(Nvram) in the printer that must be updated. This is done with Servprog.exe for the Epson 7900. One of the service manuals describes how to do this procedure. The problem with changing the print head is that it is very expensive and requires an ink purge. For the 7900/9900 the Epson part number for the print head is F191010.
I could not find where it said that the dampers need to be replaced every year in the manual. Can you give me a page number and the manual name(Service manual or field repair guide)?
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Eric, thank you for taking the large amount of time to document and share your experience with us. I was considering heading down this road with my 3800 after partial dissasembly and cleaning the head, capping station and wiper blade did not fit chronic but intermittent clogging and ink splooge issues. In the end iI decided it would be more cost effective to buy a new 3880 with the then available Epson discount, factoring in the value of the ink with the new machine and that most of the carts in the 3800 were getting low, than to risk buying parts for the old machine which might or might not resolve the problem.
I won't go into the IP issues with the service manuals, but my approach to my gear has been, since the days I had the engine for my VW bus spread out in pieces on the floor of my parents' garage, is that if I can, I'm going to fix it myself, and believe that a manufacturer should make the necessary information available on request for a reasonable price.
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Eric, congrats on a truly impressive photograph. Thanks for sharing it.
There is, perhaps a somewhat personal - so don't feel compelled to answer - question I would like to put here - not out of idle curiosity but because it may be useful for Epson to know this and better understand at least one other dimension of the "service environment" they are providing or not providing as the case may be. Did you decide to go the self-directed route because the cost of a servicing from Epson was just going to be too expensive, or regardless of cost - too hard to access logistically, or are you doing it out of curiosity to learn how much of the innards of this machine you can master and fix as sort of a hobby for personal satisfaction?
Sorry for the delayed response Mark. Good question. A few different points led us to the "roll up your sleeves and dive in" approach:
1 - the impression I get from many posts here on Luminous Landscape, and other forums actually, is that a large part of the Epson tech repair process seems to be somewhat randomly bolting new parts onto your machine until it works again, or in some cases until it still does not work again. Then they leave. Then they come back. Or maybe they replace the entire machine - yet sometimes even then the problem is not solved.
2 - I have read many threads about problems with these Epson 79/9900 printers, specifically about the incessant clogging, endless ink wasting, maintenance tank replacements, huge money being flushed down the drain and then most importantly wasting the one thing more precious to us than anything, time. All these things made a hell of an impression on me - yet considering reason # 1, I saw no viable solution. And trust me - I searched, I wrote, I read, and I asked. I found no answer.
3 - I am a carpenter, work for myself. When I produce, I get paid. When I do not produce, no matter how much I sweat or how long I work at something, I do not get paid. The reality of that aspect of my life completely skews my value system. As a result I am uncomfortable paying someone by the minute while they rack-up what could possibly be an entirely unnecessary parts and labor bill.
4 - One simple lesson my father etched inside my brain forever is this, "If you don't understand it, you can't fix it."
So maybe it's a personal defect, I don't know, but following protocol didn't seem like my answer. That's why I dove in.
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4 - One simple lesson my father etched inside my brain forever is this, "If you don't understand it, you can't fix it."
Were we separated at birth??? My dad said the same thing to me!!!
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Very understandable.
The difference between you and me is that I would have given them a chance to prove themselves, and if they failed, not let go of them until they did the needful properly and at reasonable cost. But being a carpenter you are a much more hands-on kind of guy than I am in terms of working with tools and equipment, so we each approach issues based on how we've wired ourselves to do so - most interesting. I'm really keen to hear the outcome of all this. My vibes tell me you will succeed.
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I had come across this interesting tidbit of info about cleaning the wiper blade of the 7800 model yesterday...
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=FAQ&oid=60321&prodoid=55197365&foid=76766
I still have my 7800 along with my 3800. Recently sold my venerable 4000 to a photog that drove two hours to get it with his buddy. I haven't had to even look at the 3800 (like ZERO clogs), but I regularly cleaned the wiper bladed on the 4000, and also the 7800.
To think that the x900 and x89x printers have made this part so inaccessible is quite disturbing. This should have been designed as a user replaceable part since it is subject to such wear and it's failure can cause so many problems.
Nothing like spending a $1,000 dollars to replace a 3 dollar part!
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David - that's how it works here in Australia, too.
Authorised repairers or parts distributors will sell parts as requested and will provide exploded diagrams so that people can identify the parts they want / need. I'm sure there are variations in different parts of the world (different delivery models), but that seems very similar to how it is here.
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Progress report:
This Epson 7900 is back together, almost. As it turns out the "Pump and Cap Assembly" comes completely assembled from Epson. No small feat indeed. This "one" part includes everything from the metal framework which supports all these parts, to the two drive motors, their sensors, a wiring harness with a total of nine plugs, gears used to move the capping station back and forth, the flushbox up and down along with the wiper blade mechanism, the pump motor, it's hoses, a huge plastic shroud containing all these moving parts, and on and on. This "Pump and Cap Assembly", no kidding, it's 1.5 cubic feet all together, weighs 3lbs and looks like it's taken from a scene in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". All that for $250? Doesn't make sense. You know what else doesn't make sense though?
....The wiper blade is not included.
My first reaction to learning that was, "WTF?" But then I thought about it. What does that tell you? I don't know what it tells you. But I know what it tells me - you and I are not the only ones who now know the wiper blade is meant to be replaced more often than the pump and cap assembly. FYI, the wiper blade mechanism snaps into place, and out of place, with nothing more than a simple squeeze of your finger tips. You don't even have to remove the right side cover of the machine. The only hitch in so simply replacing the wiper blade mechanism will be coordinating the placement of it with the release of your printers head. At this point, because we won't fire this printer up until mid-week, I can't tell you if the wiper blade assembly will be retracted up into it's "garage" when the head is released or not. It travels up and down in a range of about three inches. When it is up you can't access it. When it is down it's right there out in the open.
We lost so much ink in the first and second failed DIY clog attempts that we have to wait for new carts to show up mid-week before we can charge this machine. At least now it's together though. Almost.
Once done soaking it's chin and upper lip in cleaning solution, our head looks fantastic. We checked it with a loop. Pretty wild looking device. But still I had a lingering concern that if something foreign was lodged inside this head, up against an opening the Epson pump pressure was never able to force it through, well most likely it would still be there. After all our soaking method looked amazing, and sounded really cool, but the one thing it did not do was reverse the direction of ink-flow - something both Steve and I felt was a necessary step. We took a syringe with a section of clear hose fastened to it's tip, fit it over the nipple on the rear of the head of each color - one at a time - and sucked cleaning solution up through the head's face from the small bowl just below it. Each color filled this clear tube with traces of it's native color channel. All but the PK channel was crystal clear of any foreign pollution. But the PK channel definitely drew up some crap. It's a good thing we took this extra step.
So we wait now for the Lone Ranger to show up with carts filled with ink. It's good to see this 7900 together again, almost. Assembly went without a hitch. But I do have to admit, at this point there is a terrible lingering fear I can't seem to shake that the first landscape we run through this machine will come out look more like an infrared wartime surveillance image than a fall mountain range in mid-October. Time will tell..
Again and again and again I need to hear myself advise anyone looking to clear un-clearable clogs all on their own, on an Epson 79/9900, do NOT waste your time or money buying re-fillable carts with the intent to fill them with cleaning solution to flush your system and head. HUGE waste of money, won't solve the real problem your printer is suffering from, and it will re-define for you what exactly a "Huge waste of ink" actually is.
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.......... won't solve the real problem your printer is suffering from, and it will re-define for you what exactly a "Huge waste of ink" actually is.
Eric, now that you've done all this work - what do you think is "the real problem" the printer was suffering from? I can see several from what you've reported. And BTW - the name of the cleaning solution you used?
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There are three manuals for the Epson 7900. You should be able to Google for them and get them for free on the internet (It does take a bit of searching to find the free versions).
Epson Field repair guide - download at American InkJet Systems
Full name: Pro 7900 and 9900 Field Repair Guide
Google - <"Epson Stylus Pro 7900" "service manual">
Full name: Service Manual Epson Stylus Pro 7900/9900
Google - <"Parts Manual" "epson Stylus Pro 7900">
Full Name: Parts Manual Epson Stylus Pro 7900/9900
The Parts manual contains the mechanical drawings for the Epson 7900. Any one of the 5 parts distributors should be able to cross the mechanical part number for the actual Epson part number. This is how I ordered a capping station for my Epson 3800.
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Mark, two cartridges that our 7900 came with have expired dates. Want to guess which ones? That's right, PK and YW - our two un-cloggable clogs.
I called Epson, asked them about expired ink causing clogs. They told me expiration dates have nothing to do with clogs - only color shifts. I told them the only channels I have clogs are on my expired carts. Again they told me, "No connection."
I don't know, like I said originally all of you know more than me - I am just an enthusiast. But I don't have much faith in that advice.
What I think our problem was, and what I personally think most of everyone else's problems are, are related to wiper blade condition/wear/effectiveness. The impression I got from holding it in my finger tips, and examining the cruddy splooge built up on it's torn and listing shape, was that this wiper was causing more problems than it was clearing. Once I held our head in my finger tips, and took the photos I have uploaded for everyone here to see, my original impressions were reinforced. Our head was a disgusting mess, and the only thing that's ever touched it is our wiper blade.
I am actively developing my understand of this Epson 7900. So far I plan to approach running it successfully like I might consider lines of defense in a preventive war against clognsplooge. First line of defense is pre-nozzle - dates on carts. Dampers come second. After those we go post-nozzle. Capping station seals. First they need to be in good condition, next they need to be clean. Wiper blades need to be perfect. Not great, not good enough - but perfect. Once not perfect they leave crap behind them on our heads and our capping station seals can't seal properly. Air enters the picture, dries the clognsplooge and suddenly we need cleanings on the LK channel. We do a cleaning and suddenly we've got crap on the MK channel. Then rather than printing we're on Luminous Landscape.
I don't know, I'm not there yet, but my idea for the future is to drop cleaning solution on our wiper blade before any cleaning. Also on the capping station regularly. Periodically I plan to snap out the wiper blade to inspect it. If it is not easily accessible when the head is released I will modify the machine so that it is. Too critical not to. With the right side cover removed you simply reach around back of the pump and cap assembly, spin the gear which lowers the wiper blade assembly until it is accessible, then snap it out/in to replace it. But this is too much work. Too hard to access for such a vital/simple/thirty second key maintenance practice. With the right side cover in place (huge plastic right side outer-body panel) you can't reach around back of the pump and cap assembly to spin that gear. If releasing the head via the menu system does not sync with the wiper blade assembly being out from behind it's recessed hiding place, I will cut a permanent hole in the back of the printer body panel so we can very easily access the gear to lower the wiper. If you can open the back of a human you can open the back of an Epson 7900. This thing pisses me off bad enough I'll design an Epson 7900 wiper blade access door and hire a machinist to produce six hundred to hand out at the next large format printer convention.
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Hi Phil,
My gripe is that of the 5 that Epson says are authorized dealers, only the one I linked to actually has any useful info at all and even that is sketchy to say the least.
A exploded diagram without a description of the parts is pretty chancy if one needs a better breakdown.
We do have to remember one thing which is that these machines are designed for Pro use on a very regular basis, and knowing that, casual users should be aware that they are buying at their own risk if they don't use them often enough to prevent clogs, which are the primary reason for most of these posted problems. ;)
My only (and I think very substantial gripe) with Epson, is not disclosing recommended service intervals that are very much necessary to keep these machines running smoothly!
Hi David,
Well, exploded diagrams are there for visual reference so you can go "that one!" without needing to know what it does specifically beyond the fact you've decided that it doesn't work or it's broken. For most users, it's a cosmetic item, but someone technical or specifically trained, the diagrams are generally easy to work with.
With regard to information from the dealers, then that's certainly something you should feedback to your local Epson. But I would say, have you called them? They might not have great web info, but that doesn't mean that they can't help you.
Also, regarding service intervals - my experience is that even very heavily used machines in the main do not require any service or maintenance - certainly not within 1 year. That doesn't mean that users can't decide to take a pro-active stance and on a 6 monthly or yearly basis have a service tech come out and give the unit a quick health check. If I had an expensive piece of equipment upon which my business relied, I'd certainly be pro-active about it. It also doesn't mean that other users haven't found the need for this - it's always a case of YMMV, but the manfacturer can only go the normal or average patterns as best they can and for a product used in such wide ranging environments, that can be tough.
To use another anology - Toyota has a set schedule for maintenance of a Landscruiser model, but in the past when I've done long distance outback trips either myself when I was much younger or more recently with friends, it seemed very prudent to have a check up and service before going regardless of what the mileage was reading at the time. Why? Because a mechanical failure in outback Australia will be at the very least exceedingly expensive to deal with and it's no exaggeration to say it could be life threatening. A single point of failure in my business is something that needs to be managed, regardless of what the manufacturer might suggest based on normal usage :-)
But, yeah, my suggestion would be to tell Epson that you found their appointed agents to be below your expectation in regard to the amount of info available - they can't possibly do anything about it if no one tells them.
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Eric - from personal experience I can tell you that expired, but UNOPENED cartridges which have been kept in reasonable condition (ie not in direct sunlight or very excessive heat etc) won't be a problem. Even in terms of colour, typically you just need to agitate them to deal with possible pigment separation.
To be specific, I've used carts that have been 3 years out of date on previous models (7880/9880) and with the HDR insket about 2 years out of date is the longest I've used.
Now, if they had been used (ie opened) or exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods and so on, then yes I could understand that causing a problem.
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Mark,
I have linked to the AIS site many times in the past threads about 7900/9900 clogging, and referred to their cleaning solution(s) for applying to the capping station to keep it moistened.
http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/Unclogging_print_head_nozzles.html I have asked eric if this is what he used.
I was admonished for suggesting using a solution that could possibly have detrimental consequences to the head.
Apparently at one time Epson offered a cleaning solution according to some references I have found... hmm
David
Hi David, sorry I've been bouncing around goals and subjects my mind is mush right now. The solution I purchased was not from AIS. I had a hell of a time navigating around their website. On my browsers - both safari and firefox - all the text goes janky when I scroll up or down on any and all pages. Impossible to read. Can't explain or understand it, never saw it before.
The solution I purchased is called "Pemla".
Product code: PJSE10273-1000
Description: EDI Cleaning Fluid
Reference: JDW101-MC
Lot #: 48981-1
I did see your post describing the wiper blade not being included with the Pump and Cap Assembly. But the image of the unit I purchased, which was admittedly wrapped in clear plastic, looked like it had it. I was wrong. That's 1,456 for the year so far...
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Now, if they had been used (ie opened) or exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods and so on, then yes I could understand that causing a problem.
I have no idea how long these expired carts have been opened for, Farmer. I can assume but I'm already up to 1,456 "wrongs" for the year...
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Have you been able to purchase the wiper blade assembly?.
Thank you David that's what I need in my life - big red letters - I'd never forget anything..
The wiper blade assembly, here's what I have so far:
Wiper blade assembly
568 1504179
$16
Ordered from the same guy I bought the cleaning carts and solution from - Anthony Creek. Nice guy, supplies lots of Epson printer parts. His email is dtgsupplies@gmail.com
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BINGO
This is why you never do things alone; my buddy Steve just found in the Epson 7900 service manual the following about replacing the wiper blade assembly:
There is a command in in the serviceman mode that will:
1) move the head carriage out of the way
2) bring down the wiper assembly.
So that's it brothers, simple wiper blade maintenance/replacement. Oh the power of reading.
Crap I really wanted to make six hundred doors
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I only know of the Pemla product from the parts guy whose contact into I gave you. Never went to their site.
In the 7900sm.pdf service manual, on page 182 under 4.4.6.2 "Wiper Cleaner Assy":
1 - turn printer ON in serviceman mode ( Power on while pressing "menu-right arrow", "paperfeed-down arrow", and "OK button")
2 - Select "SELF TESTING"/Maintenance/Wiper Exchange/Sequence
3 - Press "OK button"
(carriage unit moves, then the wiper cleaner assy moves to the replacement position)
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Mark,
I have linked to the AIS site many times in the past threads about 7900/9900 clogging, and referred to their cleaning solution(s) for applying to the capping station to keep it moistened.
http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/Unclogging_print_head_nozzles.html I have asked eric if this is what he used.
I was admonished for suggesting using a solution that could possibly have detrimental consequences to the head.
Apparently at one time Epson offered a cleaning solution according to some references I have found... hmm
David
David, thanks, I've seen that site before - looks to be very useful at least for understanding the problems. I'd like to be using materials that Epson recommends if I were to ever do this kind of stuff myself - admittedly, rather unlikely.
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Hi David,
................... have a service tech come out and give the unit a quick health check. ...............
Phil, I don't know what the situation is in Australia but here in Toronto I'd be pleased if someone could point me to an authorized Epson service facility for an Epson x900 series printer. The first three pages of a search on Google turned up nothing, and from my experience, Epson's preferred solution for machines under warranty is to replace them. The procedure is smooth and the company's support in these matters has been stellar, hence it looks to me as if Toronto owners would best be advised to buy extended service warranties. The Epson presence in the Toronto area no longer includes their own repair facilities. When Epson vacated the repair function of their support platform in Canada, they developed a contract with a firm called Treck-Hall, which since became Mondrian-Hall and later again became Unisource. They no longer advertise service and Epson did not refer me to them last time I needed help.
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I only know of the Pemla product from the parts guy whose contact into I gave you. Never went to their site.
In the 7900sm.pdf service manual, on page 182 under 4.4.6.2 "Wiper Cleaner Assy":
1 - turn printer ON in serviceman mode ( Power on while pressing "menu-right arrow", "paperfeed-down arrow", and "OK button")
2 - Select "SELF TESTING"/Maintenance/Wiper Exchange/Sequence
3 - Press "OK button"
(carriage unit moves, then the wiper cleaner assy moves to the replacement position)
Eric,
After replacing the wiper via the above method. Do you do anything to reset out of the service mode,if you know? Will everything just go back into place on its own?
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I have my fingers crossed that when you fire it up the printer will work.
If it looks like it is working, look at the following items in the Service Manual to make sure the print head is aligned correctly.
5.4.4 Printhead Slant Adjustment (CR) page 277
5.4.5 Printhead Slant Adjustment (PF) page 280
5.4.6 Auto Uni-d Adjustment page 282
5.4.7 Auto Bi-D Adjustment page 283
Check the Service Manual for any other adjustments needed on the printhead.
The Decision One serviceman did all four things when my printhead was replaced.
When replacing the wiper do not touch the rubber piece with your hands. You do not want to get human oils on the cleaning part of the wiper.
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In the case of the OP, he is not replacing the head. The head that goes back in is the original head and if he has been careful, which it seems he has, he should be good to go when the head is re-installed.
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Hi Dan,
I can answer that for you..
According to the manual, the right cover, waste tank, and control panel is removed, and then the contol panel is plugged back in when the covers are off. The head is then released through the service mode as Eric indicated, and the wiper assembly is changed out ( all while powered up!).
The manual CAUTIONS NOT TO PRESS ANY BUTTONS ON THE CONTROL PANEL DURING THE PART CHANGEOUT.
After the change there is a counter clearing adjustment that needs to be performed and when that is done you then press the OK button on the control panel to finalize the proceedure which then returns the head to 'home' position.
Then the machine is turned off to replace the cover waste tank and control panel. Fini !
David
Thanks David.
Sounds pretty simple just have to get the nerve up to do it.
After seeing what my 7900 looked like, just am wondering how my 9900 looks?
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Eric,
After replacing the wiper via the above method. Do you do anything to reset out of the service mode,if you know? Will everything just go back into place on its own?
Good question Dan. Here's the rest of the wiper cleaner assembly replacement procedure:
*NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE YOUR MACHINE APART IN ORDER TO CHANGE YOUR WIPER CLEANER ASSEMBLY. The procedure is simple, I suggest (this marks my first official suggestion on Luminous Landscape) that EVERYONE with an Epson 79/9900 forces themselves to get comfortable with this procedure.
6. Turn the printer ON in the Serviceman Mode. (Turn the power ON while pressing [Menu-right arrow], [PaperFeed-down arrow], and [OK] button.)
7. Select SELF TESTING → Maintenance → Wiper Exchange → Sequence.
8. Press the [OK] button.
The Carriage Unit moves, then the Wiper Cleaner Assy moves to the replacement position.
DISASSEMBLING PROCEDURE:
CAUTION - The following procedure is performed with the power ON. Therefore, do not touch any other part specified in the procedure or press a wrong button on the Control Panel. If the [OK] button on the Control Panel is pressed, the Carriage Unit returns to the home position, so be careful.
1 - Push up the tab of the Wiper Cleaner Assy, and remove the Wiper Cleaner Assy.
ADJUSTMENT REQUIRED:
Be sure to refer to Chapter 5 “Adjustment” (see p252) and perform specified adjustments after replacing the Wiper Cleaner Assy.
<Adjustment Item>
1 - Counter Clear (Wiper Cleaner Assy)
*Note: from what I gather this is not a physical adjustment. This is simply a "reset" of the printer's log on your wiper's life cycle. According to the Adjustment Items chart, the Epson 79/9900 printers log the usage life of an amazing number of it's replaceable parts - all of which apparently are accessible/resettable in the "Adjustment Item" menu. When you replace the wiper cleaner assembly, reset the log. If you fail to do this nothing bad will happen, just the printer's log of your wiper cleaner assembly will be inaccurate.
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I have my fingers crossed that when you fire it up the printer will work.
If it looks like it is working, look at the following items in the Service Manual to make sure the print head is aligned correctly.
5.4.4 Printhead Slant Adjustment (CR) page 277
5.4.5 Printhead Slant Adjustment (PF) page 280
5.4.6 Auto Uni-d Adjustment page 282
5.4.7 Auto Bi-D Adjustment page 283
Check the Service Manual for any other adjustments needed on the printhead.
The Decision One serviceman did all four things when my printhead was replaced.
When replacing the wiper do not touch the rubber piece with your hands. You do not want to get human oils on the cleaning part of the wiper.
Great advice. Thank you. Special note, in the "Adjustment Items Chart", if you read it closely there is not only a list of the "parts-replaced" that need adjustment, but actually an order in which they need to be adjusted in. This is all listed clearly so it shouldn't be a problem to follow.
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Hi Eric!
Perhaps you'll consider making a video of the wiper assembly procedure?
Also, if you only remove the wiper assembly to clean it, do you think the counter should be reset or not?
I was very glad to hear that the machine doesn't need to be disassembled to to this!
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No you do NOT have to reset the counter if you remove the wiper assembly and then re-install it. Service manual specifically states this.
Yes I plan to make a few videos on maintaining the 7900. These won't be your average youtube tutorial videos though. I plan to hire Sports Illustrated swimsuit models to star in each of the tutorials. That, or maybe just my genius friend Steve. I'm open to suggestions.
If I can find someone local with a 9900 I'll be glad to include any differences between the two machines. Problem I face right now is my house was robbed on the 20th of December. All my stills gear, all my video gear - gone. D3X, eight of my specially cherished pro lenses, my Sony EX3, my Sony EX1, mattebox, filters, etc. etc. etc. So I'm parked for a while - banished from a life of creativity - left instead to live a life posting about un-breaking my Epson 7900...
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.........Problem I face right now is my house was robbed on the 20th of December. All my stills gear, all my video gear - gone. D3X, eight of my specially cherished pro lenses, my Sony EX3, my Sony EX1, mattebox, filters, etc. etc. etc. So I'm parked for a while - banished from a life of creativity - left instead to live a life posting about un-breaking my Epson 7900...
Terrible. I hope you were insured so at least you can recover some of the value. The Silver Lining may be some new gear for making new photos that get printed in the finally refurbished 7900? (One always has to look on the bright side - but those experience aren't nice. One feels violated, quite apart from the loss.)
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Me again ;-0
According to the Dissasembly instuctions on the wiper it says this is all done while powered up.
I'd imagine you first take the right cover, waste tank ,and control panel off first while the power is off, and then replug the control panel,turn on the power and proceed from there.
Th way it is explained sounds like you do everything with the power on and I think removing the control panel and replacing it while powered up would be dangerous?
Can you in fact remove the wiper assembly without any dissassembly. Is it within reach without the right cover off?
STOP THE PRESSES DAVID
The way the service manual is being interpreted is misleading you. DO NOT take any part of your machine apart in order to replace the wiper cleaner assembly. Go a few posts up and find my quoted procedure on how to do this properly.
If you read the manual and follow it step by step, it is confusing for this procedure. Skip steps 1 - 5, these steps list the procedure for disassembling the right side of your machine - which you need to do in order to replace your entire pump and cap assembly, and which you do NOT do while the machine is powered up (you have to remove the control panel in order to remove the right side of the machine, first step they list after releasing the head is un-plug the machine). DISREGARD these steps, 1 through 5, and you arrive at step 6 - which is the FIRST step to take while changing only the wiper cleaner assembly.
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Phil, I don't know what the situation is in Australia but here in Toronto I'd be pleased if someone could point me to an authorized Epson service facility for an Epson x900 series printer. The first three pages of a search on Google turned up nothing, and from my experience, Epson's preferred solution for machines under warranty is to replace them. The procedure is smooth and the company's support in these matters has been stellar, hence it looks to me as if Toronto owners would best be advised to buy extended service warranties. The Epson presence in the Toronto area no longer includes their own repair facilities. When Epson vacated the repair function of their support platform in Canada, they developed a contract with a firm called Treck-Hall, which since became Mondrian-Hall and later again became Unisource. They no longer advertise service and Epson did not refer me to them last time I needed help.
Hi Mark - obviously I can only speak about the local experience in any real detail. I would suggest asking Epson locally (North America) if they have any authorised/trained service partners in Toronto who could do this. Extended Warranty is a good plan for a critical business printer, but my thinking is that spending a few extra dollars is something that many customers find worthwhile to have it checked over and regularly serviced. Doing it with an authorised service partner avoids any issues of warranty. It's also important to realise that general wear and tear or excessive detritus etc are not warranty matters, hence the health checks.
For a home printer or someone who has few or no time pressures to have a unit back up and running, there's far less reason to worry about it. Most pro photogs have back up cameras, possibly lenses and so forth - if you rely on your printer, why not treat it the same? (The answer is probably the same as to why people will ugprade a camera body regularly at bleeding edge prices but baulk at upgrading software at a fraction of the cost... :-)
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Hi Phil, yes, that makes sense. I do intend to get in touch with Epson Canada about the servicing situation; some firms do come up in a search, with no indication about whether they are authorized Epson service facilities, or have technicians specifically trained on these printers. If anything, this thread has demonstrated the usefulness of having knowledgeable and useful support close at hand for when small repairs or maintenance tasks come up that make a huge difference to machine performance.
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David, thanks, they are in Markham, which lies Northwest of Toronto proper. I do not believe they are an Epson-authorized printer repair facility.
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Progress report:
We lost so much ink in the first and second failed DIY clog attempts that we have to wait for new carts to show up mid-week before we can charge this machine. At least now it's together though. Almost.
Eric,
I truly appreciate the updates and progress you are making with the printer... As I might just be heading down the same road shortly. Are you going to stay with the "official" Epson inks or do you plan to use a different source? Where did you find the Pemla EDI Cleaning fluid for the head? What was your final mixture of fluid and distilled water?
Jeff
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Thanks Jeff. I have yet to operate this printer smoothly or successfully with the Epson inks, so most likely I wouldn't experiment with other inks at least until I do. At this point I have no knowledge on alternate inks. I found the Pemla EDI cleaning fluid as a result of one of my seven million online searches for help cleaning Epson 7900 print head clogs. That's where the "Anthony" contact came from. His email is some number of posts above. As for my other contact, where I found the great prices on the pump and cap assembly, that was a result of one of my three hundred ebay searches.
I need to get better at searches..
I was instructed to dilute the Pemla cleaning fluid to the following ratio: 15% Pemla to 85% distilled water. I was then told to pre-heat the solution before pouring it into the cleaning carts, because apparently warm solution cleans better than cold.
Keep in mind though, this cleaning cart and solution procedure was not successful for us. But the solution definitely WAS successful every other way we used it.
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UPDATE:
I called Epson. Asked them for a wiper cleaning assembly. They gave me the part number, and three telephone numbers to the only (3) official Epson parts distributors in the US. I called every one of them. Are you ready for this?
NO ONE STOCKS EPSON 7900 WIPER CLEANER ASSEMBLIES
Here are the three numbers they gave me:
1 - Oregon - Compass micro (http://compassmicro.com/home.cfm)
no automated menu nonsense - human answers the call. Horrible website, call instead.
2 - New York - National Parts Depot (http://www.nationalparts.com/corp/articles/epson-printers.html)
annoying automated menu nonsense, just press 5 to get where you want. Crap website, just call instead. *NOTE: if you are lucky like I was, the hottest telephone operator on the east coast simply melts you into submission. You will order every part they have.
3 - Georgia - Vance Baldwin (http://vancebaldwin.com/)
best website of the bunch. Don't order the wiper from them, they have a $15 minimum order - the wiper cleaner assembly is less than that.
Of the three Epson parts distributors, I went with Compassmirco.com. They sell the wiper cleaner assembly for $13. The price I quoted in a previous post, $16, was from my Pemla contact, Anthony. Now I understand where he gets his parts from - he had told me direct from Epson, which I now understand is impossible. While I had Compassmicro on the phone I told them about this thread on Luminous Landscape, and how important the wiper cleaner assembly is to the 79/9900's successful use. They said they might stock them in the future.
I ordered FIVE wiper cleaner assemblies - part # 1504179. Why five? Just in case any of you guys want one now. If so send me $13 plus $5 shipping, I will mail it to you in a $5 usps flat rate box. It'll get anywhere in two days for that amount. I will have them Friday, 2/3/12
Eric
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UPDATE:
NO ONE STOCKS EPSON 7900 WIPER CLEANER ASSEMBLIES
Eric
Eric, in a way, this may be very good news - because if more people needed them it would be a moving item and the distributors would stock them. :-)
Now that doesn't help much when the odd order comes in that DOES need one and it's not there, but.......moving from the particular to the general, you see what I mean.
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I've ordered from CompassMicro for years, I think I have listed them on this site before for parts. Years ago I actually ordered Epson's cleaning fluid from them - came from Japan at the time. I still have the gallon jug. They have always been a good company to deal with. I can't wait for that first print, wish the ink would arrive.
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Eric, in a way, this may be very good news - because if more people needed them it would be a moving item and the distributors would stock them. :-)
Now that doesn't help much when the odd order comes in that DOES need one and it's not there, but.......moving from the particular to the general, you see what I mean.
Actually I see this as an indication of a problem. Which kind of makes sense. I think if more people KNEW they needed them, they would order them, and replace them regularly - which could possibly lead to less people having frustrating, time and money wasting clogging issues which actually get worse sometimes with cleanings. But they don't know they need them, like my friend Dan who I got this 7900 from, so they don't order/replace them - which is likely why none of the US distributors stock them. You see the condition of the wiper on this 7900 I got from Dan. And Dan knows printing. He has a 9900 as well. He takes care of his equipment too. Trust me I can tell from the condition of this 7900 I bought from him. But his wiper cleaner assembly was completely shot. My bet is, Dan had no idea it was shot. My next bet is, Dan is likely checking the wiper cleaner assembly on his 9900 right now. My third bet is Dan will order a wiper cleaner assembly today, even if his 9900 doesn't need one. How do I know this? Dan is also a carpenter - we all think alike..
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Yes, that is indeed another way of looking at things - if people don't know what they need, they wouldn't order it and the business wouldn't be there. Raises an intriguing question about how much of the total trouble one sees reported isn't due to this one relatively simple factor? And just think of it - as a result of this thread there will probably be a run on wiper blades............. :-) and even a resale market......:-) Life can be fun!
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I checked my wiper assembly on my 9890 last night. The menu's are slightly different.
This is such a simple procedure that I'm surprised Epson buried this in service mode instead of making it user replaceable like the cutter. I have less than 300 prints on my 9890, but there was some nice dried crusty ink on the back of the wiper blade.
I don't know if it is the same as the 9900/7900, but after replacing the wiper assembly and closing the lid, the head returned to home position and the machine acted like I'd pressed OK.
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I appreciate all this great information. I am fighting clogs in a 7900 also, in the LLK.
There is an alternative cleaning method, if you're willing to enter Service Mode. Below "Maintenance" is "Cleaning", and you can clean, or super clean, or clean with colors. I choose to clean only my LLK, and even within that mode, there are four choices: CL1 through CL4; I am assuming degrees of intensity.
The same bars are missing in each and every nozzle check. Frustrating. Cannot blast thru them.
Eric thought that maybe cleaning thru this Service Mode might use less ink. I have not solved my issue, but I thought it worth reporting about this Service Mode option.
To enter Service Mode, power down the printer, then hold down MENU RIGHT, and PAPER DOWN, and OK, and then power it up, and then let it go thru some paces, and then choose MENU.
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Actually I see this as an indication of a problem. Which kind of makes sense. I think if more people KNEW they needed them, they would order them, and replace them regularly - which could possibly lead to less people having frustrating, time and money wasting clogging issues which actually get worse sometimes with cleanings. But they don't know they need them, like my friend Dan who I got this 7900 from, so they don't order/replace them - which is likely why none of the US distributors stock them. You see the condition of the wiper on this 7900 I got from Dan. And Dan knows printing. He has a 9900 as well. He takes care of his equipment too. Trust me I can tell from the condition of this 7900 I bought from him. But his wiper cleaner assembly was completely shot. My bet is, Dan had no idea it was shot. My next bet is, Dan is likely checking the wiper cleaner assembly on his 9900 right now. My third bet is Dan will order a wiper cleaner assembly today, even if his 9900 doesn't need one. How do I know this? Dan is also a carpenter - we all think alike..
Yes we do think alike. I have not checked this one yet but it is now on my mind.
If the ones you have will fit my 9900 I will buy one. Let me know.
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Yes we do think alike. I have not checked this one yet but it is now on my mind.
If the ones you have will fit my 9900 I will take one. Let me know.
I bought one of the four extras with you in mind, Dan. I'm confident it's the same part but I'll cehck for you. In fact the 7900 & 9900 seem to share a lot of the same parts.
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Hi Eric,
I have only been a silent observer of your journey through the inner world of the 7900 printer, but I would like to say "thank you" for having the patience and fortitude to figure this problem out. All of us 7900 owners will benefit greatly
as a result of your efforts, and you deserve to be commended!
If you still have a wiper blade available, I'd like to take you up on your offer and buy one from you. And I'm keeping my fingers crosse that your printer will be working flawlessly soon!
Thanks. Gary
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Yes we do think alike. I have not checked this one yet but it is now on my mind.
If the ones you have will fit my 9900 I will buy one. Let me know.
Confirmed, Dan. The wiper cleaner assembly, part # 1504179, is the same for both machines - Epson 7900 and Epson 9900. I'll put you down for wiper cleaner assembly #2 of my spare 4.
Jeff = #1
Dan = #2
Gary = #3
#4 is available or I'll keep it as a spare
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Well, I'd love to jump in for a wiper blade too!
I've been mesmerized by your description of the journey through the 7900 - thanks for keeping us all informed on your progress!
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I appreciate all this great information. I am fighting clogs in a 7900 also, in the LLK.
I am writing an article for Photo Technique magazine on the reliability of the x900 printers with an emphasis on the clogging disease, typically with LLK, that some of these printers have. "gwhitf" you seem to be one of those users, and I'd like to hear from you off line if you can spare a couple of emails. That is true for all the others who feel that their machine has been affected as well by what I describe.
You will find ways to contact me on this page: http://jean-christian.net/about/page5/page5.html
Eric, I am one of your numerous fans, and I hope that your problem is not the one I am writing about.
Jean-Christian Rostagni
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Jean-Christian, thank you for the kind words.
By now I am warming up to the reality that what initially drove me to share this journey of my genius buddy and mine, may actually come to fruition - people other than the two of us will benefit from our definitely bold, but possibly stupid, journey.
Oddly, this is not the first bold but possibly stupid journey that we have undertaken together. The first one landed us a hair shy of 11,000 feet with just half a water bottle between us. If we survived that one, we will likely survive this one too.
... I hope
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/_D3X1096.jpg)
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Is there any relation between the clogg frequency per channel and the order of channels wiped? For example the LLK channel more often mentioned, is that one of the last or one of the first to be wiped?
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Is there any relation between the clogg frequency per channel and the order of channels wiped? For example the LLK channel more often mentioned, is that one of the last or one of the first to be wiped?
That's an on-the-ball thought.
.. I like your thinking
*EDIT: Looked at my images of the head from the back, before it came off. Best I come up with is this. Doesn't look like LLK is on either outer bank, right or left..
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1151b.jpg)
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.. I like your thinking
Does not deliver much on this case though :-)
Edit; I expected a wiping order where the dark blacks are at the end and the lightest colors at the beginning. With the stronger colors and light grey in between. The wiper goes over one two channel nozzle surface and is "cleaned" on the "felt", that 5 times. I now assume: first LC-LM, Y-LLK, RED-Green, LK-K, C-M or reversed order. With the "felt" 5x in between (and working well) it will not make much difference which order.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware now:
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/six-canvas-wrap-actions.htm
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I resorted to desperation yesterday, after speaking to Eric on the phone. I was (am) on a deadline, and was trying to salvage a solution on the spot, without calling a service tech. I took a shower cloth, like a loofah, similar to this:
http://www.amazon.com/Salux-Nylon-Japanese-Beauty-Cloth/dp/B002BEHQWI
and I cut off a strip about 12 inches wide by about 3 inches high, and I sprayed Windex onto it, and with the printer in Service Mode, I was able to slide the printhead to the center, raise the lid, and get to the head. I gently slide the wet loofah underneath the printhead, and grabbed each end of the loofah fabric, and with the head in place, stationary, I pulled the loofah fabric back and forth gently across the printhead, in the pattern similar to shining your shoes. The hope was that the fabric would dislodge whatever dried ink was stuck to the LLK area.
Sadly, after doing this twice, the nozzle pattern was the same -- missing bars only in the LLK area, and in EXACTLY the same places. The missing bars never change; always in the same place, and enough of them so that, even printing UniDirection at 2880, the prints have horizontal banding lines, similar that what you might think of as the picture on a BW tube television.
Today, I'm going to soak the loofah in very hot water, and not use the Windex, and try it again, gently.
I am not competent to remove the actual printhead. The printer is out of warranty. And my deadline is looming.
I appreciate everyone's contribution. I now know my printer better than ever, now that I've been in Service Mode with it.
You almost wish that the design of the printhead would allow it to "flip up" or somehow "unsnap" so that the User could get at it. But I doubt Epson wants that to happen.
Scan attached, of Nozzle Check. Levels are skewed to show the colors better. Missing bars seem so subtle, but are enough to cause very obvious banding.
What I've learned from this: I'll always buy a new Epson from now on; never a used one, and I'll buy the extended warranty. And I'll monitor the performance closely. I'm sure the replacement printhead will cost almost as much as the printer is worth.
Note/Update: Just downloaded new Utility and realized that my Firmware was out of date. I have been told that new firmware gives you more cleaning options. So make sure you have Remote Utility downloaded.
(http://199.237.236.200/a/Banding.jpg)
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I am writing an article for Photo Technique magazine on the reliability of the x900 printers with an emphasis on the clogging disease, typically with LLK, that some of these printers have.
Jean-Christian Rostagni
Interesting - you are going to write an article on the *reliability* of the x900 printers (how do you define reliability and what's the context?), wherein we already know the slant, as there will be an *emphasis* on the clogging *disease* (there is a "disease", huh - like you know this already), *typically* (you know this already of course because you've read some web posts about it) *LLK* that *some* of these printers have (and how many is *some*, what percentage of the total number of these printers on the market? - remember Epson probably has far more market share in the fine-art inkjet market than probably every other make combined). I can already detect from that one sentence how the chances of this article being an objective scientific piece with real operational significance could emerge to be pretty low. I hope Photo Technique magazine has good editors and a taste for objectivity. If they do, they'll make sure you understand pigemted-inkjet technology as implemented not only by Epson, but by Canon and HP too, so you can evaluate it in context and with the objectives of the different technologies at the forefront; they will make sure you have an operationally significant definition of *reliability* in the context of the operating environment these machines are supposed to perform in; they will make sure you know at what point an "issue" becomes a "disease"; they will make sure your sampling methods in respect of sample size sourcing and stratification on a number of dimensions is large and representative enough of the user population from which to draw valid statistical inferences; and finally they will make sure you have the technical background in respect of managing all these variables to satisfy themselves that you can be credible on this subject.
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........... I now know my printer better than ever, now that I've been in Service Mode with it.
You almost wish that the design of the printhead would allow it to "flip up" or somehow "unsnap" so that the User could get at it. But I doubt Epson wants that to happen.
It's easy to be misled into thinking we really *know* something well enough to do anything with it just because we've poked under the hood a bit. If it were me, I'd be less confident, but that's just me. And yes, I agree, I doubt very much Epson wants any of us to be able to muck-around with flipping printheads and doing stuff with them. This is high-tech precision equipment and from their perspective, knowing the innards of these machines better than any of us ever will, the risk of users screwing it up worse than it was to start with would probably loom pretty large in their thinking about what components to make user-accessible (easily).
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I'm not the least bit surprised. The printhead is the crown jewel of their technology and they will do whatever they think they need to do in order to keep it under their own control, for both commercial and reputational reasons.
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I might lose all credibility by sharing this bizarre thought I woke to this morning. I do my most imaginative thinking just before and after sleep.
What if.... now you really have to have an unrealistic imagination to even picture this - you have an unclog-able clog like gwhitf does right now. You take your dropper filled with a sterile mix of cleaning solution and distilled water, and "fill" that bay of your capping station. Of course this would work better if the capping station was horizontal in it's parked position, but hear me out. At this point you command the head back into it's parked position and shut the printer down. It seals itself over the head and the solution goes to work - no lint, no abrasions, to pushing splooge into even more nozzle openings. You let the printer sit like this for 24hrs. Come back the next day, with a clean wiper, and do a pairs cleaning on that channel. "Could be" your un-clogable clog is clear..
Nice thought but the plan has flaws, I know. Neither the capping station OR the head on the 79/9900s are horizontal. So we are screwed. No-can-do on the manual head soaking method. Isn't that just a heart breaker? If this thing were a 4800 these un-clogable clogs wouldn't stand a chance. And all because, possibly, the 7900 stands vertical instead of horizontal.
And here is where I threaten my credibility (*DISCLAIMER - I watched a science fiction movie last night, I can't be held responsible for what follows). Release the head, tilt the machine way back, fill the capping station with solution, power the machine down, tilt the machine way forward, come back 24hrs later and do your pairs cleaning.
I don't know. It's unorthodox. Go ahead and shoot me. But after knowing what I do now, I have to confess, I will try this before diving under the 79/9900's hood again, or pushing it off a cliff.
...Dam Buck Rogers
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At about ~$1,800 for an Epson 79/99** printhead, I wouldn't exactly be clamoring to replace it myself, even if out of warranty---and that's assuming I could do it correctly (hey, what are all these leftover parts here?). I'd seriously be considering a new printer, and from a common sense business perspective, that's dangerous territory, because I'm not limited to buying another Epson. I could just as easily buy a Canon, HP, or simply send my work out.
But printer maintenance items (e.g., wipers) should be easily accessible and user replaceable to help users keep their printers singing happily. Isn't that what it's all about? Let Epson continue to sell us that liquid gold....
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I might lose all credibility by sharing this bizarre thought I woke to this morning. I do my most imaginative thinking just before and after sleep.
What if.... now you really have to have an unrealistic imagination to even picture this - you have an unclog-able clog like gwhitf does right now. You take your dropper filled with a sterile mix of cleaning solution and distilled water, and "fill" that bay of your capping station. Of course this would work better if the capping station was horizontal in it's parked position, but hear me out. At this point you command the head back into it's parked position and shut the printer down. It seals itself over the head and the solution goes to work - no lint, no abrasions, to pushing splooge into even more nozzle openings. You let the printer sit like this for 24hrs. Come back the next day, with a clean wiper, and do a pairs cleaning on that channel. "Could be" your un-clogable clog is clear..
Nice thought but the plan has flaws, I know. Neither the capping station OR the head on the x900s are horizontal. So we are screwed. No-can-do on the manual head soaking method. Isn't that just a heart breaker? If this thing were a 4800 these un-clogable clogs wouldn't stand a chance. And all because, possibly, the 7900 stands vertical instead of horizontal.
And here is where I threaten my credibility (*DISCLAIMER - I watched a science fiction movie last night, I can't be held responsible for what follows). Release the head, tilt the machine way back, fill the capping station with solution, power the machine down, tilt the machine way forward, come back 24hrs later and do your pairs cleaning.
I don't know. It's unorthodox. Go ahead and shoot me. But after knowing what I do now, I have to confess, I will try this before diving under the x900's hood again, or pushing it off a cliff.
...Dam Buck Rogers
Eric, I know your concern and area of hard-earned expertise is the 7900 - but just for clarity when we talk x900, that includes the 4900, and it does have a conventional horizontal head configuration. I'm hoping never to have to take advantage of that fact with my 4900, but then again, one never knows.
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At about ~$1,800 for an Epson 79/99** printhead, I wouldn't exactly be clamoring to replace it myself, even if out of warranty---and that's assuming I could do it correctly (hey, what are all these leftover parts here?). I'd seriously be considering a new printer, and from a common sense business perspective, that's dangerous territory, because I'm not limited to buying another Epson. I could just as easily buy a Canon, HP, or simply send my work out.
But printer maintenance items (e.g., wipers) should be easily accessible and user replaceable to help users keep their printers singing happily. Isn't that what it's all about? Let Epson continue to sell us that liquid gold....
KD, this makes a lot of sense to me - if in fact the wiper is truly such a consumable and if in fact it could be made easily accessible without running the risk of users damaging a bunch of other stuff, it would indeed be a good idea for Epson to either design it for better accessibility, or provide instructions to users on how to replace it safely in their existing printers. I too have come across this issue of -possibly- the wiper smearing sludge to other places on the head, but that was years ago in the Epson 4000 days.
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...one never knows. ;D I like that Mark. Thanks for the correction. I am NOT an expert at any of this. I will edit that now.
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I'm not the least bit surprised. The printhead is the crown jewel of their technology and they will do whatever they think they need to do in order to keep it under their own control, for both commercial and reputational reasons.
I guess I would disagree here. Look at the automobile industry. Each manufacturer implements their design differently and uses differing components. True, it is more difficult to be a DIY (do it yourselfer) these days because a lot of what has been done in the last 15 years is to put computers on cars. However, a lot of 3rd party repair facilities are open and certainly a lot of the mundane stuff (fluid changes, brake repair, etc) can be done by the user should he/she wish (and without voiding any warranty on the automobile!). Epson printers are not any more difficult from a 2012 car in terms of the mechanics and design (though one could argue the printer is a lot less rugged). Epson have chosen (in my view not wisely) to keep everything close to the vest which really doesn't make sense. Their two major competitors have very different technology implications and I doubt that Epson's approach to printing is threatened in those terms.
A number of us probably have the necessary skills to do maintenance and overhauling of these printers if we had both the time and inclination. Unfortunately, Epson have made this quite difficult. I can see them making an argument that doing self-repairs would void a warranty but I'm really talking about the out of warranty printers.
alan
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This is high-tech precision equipment and from their perspective, knowing the innards of these machines better than any of us ever will, the risk of users screwing it up worse than it was to start with would probably loom pretty large in their thinking about what components to make user-accessible (easily).
Of course, they're precision machines, but if they're this temperamental, maybe they should be sold only with a Service Contract. You want a printer -- you're required to buy a Service Contract. You don't buy a Service Contract, then you only get a 30-day warranty.
Maybe they ought to treat this segment of the market like PhaseOne/Hasselblad/Leaf, and let their cute little consumer printers be Nikon and Canon.
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- you have an unclog-able clog like gwhitf does right now. You take your dropper filled with a sterile mix of cleaning solution and distilled water, and "fill" that bay of your capping station. Of course this would work better if the capping station was horizontal in it's parked position, but hear me out. At this point you command the head back into it's parked position and shut the printer down. It seals itself over the head and the solution goes to work - no lint, no abrasions, to pushing splooge into even more nozzle openings. You let the printer sit like this for 24hrs. Come back the next day, with a clean wiper, and do a pairs cleaning on that channel. "Could be" your un-clogable clog is clear..
Problem is we really don't know what the optimal cleaning solution might be. The chemistry of the inks is a trade secret of Epson and while the black and grey inks are based on carbon black, the polymers and other solvents that make up the remainder of the active part of the ink (I discount the water!!) are not disclosed. There is an issue of making sure you had the right cleaning formulation which would require some type of solvent in addition to water to work. It would have to be mild enough not to chemically damage the print head but strong enough to dislodge the clog (we also don't understand the actual physical properties of the clog, it could be poor quality control of the ink resulting in particles that are too large for the nozzle or something physically wrong with the printer where part of the head dries out, etc.). I think it's more difficult than just "soaking" or "wiping".
Alan
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Of course, they're precision machines, but if they're this temperamental, maybe they should be sold only with a Service Contract. You want a printer -- you're required to buy a Service Contract. You don't buy a Service Contract, then you only get a 30-day warranty.
Maybe they ought to treat this segment of the market like PhaseOne/Hasselblad/Leaf, and let their cute little consumer printers be Nikon and Canon.
Hi GW, I didn't say the reason has anything to do with "temperamental". I'm not sure in general that they are so temperamental. But when you are dealing with machinery of this character, certain aspects of its servicing obviously requires specialized training. Epson, or any manufacturer for that matter, needs to make judgments about how much they think is "safe" to put in the hands of users - remembering the vast range of adeptness out there - not everyone is an Eric - and how much they should reserve to trained technicians. I have no basis for second-guessing that judgment. And no - I'd still prefer to have a one year warranty with my printer, and an option to buy a service contract pretty much as they offer it now. That's a decent protection package.
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I guess I would disagree here. Look at the automobile industry. Each manufacturer implements their design differently and uses differing components. True, it is more difficult to be a DIY (do it yourselfer) these days because a lot of what has been done in the last 15 years is to put computers on cars. However, a lot of 3rd party repair facilities are open and certainly a lot of the mundane stuff (fluid changes, brake repair, etc) can be done by the user should he/she wish (and without voiding any warranty on the automobile!). Epson printers are not any more difficult from a 2012 car in terms of the mechanics and design (though one could argue the printer is a lot less rugged). Epson have chosen (in my view not wisely) to keep everything close to the vest which really doesn't make sense. Their two major competitors have very different technology implications and I doubt that Epson's approach to printing is threatened in those terms.
A number of us probably have the necessary skills to do maintenance and overhauling of these printers if we had both the time and inclination. Unfortunately, Epson have made this quite difficult. I can see them making an argument that doing self-repairs would void a warranty but I'm really talking about the out of warranty printers.
alan
Hi Alan - not sure the analogy works here. I'm referring to one specific and key component in a printer. A car has a huge number of assemblies and parts that are and should be third-party serviceable. Even with the cars as you correctly point out how they are made these days, for certain components the third-party folks have no choice but to revert to the manufacturer for certain replacement assemblies. In the specific case of the Epson printhead - let's face it - this is the core of their IP and it's quite reasonable to expect they'd be leery of losing control over it for any number of sensible reasons. Wiper blades is perhaps another story.
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RE: Windex Method
I would not "shoe shine" your print head! You want to use a lint free cloth like the pec pads. Let the head sit over the dampened cloth for a time-say 20 minutes, and then swipe in only one direction. You may have to repeat several times.
If you have a super glob of ink, you'll likely have to put cleaner on the cap for that channel and let soak over night.
RE: LLK... and capping station.
Each color pair has it's own "cap" with a rubber seal. I think perhaps you are not getting a perfect capping of the LLK channel. If the cap is off just a fraction, you'll have your head exposed to air, and ink drying. My 9890 has more issues with the yellow channel than the LLK, but the LLK can drop out.
Also look for AIR in your lines. If you can see large gaps of air in the lines, only a power clean can pull them through. I have bad memories of my 4000's habit of drawing air into the lines when not in regular use. If the nozzle isn't capped, then air could also be drawn into the head/damper...
... at least this is my take on the issue ... looking at the capping station it'd be very hard to see if you're getting a perfect seal.
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RE: Windex Method
I would not "shoe shine" your print head! You want to use a lint free cloth like the pec pads. Let the head sit over the dampened cloth for a time-say 20 minutes, and then swipe in only one direction. You may have to repeat several times.
If you have a super glob of ink, you'll likely have to put cleaner on the cap for that channel and let soak over night.
RE: LLK... and capping station.
Each color pair has it's own "cap" with a rubber seal. I think perhaps you are not getting a perfect capping of the LLK channel. If the cap is off just a fraction, you'll have your head exposed to air, and ink drying. My 9890 has more issues with the yellow channel than the LLK, but the LLK can drop out.
Also look for AIR in your lines. If you can see large gaps of air in the lines, only a power clean can pull them through. I have bad memories of my 4000's habit of drawing air into the lines when not in regular use. If the nozzle isn't capped, then air could also be drawn into the head/damper...
... at least this is my take on the issue ... looking at the capping station it'd be very hard to see if you're getting a perfect seal.
Hi chaddro - you are on to something here. I also think the seating of the capping station can be an important issue and a good clue is when one channel is more systematically affected than any other. I've seen that, but I did not delve into the capping station - it was suggested to me as a possible cause of a problem.
On the issue of air - YES - and this goes back to my days on the Epson 4000. When I discussed this matter with Epson, one of their senior technical support people recommended to run prints between regular cleaning cycles, because repeated cleaning cycles in tight sequences can trigger such issues. It helped improve cleaning effectiveness a lot when I followed that advice, and worked around the need for power cleaning which uses a lot of ink.
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Hi Mark,
Yes, I broke my teeth in on the 4000. Read endless posts on the issue of clogging with this baby. I bought new when it came out and only JUST sold it a couple months ago. I had the extended warranty twice just from sheer concern. But, back in those days, the Epson techs seemed to have a great degree of training.
My observations are from those and later with my 7800. These printers have 1 seal for the entire head. But these new x900 and x980 printers have a seal for each color pair. You can see the capping station when it's printing, but I haven't tried to look closer at it.
Instead, I've pestered Epson enough to get some ink for my inconvenience. The tech I spoke with didn't want to admit a problem with the printer. Said it "might" be the ink cartridge...
Me, I think it's either a capping station or damper issue.
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Of course, they're precision machines, but if they're this temperamental, maybe they should be sold only with a Service Contract. You want a printer -- you're required to buy a Service Contract. You don't buy a Service Contract, then you only get a 30-day warranty.
Ironically, I just received a call today from Epson about my recent service experience and gave them this very same feedback! A professional printer without establishing a realistic warranty period is absolutely crazy, the lack of service guidance on how to properly maintain the unit in optimal condition (under the right environment) – is totally off the mark, and options for support (besides Decision One) is paramount in keeping loyal customers.
As for the “out of warranty” service experience, I’m sitting on the sidelines with a clogged LLK nozzle (80-90%) and no immediate resolution insight…
Jeff
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Jeff, on new machines they offer a one year warranty and then a service contract one can buy for two more years. Do you think that's unreasonable? It's not as good as the warranty on my car, but that's a different animal in a different market. I haven't looked into this, but are Canon and HP offering better warranties? My main concern about service here in Canada isn't so much the length of the warranty, but the *apparent* (at least to me, after some digging) lack of in-city trained, authorized service, even in a market as large as Toronto. This was not the case back in the days of the 4800, when they did have an authorized and very decent third-party service provider. As for your clogged LLK channel, I would suggest you NOT let it sit on the sidelines, just keep at them - with escalation as needed - until it gets fixed in whatever manner you and they agree.
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Hi Alan - not sure the analogy works here. I'm referring to one specific and key component in a printer. A car has a huge number of assemblies and parts that are and should be third-party serviceable. Even with the cars as you correctly point out how they are made these days, for certain components the third-party folks have no choice but to revert to the manufacturer for certain replacement assemblies. In the specific case of the Epson printhead - let's face it - this is the core of their IP and it's quite reasonable to expect they'd be leery of losing control over it for any number of sensible reasons. Wiper blades is perhaps another story.
Any potential competitor can buy an Epson printer and take it apart to see what makes it tick and see if it can be reverse engineered. The thing that controls the IP in this case are the patents and trade secrets. Patents would apply to the print head and the trade secrets to the inks (though an enterprising chemist could potentially figure out the inks and the fact that their are third part inksets for Epsons implies that someone has done exactly this). I don't see this as a "control" issue since with most all consumer goods, the manufacturer only covers repairs under the warranty period. My understanding of the thread so far is that getting the service manual from Epson is not possible as is getting the replacement print head. I suspect that Epson are trying to control who is "licensed" to repair these printers and this is what I'm objecting to particularly since it appears that customers have had various degrees of satisfaction.
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Any potential competitor can buy an Epson printer and take it apart to see what makes it tick and see if it can be reverse engineered. The thing that controls the IP in this case are the patents and trade secrets. Patents would apply to the print head and the trade secrets to the inks (though an enterprising chemist could potentially figure out the inks and the fact that their are third part inksets for Epsons implies that someone has done exactly this). I don't see this as a "control" issue since with most all consumer goods, the manufacturer only covers repairs under the warranty period. My understanding of the thread so far is that getting the service manual from Epson is not possible as is getting the replacement print head. I suspect that Epson are trying to control who is "licensed" to repair these printers and this is what I'm objecting to particularly since it appears that customers have had various degrees of satisfaction.
Alan,
Yes, any potential competitor can buy each others' machines and dissect them, and I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that ALL of them do exactly that. So?
Yes, Patents and trade secrets control IP. BUT, there are most likely patents covering not only the printhead per se but every patentable component of the printhead. And likewise for the inkset. There are three registered patents on each ink for my 4900, so it goes beyond trade secrets. Third-party manufacturers may have analyzed the content of Epson inks, but they may have gone about it differently too. We don't know that. Interestingly, at least as far as I know, there are no pending lawsuits against thirty party ink manufacturers, so presumably no clear evidence of patent infringement.
Now about patents and control: my understanding is that patents are meant to control the dissemination of technology for the benefit of the patent-holder for the duration of the patent. Otherwise what else are they for? If part of that control means not releasing components to third-parties, it would seem they have that right, otherwise they would face legal challenges on grounds of restrictive trade practices; I wonder if anyone has tried suing for this. Whether they SHOULD operate this way is of course another matter.
Many companies control who is allowed to service their stuff by having authorized service agents. That doesn't prevent others from trying to service whatever - until they need parts they can't get, and then we are back to the item just above. I would like to have the comfort of knowing that whoever services my Epson printer has been trained by Epson on that model. My concern actually is the apparent shortage of trained service personnel, at least here in Canada.
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Alan,
Yes, any potential competitor can buy each others' machines and dissect them, and I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that ALL of them do exactly that. So?
Yes, Patents and trade secrets control IP. BUT, there are most likely patents covering not only the printhead per se but every patentable component of the printhead. And likewise for the inkset. There are three registered patents on each ink for my 4900, so it goes beyond trade secrets. Third-party manufacturers may have analyzed the content of Epson inks, but they may have gone about it differently too. We don't know that. Interestingly, at least as far as I know, there are no pending lawsuits against thirty party ink manufacturers, so presumably no clear evidence of patent infringement.
Now about patents and control: my understanding is that patents are meant to control the dissemination of technology for the benefit of the patent-holder for the duration of the patent. Otherwise what else are they for? If part of that control means not releasing components to third-parties, it would seem they have that right, otherwise they would face legal challenges on grounds of restrictive trade practices; I wonder if anyone has tried suing for this. Whether they SHOULD operate this way is of course another matter.
Many companies control who is allowed to service their stuff by having authorized service agents. That doesn't prevent others from trying to service whatever - until they need parts they can't get, and then we are back to the item just above. I would like to have the comfort of knowing that whoever services my Epson printer has been trained by Epson on that model. My concern actually is the apparent shortage of trained service personnel, at least here in Canada.
I just looked at the 3880 cartridges and Epson list four patents. Now some of these patents can actually be on the cartridge itself and how it is designed as well as the ink formulation. Formulation patents are fairly weak since they can be engineered around pretty easily by changing components. Actually, the original function of patents was/is to encourage innovation by disclosing inventions rather than keeping them secret. In return the inventor gets a period of exclusivity where the invention cannot be infringed upon.
I don't think that non-release of parts except to "certified" repair facilities is a restrictive trade practice. Of course there is always the question about whether the repair personnel are competent (which appears to be questionable given what we have read in recent days). You hit the correct nail on the head about whether Epson "should' operate in this manner. I suspect part of the problem that is being experienced is that folks are purchasing large format printers that are really designed to be production machines and used frequently and that this is not necessarily the case. I continue to be amazed at my 3880 (and I think you had a similar experience with the 3800) at how trouble free it is. Perhaps the larger machines require longer ink lines and other stuff that contributes to problematic behavior if not in a commercial setting.
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OK, we're talking two sides of the same coin on patents. They encourage invention by giving the inventors are period of legal respite from competition. You would know all about that in terms of the brand-name versus generic drugs industry. :-) Right?
Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head re the primary issue with these x900 machines. They are intended to be production machines, and used regularly they will experience far fewer ink flow issues than otherwise. I've seen it in my own small way. If I use my 4900 every other day, it's fine; leave it alone for a week or more and it needs to be cleaned. The 3800/3880 is indeed a different animal in this respect. I could leave my 3800 alone for weeks, turn it on, print the nozzle check and it was fine. I seldom experienced any issues with that printer. So that of course raises the question of why - what's the difference? As you point out, major design differences. For one thing, longer ink lines. Heads are different, ink formulation is different. Hard to know exactly, but this question of *why the difference* has been on my mind and it would be really interesting to know the answer.
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OK, we're talking two sides of the same coin on patents. They encourage invention by giving the inventors are period of legal respite from competition. You would know all about that in terms of the brand-name versus generic drugs industry. :-) Right?
It's even worse. Brand name companies come up with a new formulation (usually an extended release form of the drug, reducing the number of pills that need to be taken) and get patients to switch over. It's not uncommon for the original formulation to be off patent with the newer ones still on patent (and of course the company has now convinced patients that the new formulation is more convenient, etc.)
Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head re the primary issue with these x900 machines. They are intended to be production machines, and used regularly they will experience far fewer ink flow issues than otherwise. I've seen it in my own small way. If I use my 4900 every other day, it's fine; leave it alone for a week or more and it needs to be cleaned. The 3800/3880 is indeed a different animal in this respect. I could leave my 3800 alone for weeks, turn it on, print the nozzle check and it was fine. I seldom experienced any issues with that printer. So that of course raises the question of why - what's the difference? As you point out, major design differences. For one thing, longer ink lines. Heads are different, ink formulation is different. Hard to know exactly, but this question of *why the difference* has been on my mind and it would be really interesting to know the answer.
Yes, I've had my 3880 off for up to two months, turn it on and a perfect nozzle check. I would be surprised if the ink formulation were different but that's just a guess. I think that there are some parts of the printer that require exacting tolerance and that a slight deviation can lead to issues (capping station being one of them). I agree that it would be interesting to understand this and I'm sure Epson are keen to as well as money they have to spend on warranty support impacts their bottom line and ultimately higher prices for consumers as this ultimately has to be factored into their balance sheet.
Whenever my 3880 dies, I'll probably take it apart to see what makes it tick (but I don't anticipate that happening anytime soon).
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Alan, based on the advertising (FWIW), the 3880 uses K3+Vivid Magenta, while the x900 series are using "HDR" inks, whatever that means. We'll never know whether the difference is in name only (i.e. marketing hype) or truly a different ink formulation, or a combination thereof. I got some insight from a family member in another service-related branch of industry that every customer support call costs these companies a lot of money (they do cost-out the support infrastructure, divide it by the number of calls and track how much they could reduce costs as a function of reducing the need for calls) - and that's even before they need to spend yet more money on remediation; so yes, clearly, the less trouble to which they need to respond the better for them, and there's no doubt they monitor for this very closely. If our anecdotal evidence is correct that the 3800/3880 series is less prone to ink laydown issues than the x900s, we can trust that they know all about that in depth, and probably knew it from the time the machines were designed; but they are, as you said, aimed at different usage segments so it probably wasn't seen as anything to fret about. But that's speculation.
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I would suggest that if you think the wiper blade should be a user replacable component (and I can't disagree - if there's no pressing technical reason then it could be a very useful innovation) then you need to feedback to Epson.
Remember, most users (I'm talking 99% here, literally) are not capable of doing anything even remotely technical with their printers. Most printers are not used by photographers - they're used by graphic designers or press operators or architects - then some photographers or print shop operators. So the number of technically capable people is very small.
So what needs to be asked for is an end user level designed replacement process. Judging by what people have said here, I suspect most would be fine even if it cost a few more dollars (maybe $25- instead of $16-?) to make a part that was specifically designed for end user replacement. Anyway, feed it back to Epson.
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It reminds me of how Apple changed where the RAM was located in the MacBook Pros. Early on, the RAM was buried inside the machine. I guess they realized how many people wanted to upgrade the RAM, so later, they changed it where it was on the topmost layer -- very easy for most any user to install it.
I agree that this 7900 is meant to be run. I had gone on vacation for a week; when I came home, that's when the problem started with the LLK. I'm not Catholic, but now I feel guilty for going on vacation. More therapy: "Every time I have fun, I come home to problems".
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Alan, based on the advertising (FWIW), the 3880 uses K3+Vivid Magenta, while the x900 series are using "HDR" inks, whatever that means. We'll never know whether the difference is in name only (i.e. marketing hype) or truly a different ink formulation, or a combination thereof. I got some insight from a family member in another service-related branch of industry that every customer support call costs these companies a lot of money (they do cost-out the support infrastructure, divide it by the number of calls and track how much they could reduce costs as a function of reducing the need for calls) - and that's even before they need to spend yet more money on remediation; so yes, clearly, the less trouble to which they need to respond the better for them, and there's no doubt they monitor for this very closely. If our anecdotal evidence is correct that the 3800/3880 series is less prone to ink laydown issues than the x900s, we can trust that they know all about that in depth, and probably knew it from the time the machines were designed; but they are, as you said, aimed at different usage segments so it probably wasn't seen as anything to fret about. But that's speculation.
Hi Mark..........HDR x900 ink is the same as K3+vivid magenta......just has green and orange added. Epson has informed me about this.......a way to verify this is the Epson 7890 uses K3+vivid magenta......the ink carts are interchangeableable between the 7890 and the 7900.
Peter
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Phil,
There is no problem obtaining the part,(from an Epson authorized dealer) and it is a relatively easy snap out -snap in proccedure to replace it the old way , which was to use a command in service mode and reset the usage counter with a bundled utility (Serveprog exe that used to either be in the LFP remote panel or accessed through the service menu in the printer menu itself.
Epson has removed this utility as of over a year ago, and it is now only accessable to serice techs through Epsons Insider site.
According to the manual, the right cover needs to removed to have access and turn the gear that activates the wiper assembly and brings it forward to change it. There used to be a command in the old service menu that would do this without having to remove the cover, but I believe Epson has removed that command also. I haven't tried to do it through the service menu yet because I cannot afford to have my machine down this week untill I finish a large print run I just don't want to risk ant screw up this week. I have in fact ordered 2 wipers from Compas Micro, to have on hand though once we get this issue sorted out.
FROM THE 7900/9900 Field Repair Guide 10/6/10
Servprog.exe Printer Component, Software Item, LCD Display, Printer Button Page 466.
Servprog.exe
Note: Servprog.exe is no longer an ASI enabled service utility. It is available for download on Epson
Insider.
Note: Servprog.exe is the utility that enables counter resets, and some electronic alignments for the
7900 and 9900.
Note: Servprog.exe will work when the Printer is in Ready mode, or in Self Testing mode.
Note: Self Testing mode will allow the Servprog.exe to function with the Printer, when the Printer is in
an error condition.
1. Ensure that the 7900 or 9900 Printer Driver is installed on the system that will be running the
Servprog.exe.
1.1 Verify that the Printer Driver can read the Printer’s ink quantities.
2. Ensure that the Servprog files listed below are all in the same folder.
The problem arises if and when the wipers counter life exceeds the useful wiper life because the age is cumulative from the original wiper life count, if it cannot be reset when doing a self install of a new wiper, Even though Epson will gladly sell you one through their distributer) an error code will essentially shut the machine down!
So now the million dollar question.
What is the wipers service life?
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The problem arises if and when the wipers counter life exceeds the useful wiper life.....
An error code will essentially shut the machine down!
David, we are only two days away from leaving the trenches and once again attacking this hopefully humbled giant of an Epson 7900. On our radar we now have a few key concerns, one of which you have inspired here. I would like to clarify: Is this terminal error code theory based on fact or fear?
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I mean no disrespect. Just wondered if you had come across something definite, or if this was based on a (definitely knowledgeable) hunch. Either way it's on our radar, just like to know how far up the "hurdles to get over" priority list we should put it.
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I know how it's done from a service perspective. I'm suggesting that people feedback to Epson to request to be able to do it without needing to access service utilities and menus.
Epson has never made freely available the service adjustment software (it was most definitely not in the LFP Remote Panel software) - any copies available were obtained and distributed illegally, just as the service manuals are (including the field service manuals).
Again, feedback to Epson that you'd like to be able to replace the wiper blade as an end user consumable - otherwise, what chance do you really think there is for them to decide to do it? :-)
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Reading Phil's post, I don't see any sensitivity - just a helpful suggestion about how to get messages across to Epson, and a statement of fact that the materials are copyrighted, meaning it is not legal to make them available by any means without the permission of the copyright owner. I think that's pretty standard stuff. I don't own a 7900 - I own a 4900, but I clicked that link anyhow and it immediately downloaded the manual. I moused through it and nothing is mentioned about copyright. Perhaps the cover and back pages were not reproduced, or perhaps Epson did not draft this manual. I don't know who else could, but it is"orphaned" as presented from that link, so it would seem its status is unclear. Even if I were interested, I don't think I could seriously use that manual without having had formal, hands on training - but that's just me.
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"(it was most definitely not in the LFP Remote Panel software)"
Phil,
as I said, Epson removed it from wherever it did reside at one time.I'm not sure where it was maybe the driver itsef in the 'utility' tab
AIS.... http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/index.html
distributes the Field service manual freely on their site along with others and they are not in China.
I am quite sure they would not risk legal problems publishing links to the manual.A big Co like Seiko /Epson could shut them down if they desired
to and I'm sure they are very aware of that.
You seem to be very sensative on the matter of IP have you been burned yourself in the past?
I think Epson should be asked why they do not allow users to perform a simple wiper change, just like the cutter blade!
The problem may be that if it is not done exactly as it should you can really screw up the head, and they may feel the risk is too great for the average user to tak that chance?
David - I'm not sensitive about it, and I've posted often enough (well, so I thought) that my comments are *not* directed at people who Google for info and come across this material and have a look at it. They're not to know it's restricted material because it's not presented as such.
As to why Epson does not pursue this? I don't know. It's not my place to say or guess. I make the point, though, because this is a photography forum and photographers rely on protection of IP. It tweaks my sense of irony. I've certainly never been burned (in either direction).
Take a look at the manual for the 3800, for example, where it clearly states on the first or second page, "Copyright © 2006 SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION."
Now, regarding the service software, let me assure you that it was never, ever, distributed publically for general use in any form what so ever, regardless of what that website might say or suggest. It never resided anywhere that the public were allowed to access it. Anyone distributing it is doing so illegally. Should photographers be supporting this, or should they be contacting the vendor and asking for supprot (for example, by providing access to change a wiper blade by an end user)? I think the answer is pretty obvious :-)
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Just in case anyone is curious, there is a huge difference between changing your pump and cap assembly compared to changing your wiper cleaner assembly.
The pump and cap assy, yes, if you're not comfortable with thirty seven scrambled parts on your table top - don't attempt it.
The wiper cleaner assembly a seven year old could change. And it's critical to. Seems almost ill willed to keep you from it (IF in fact they do. We don't know yet. I will confirm over the weekend).
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Sorry, but I think this is not true (I was close to call this argument BS). Graphic designers, architects, press operators are usually very capable. I know a lot of them in Europe at least. Very often they are much more capable than photographers when it comes to output of images on paper.
I think they expect that equipment like a printer simply works. In a production environment they don't have the time to deal with things like this.
Of course they're very capable - they're very capable graphic designers, architects, press operators and so on. No doubt they are also very capable in other areas as well. But it's very unlikely that they're technical minded in terms of pulling a printer apart and doing mechanical or electrical or electronic work on them. Most of these are office environments and the very same people who call someone to fix the office copier (far less complex machine), small desktop inkjet, monitor, computer, etc. There's nothing wrong with that, but often times there are posts here that seem to suggest that just about everyone could (or would want to) pull their own printer apart.
It's again the lens of the internet forums. People who are technically minded are already more likely to post and participate on forums.
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Eric, thanks for your time and effort in documenting your 'journey' with your 7900. It has motivated me to do some (probably long overdue) maintenance on my 7800.
I've done a little online digging about the Service Program which has been mentioned earlier in this thread. It seems to be called "Adjustment Program" for the x800 series and "Service Program" for the x900 series. Among other things, it is used to reset the service counters for maintenance parts, perform various serviceman type adjustments, etc.
The reason for my post is that I believe you will need that program after you reinstall the head. In the 7800 service manual (and I see no reason why the 7900 would be different) at the beginning of the Adjustment section there is a table which specifies the various adjustments required after particular parts are replaced. According to this, a Head Slant Adjustment is required even if the original head is reinstalled. You need the Adjustment/Service Program to do that adjustment. The adjustment itself is described further on in the Service Manual.
A Google search will turn up at least one site where these Adjustment/Service Programs are for sale. No free sources that I could find. Perhaps one of your parts sources can provide it, I don't know. But I think you will need it.
I hope that your machine will soon be turning out some stunning prints.
Regards
Frank
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Maybe the 7991 will either have a way for the user to manually drop some cleaning fluid on the printhead, to clear a clog, or better yet, have some internal way for the printer to inject some cleaning fluid when it auto-detects a clog.
When I entered my Zip Code into the Epson site, to find service, the closest service site was five hours away. I was envisioning me with my 7900 bungied-corded to the roof of my BMW Mini, going down the freeway for five hours. Not pretty.
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For all of you living in the Toronto area or who would want service from an Epson authorized facility in this area, it may be helpful for you to know that (Epson Canada has just informed me) a firm called Unisource Canada is the authorized outlet. This is not not well-known because it isn't advertised and the Unisource website is very ambiguous on the service side. Back in the days of the Epson 4000, the original service supplier Epson referred us to here was Treck-Hall, which subsequently became Mondrian-Hall, and since been merged into Unisource Canada. So there would appear to be continuity.
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Eric, thanks for your time and effort....
The reason for my post is that I believe you will need that program after you reinstall the head. In the 7800 service manual (and I see no reason why the 7900 would be different) at the beginning of the Adjustment section there is a table which specifies the various adjustments required after particular parts are replaced. According to this, a Head Slant Adjustment is required even if the original head is reinstalled. You need the Adjustment/Service Program to do that adjustment. The adjustment itself is described further on in the Service Manual.
A Google search will turn up at least one site where these Adjustment/Service Programs are for sale. No free sources that I could find. Perhaps one of your parts sources can provide it, I don't know. But I think you will need it.
I hope that your machine will soon be turning out some stunning prints.
Regards
Frank
Right there with you Frank. Downloaded it last night. Another hurdle down, followed by another hurdle up - it's windows only and I'm on a mac...
Good thing I love challenges
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Right there with you Frank. Downloaded it last night. Another hurdle down, followed by another hurdle up - it's windows only and I'm on a mac...
Good thing I love challenges
Perhaps you can borrow a Windows laptop from a friend and install it all there temporarily. Another more permanent solution in case you would need recurrent use of PC-only applications is to install Parallels 7 on your Mac, and run Windows 7 as a virtual machine under Parallels. My experience with it is that it works very well; integration is seamless - at least on the current vintage of Intel Macs. Of course you then need to put-up with the endless stream of patches and fixes from Windows, but the basic objective gets achieved.
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Exactly Mark. Thanks for the tip - the next hurdle. I have been so happy since leaving windows eight years ago. And my wife, good lord. Some collect Persian rugs, others exotic cars. Apparently I collected Nikon lenses until they were all stolen. My wife? She collected viruses.
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As long as they were only computer viruses.........:-)
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Oh hell no you did NOT just say that...
I'm on the floor now. Thanks a lot!
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Laughing I hope.
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This morning I called Epson technical support. Told them I bought a wiper cleaner assembly from one of their three US Epson parts distributors, and installed it myself. Guy wasn't familiar with the part. I told him what it was, how easy and vital it was to replace regularly. He agreed. Then I asked him the million dollar question:
Eric; "How do you reset the counter for the wiper cleaner assembly once you've installed it?"
Epson; "Oh I don't think you can do that. ....Yeah, you used to be able to do that on older models but not these new machines. Now a service tech has to do it for you. They use a special computer program on their laptop and reset it for you."
Eric; "I'm pretty confident users used to be able to do this, actually on these particular 79/9900s. But then I think Epson blocked that option with a firmwear update last year."
Epson; "Yeah, that might be true. ...Could be. ....So no, you can't reset the counter on the wiper cleaner assembly."
Eric; "I'm not complaining to you right now, I just want to be clear and fully understand you. We both agree a fresh wiper is vital to the successful use of these 79/9900 printers. We both agree that nozzle clogs on these machines is a particularly common problem. We both agree that while users think they are doing good, by performing multiple cleanings to clear clogs, that in the case of a compromised wiper they are likely making their problems worse. We both agree being that this one part is not included with a pump and cap assembly, which includes every one of the rest of it's parts, it is most likely that Epson expects the wiper cleaner assembly to be replaced far more often than the entire pump and cap assembly And finally we both understand that the 79/9900's wiper cleaner assembly is a $13 part which is painfully simple to replace - a simple snap in and out with your finger tips."
Epson; "Yeah, I do agree"
Eric; "So what you are actually telling me is that to replace this vital $13 snap-in part on on my 7900, it'll cost me $300 in a service call because I can't reset the counter?
Epson; "Yeah, that does seem crazy doesn't it. I don't understand it. But that's how it is. You can't reset the counter yourself."
Eric; "I am a member of a huge community of 79/9900 users, many of whom would like to be able to successfully run and maintain their printers - without having to pay some $300 repair bill to replace a $13 part that takes a tech less than four minutes to replace. So at this point I would like to ask you, because I do believe Epson is a company that wants their users to be successful and happy, who do I call? Who do I email? What form do I fill out and where do I send it - so that Epson can hear feedback and possibly make an adjustment?"
Epson; "That's a very good question. We have nothing in place for that though. There is no one to call or write to. All I can offer you is that I put this request in my log, and submit it. We do log our tech calls - the problems and the requests. If enough requests come through for something like your user-performed wiper cleaner replacement, they do consider it."
Eric; "OK so here is my request - I want users be able to change their wiper cleaner assemblies and reset their counters, all on their own - with no service calls and therefore no unnecessary expense."
Epson; "OK I will submit that"
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Is there a JPG on the web anywhere that clearly shows where the Capping Station and the Wiper Blade are located, inside the 7900? Thanks.
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Eric, that conversation with Tech Support is a very good one, and the point you made about not paying 300 dollars to exchange a 13 dollar consumable part I think hits the nail on the head as far as that aspect is concerned. Very well put. I have no doubt that between this thread and the feedback from tech support, Epson will definitely pay attention to these issues. What they decide to do about it of course is a different matter and remains to be seen. I would wonder whether they could develop a firmware up-grade that allows users to reset the counters (from one's own computer or the printer control panel) for those parts users could replace without running much risk to other parts of the printer.
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Epson; "That's a very good question. We have nothing in place for that though. There is no one to call or write to. All I can offer you is that I put this request in my log, and submit it. We do log our tech calls - the problems and the requests. If enough requests come through for something like your user-performed wiper cleaner replacement, they do consider it."
Eric; "OK so here is my request - I want users be able to change their wiper cleaner assemblies and reset their counters, all on their own - with no service calls and therefore no unnecessary expense."
Epson; "OK I will submit that"[/i]
Ok.. so I suggest that we all go and contact Epson support and specifically ask them to log this call and see where it goes - it would also be worth us all sending a PM to "Dano" - or better still if anyone has his email address to send it to him directly also.. it can be done over email and it's very quick - and they are quick to respond, or simply call them..
I'll send mine tomorrow from work.
James
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Actually the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 does not have a clogging problem! I just read the following on the Epson Pro Imaging website, describing the 7900 & 9900 features and technology:
"Our advanced Epson MicroPiezo TFP print head is capable of producing higher quality prints, at speeds almost twice as fast as our previous generation. And, with our latest ink-repelling coating and auto nozzle verification technologies, clogged nozzles are virtually eliminated."
I know there is often a chasm between marketing speak and reality... but please! This is a bit insulting.
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Eric; "I am a member of a huge community of 79/9900 users, many of whom would like to be able to successfully run and maintain their printers - without having to pay some $300 repair bill to replace a $13 part that takes a tech less than four minutes to replace. So at this point I would like to ask you, because I do believe Epson is a company that wants their users to be successful and happy, who do I call? Who do I email? What form do I fill out and where do I send it - so that Epson can hear feedback and possibly make an adjustment?"
Epson; "That's a very good question. We have nothing in place for that though. There is no one to call or write to. All I can offer you is that I put this request in my log, and submit it. We do log our tech calls - the problems and the requests. If enough requests come through for something like your user-performed wiper cleaner replacement, they do consider it."
I would also suggest we all send an email to Rand Rozar the Director of Service and Support via the following web site form:
https://epson.custhelp.com/app/ask/p_webform/ContactRand
In addition, the feedback should be given to our suppliers, sales representative so they can communicate this request to the local Epson representative. In my case, this is DTG out of Florida.
Jeff
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Is there a JPG on the web anywhere that clearly shows where the Capping Station and the Wiper Blade are located, inside the 7900? Thanks.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/epson-7900_pump_and_cap_assy.jpg)
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Actually the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 does not have a clogging problem! I just read the following on the Epson Pro Imaging website, describing the 7900 & 9900 features and technology...
Thanks Jeff. I'm on the floor again. Twice in one day...
...I need to vacuum this place
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Servprog.exe for Epson 7900 was written for the XP operating system. So almost any old Pc with a Usb port will work.
I really appreciate the tip about using service mode to get the wiper in the correct position without having to take the machine apart. I have already cleaned it once using your tip and plan on cleaning it once every 3 months. After taking it out of the machine, I used a foam swab dampened with warm water to clean it. Then I put the wiper assembly back in the machine. It took about 5 minutes total.
I bought 50 foam swabs from the following source - Swab-its 74-4501-50 for $16 dollars.
http://yhst-66879715068660.stores.yahoo.net/prso.html
You need to use a lint free swab.
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NOTE: On my 9890 I can reset the counter for the Wiper from within the service menu!
Bought my machine last August. The 9890 is the basically the same as the 9900 less orange/green... I even think the tubes are there for the inks if I counted correctly. I would be very surprised if the 7980 was differently.
I have not seen a service manual or field repair guide in the wild for either the 9890 or 7980 so just be aware if you own one of these that the 9900's manual may not be the same. It's quite possible that there have been minor improvements in the firmware that distinguish the two.
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It looks like you should be able to Reset the Wiper Counter(Epson 7900/9900) through the Service Mode Menu system.
Turn the printer ON in the Serviceman Mode.
Turn the power ON while pressing [Menu ], [PaperFeed ], and [OK] button.
Select SELF TESTING →Maintenance →Wiper Exchange →Counter Clear
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Hello,
On my 9900 bought 3 years ago and whose firmware is updated, I just clean the wiper (following the instructions of Eric) and I noticed the ability to reset the wiper counter such that you described. Note that I do not know if it could work, but the function was there.
For those interested, I just used a damp paper towel (gently). There was a little ink and dust stuck, but less than what I expected to find. I've always managed to clean my printer before this one (HP650C and Epson 9000 (which I always work very well).
For my part, I have not had any big problem with my 9900, except for a month, cyan is more and more clogged. It does not appear on prints so far, but now with 90% of clogged nozzles, it is another matter. I think it's the cartridge that is defective, even if it is almost new. I should receive a new tomorrow (Friday) and look forward to see if the problem is resolved.
I watch almost the whole saga because I know that one day I will have trouble and I will not have the means to pay a technician. Epson service is really bad and moreover, there is no service in French and I do not speak English (long live Google translation).
Eric thank you so much tell us your experience. It's really reassuring to know that you can get help on this forum. If I can help someone, it would be my pleasure.
Pierre
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...It's really reassuring to know that you can get help on this forum. If I can help someone, it would be my pleasure.
Pierre
Pierre I promise you, this is only the beginning. More and more information, help, and understanding will be the result of all this. One goal is to fix the printer just down the stairs. Another goal is to go far beyond that. Stay tuned, and good luck with your 9900.
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I have added some pictures of the HP Z3100 wipers, 5 year old machine, on page 1 where the 7900 wiper is also visible.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Make sure you have latest firmware. Somehow I did not have Epson Remote installed, and somehow that seems necessary for the Firmware Upgrade feature to be enabled. The driver walks you thru the Firmware upgrade effortlessly. It takes about fifteen minutes to achieve. Don't rush it.
For the record, my issue is still present. The same exact bars missing in the LLK channel every time, after repeated cleanings. I"m starting to think that the printhead might be damaged or breaking down.
I'm out of warranty. Two year old machine. Microbanding continues. Time to call Decision One I guess.
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I'm out of warranty. Two year old machine. Microbanding continues. Time to call Decision One I guess.
Please share what they say, what they do/propose to do, and what their estimated cost for the repair is (if you don't mind of course). We've got to beat this thing..
As it stands now everything is in place for tomorrow's final assault on our 7900. Just got back from the city where I stocked up on ink for our recharge. Got a huge deal thanks to Justin, our ebay parts contact in SF (http://www.ebay.com/sch/jjwjswu/m.html?hash=item4ab2933a4e&item=320823573070&pt=BI_Toner&_trksid=p4340.l2562). I couldn't make Justin's 2pm deadline for pickup so I met his father instead. Pretty cool guy. We talked for a while. I gave him my input on what I thought he should stock up on and why. I even told him about this thread - and David buying one of his damper assemblies just to have on stand-by, most likely due to what we have shared here. He seemed happy. Just before we signed off I said, "Don't forget. Keep your eye out for x900 printer heads.." He responded with a classic smile - "You are my friend. ...Come with me." I followed him through a maze of printer parts boxes so impressively stacked even a Bloodhound would struggle to get through it. About mid-way through the maze we arrived at his desk. He reached from it's cluttered top holding toward my face a small square box in a manner suggesting it's worth was unparallelled. "It's a 7900 print head. Did you know they are made in Germany?"
Needless to say that was not the end of our conversation. So nice to know at this point we have a backup plan.
Fingers crossed gentlemen. Tomorrow is the day.
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And women, I can hardly wait.
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It's not really measuring ink flowing through the nozzles, but rather ink being fired from them, using an electro-static method - it's a subtle but important difference. It's so senstive, if your dot is not properly formed it can give a false positive that it's blocked (because it doesn't receive the correct return), although a misformed dot could be from something near the nozzle so cleaning isn't an entirely bad idea.
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It's not really measuring ink flowing through the nozzles, but rather ink being fired from them, using an electro-static method - it's a subtle but important difference. It's so senstive, if your dot is not properly formed it can give a false positive that it's blocked (because it doesn't receive the correct return), although a misformed dot could be from something near the nozzle so cleaning isn't an entirely bad idea.
Hi Phil. Sensitive indeed and as long as one leaves auto-functions enabled it doesn't like being contradicted. On my 4900 yesterday, after not using it for three days, the manual nozzle checked showed a very small gap of two missing strokes in Cyan - so trivial I decided to ignore it and just print, because small gaps like that can just cure themselves from printing. Well, the printer didn't like that decision, so after sending the image to print, it did an Auto Nozzle Check and promptly launched an Auto Clean - I guess by way of showing me who's boss. :-) Fun and games. But I've decided to leave the Auto functions enabled, because I think although it may consume a bit more ink on maintenance than I would judge necessary myself, it's probably better insurance against cumulating issues. My only concern about this level of generosity to the cleaning system is whether it will consume the limit of the wiper blade counter sooner than desirable (desirable being a minimum of three years in my case).
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Attached is a scan of the LLK Nozzle Check block by itself. Every other color is just fine, and has been just fine. After many power cleanings, and individual color cleanings, the missing bars never change. It never gets worse; it never gets better. The same number of bars are always missing, and always in the same position. (Sorry for the lame scan of the bars; I pushed the Levels and Contrast, to show the effect, since the ink is very light LLK).
Also for the record, it seems that the printer does "know" that the LLK head is clogged, because it reports back to me, after some cleanings, that it does detect a clog. This is a dialogue box on the printer LCD. But like a person trying to scratch his own back, the printer cannot seem to fix itself; it knows it's sick, but it can't heal itself.
You'd think, even with these few bars missing, and all other colors just fine, that the micro banding would not be that pronounced, but it is, as shown in a prior post -- a scan of a detail area of a 13x19 print. I had a phone conversation with a very knowledgeable person on Thursday, and he suggested that the role of the LLK ink is also to be a slight degree of "varnish effect". I asked him if I could just "turn off" the LLK channel; he said you could, but only when using a RIP, (which I'm too cheap to buy).
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4- a situation similar to dead pixels on an lcd or sensor, which would be dead nozzles due to them not receiving electrical signals to open. There should be some way to diagnose that. Is there a option in the self test portion of the service menu.?
I think a new head is definitely needed if that is the issue.
As mentioned before, I am studying this issue, and writing an article on this for Photo Technique magazine, as my own printer is affected by it.
Other people that I have been in contact with and who had that issue, called D1, changed the head and then checked on the head which was then letting ink flow through ALL nozzles under pressure. Changing the head though, was the step that resolved their problem.
I have installed cartridges with cleaning fluid in the LLK channel (tinted one from AIS, unlike what Eric used) in my printer, and was able to see that even with no more ink in the channel, the more I was cleaning, the more the channel was getting clogged. That defies reason, as it is completely impossible that cleaning fluid would clog any nozzle in the universe. That plus those other heads that were changed, yet had no nozzles actually clogged, lead me to believe that we are not talking here of actually clogged nozzle, but rather of some electronic not firing the nozzles that then appear "clogged" on a nozzle check.
The interesting factor here, is that in my research, I have found 13 cases that fit the pattern of illness, and all but one have that problem with LLK. The 13th case is with green. I have not found any case with any other color. Eric could be one, but I hope that his problem is of a different nature, probably just regular clogging.
I have alerted Epson at the highest level on this, and am awaiting for them to get back to me after looking into the situation. They were not aware of this.
Jean-Christian Rostagni
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I must say also, that repeated attempts at multiple cleanings, especially power cleanings, is a definate no no!
David
That's correct David. Epson's advice to me in the past has been to run prints between regular cleanings for dealing with stubborn issues, and not to sequence power cleans one after the other. If one Power Clean doesn't clear everything up, call Tech Support.
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I have installed cartridges with cleaning fluid in the LLK channel (tinted one from AIS, unlike what Eric used) in my printer, and was able to see that even with no more ink in the channel, the more I was cleaning, the more the channel was getting clogged. That defies reason, as it is completely impossible that cleaning fluid would clog any nozzle in the universe. That plus those other heads that were changed, yet had no nozzles actually clogged, lead me to believe that we are not talking here of actually clogged nozzle, but rather of some electronic not firing the nozzles that then appear "clogged" on a nozzle check.
Jean-Christian Rostagni
This has been my quiet suspicion as well. Or maybe fear. Could be electronic. It's been about a week this idea has been wandering around my noodle. After all how could a clog, or clogs in my case, sustain themselves even with cleaning fluid running through the head. Only explanations I come up with are:
1 - Typical hardened ink lodged before, or on top of the "nozzle", which simply does not clear with cleanings.
2 - Old damper let crap into the line, likely from old ink (I suspect both our PK and YW inks were opened longer than six months ago but I do not know this for sure, I bought this printer used. The dates on these particular colors are 2010), which lodged itself just over these particular nozzles - because they were too big to go through.
3 - Dirty, old, crooked and compromised wiper (which we confirmed our machine had) left splooge on the printer head (which we confirmed it did), which compromised the seal of the capping station - which dried ink either over the nozzles, in the nozzles, or behind the nozzles in question.
4 - These nozzles in this head have stopped firing due to some electrical failure. But who knows whey the electrical failure - maybe it's dried ink...
Right now I can confirm, because I saw it with my own eyes, there was debris in the PK channel lodged in our head BEFORE the nozzle. I watched it come out into the clear hose of the syringe we used to suck cleaning fluid through our head in reverse direction. I did not, unfortunately, watch the fluid come out of the YW channel. Moron.
Either way, no matter what happens or why, later today we will all know a lot more about these clogging x900 heads. I am confident that if our head still has the same clogs, after all we have done to it while it's been outside our machine, the source of this un-cloggable clog problem that none of us can seem to work through - lives behind door #4
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I have installed cartridges with cleaning fluid in the LLK channel (tinted one from AIS, unlike what Eric used) in my printer, and was able to see that even with no more ink in the channel, the more I was cleaning, the more the channel was getting clogged. That defies reason, as it is completely impossible that cleaning fluid would clog any nozzle in the universe. That plus those other heads that were changed, yet had no nozzles actually clogged, lead me to believe that we are not talking here of actually clogged nozzle, but rather of some electronic not firing the nozzles that then appear "clogged" on a nozzle check.
The interesting factor here, is that in my research, I have found 13 cases that fit the pattern of illness, and all but one have that problem with LLK. The 13th case is with green. I have not found any case with any other color. Eric could be one, but I hope that his problem is of a different nature, probably just regular clogging.
Jean-Christian Rostagni
If pigment settling happens and that can be caused in more than one way and on different spots, you will see dampers clogging up. Rigorous cleaning steps can increase that build up on the sieves of the dampers and cleaning fluids are not the remedy in all cases where pigment particles agglomerate. So what may look like a clogged head could well be a starved head not getting enough ink supplied through the damper. There is a delicate balance of forces that keeps pigments suspended in inks, less pigment in more ink medium does not have to be an ideal base, the LLK could be an example. Yet I have seen all kinds of ink channels mentioned when Epsons clog and the LLK channel is not as dominant as you see it. I think statistically your observations are far from sound and the cause for the trouble may have a completely different base than you think. I agree there is an issue but I see no simple answer what causes it. It could be the rudimentary wiper technology if compared to what the 10000 had and the HP Zs have, it could be the frequency at which the droplets have to be squirted in competition with the Canon models. One thing is sure, the promise of coated heads with less cloggs, less banding, is not fulfilled in the x900 and 11880 models. It works far better on the 3880 though. A 180 nozzles per channel head that may not be as much challenged as the x900 heads are. I fear that Eric's brave adventure and the life report may enter another mood when the end of this thread comes closer. I have worked on Epson 9000s, a 5000 and a 10000 and when a head gets infected by particles of whatever kind (fungi included) it becomes extremely difficult to get them working normal again. Thank god for user replaceable heads, the more when they have the dampers/sieves included. What I write is what I call an opinion, mine, and not more than that. I'm glad there is no urge to write an article on this subject.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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Ernst raises a good point and I was about to say the same thing but was off on my morning walk. Remember these cleaning solutions are not sanctioned by Epson and it's unclear what their effectiveness might be. The clogs are caused by particulate matter and can be a function of a number of different things that have all been mentioned. If a clog is big enough a cleaning solution is not likely to do much good unless you did a reverse suction to pull the clog away. It's clear from this discussion that there are multiple factors at play here and maybe no easy solution.
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Hello, I'm new to luminous-landscape, and I am so glad I found this forum. I had a rough month of January with Epson large-format printers. At the end of 2011 I decided it was time to upgrade my 9600. I won a used 9900 on eBay and found a new home for my 9600. The description on eBay stated that the printer "printed perfectly", but the auto nozzle check would not verify that the green channel was clean. When the guy delivered the printer I ran a couple of tests and it seemed to be printing green ok, but the next morning I did more tests and in fact the green was not printing at all. I was just seeing green in the test prints I did because it was using cyan to mix the dark greens, and the green ink is only really utilized on lighter greens(which I found out were all printing as yellow. I filed a dispute with eBay and I lost because they said if I knew there was a possibility of the green having issues I should have run more tests. This is true, It was late when the guy delivered the printer and I trusted that it "printed perfect". Lesson learned. So in the meantime I was out a fully functioning printer and I had orders backing up so I found an 11880 printer on eBay. I had this one shipped and when the freight truck arrived another crate had been set on the printer crate and smashed the whole top of the printer. By this time I was really regretting the upgrade and I had a lot of money invested in broken printers (btw, I did get reimbursed for the broken 11880). At that point I was desperate for a printer and I found two 9800 for $800. For both, so a friend and I bought them for $400. Each and it has been working great!
In the meantime I have this brick of a 9900 sitting in my studio that won't print green. I tried every cleaning cycle and the result was always the same-the middle of the green channel missing. Epson wanted to send out a decision one tech to replace the head at a cost of $2400.(parts & labor!) that's just about what I paid for the used printer. I am in the same mindset as Eric- I would rather take my chances trying to fix it myself. Before I started ripping apart the printer I thought I'd try everything I could externally to fix the printer. I bought the edi fluid and I had planned to fill an almost empty Epson ink cartridge with warm distilled water and fluid to flush the head, but after filling most of the cartridge with fluid (which was difficult) the printer would not recognize the ink cartridge. This may be a blessing in disguise as I found this forum yesterday and read about what a horrible waste of ink this could be. I really thought the tilting the printer back and filling the cap with cleaning solution was a great idea. So this morning I pulled out my wiper in service mode and cleaned it. Then while the wiper was still visible I leaned the printer back against a table and manually pushed the wiper assembly up to access the cap station. I filled the cap up with a syringe using a 70% distilled water/30% EDI cleaning solution mix. It is soaking now. I will post an update later to let you all know how this worked. In the meantime I will anxiously be awaiting Eric's test print results. If this lean back method does not work, and Eric's head cleaning is successful, I think that will be my next course of action.
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Interesting. and bold. Had I to do it again this would be the last step I take before disassembling the machine. Are you leaning it forward now that you filled the capping station with solution? In my science fiction inspired vision I picture the solution just saturating the face of the print head, for hours and hours - but only if the machine is tilted forward. Otherwise it'll just soak the bottom of the head.
*Disclaimer - I can't even say this is a recommendation. More it's a creative (ok twisted) vision, inspired by desperation.
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......... I think statistically your observations are far from sound and the cause for the trouble may have a completely different base than you think. I agree there is an issue but I see no simple answer what causes it. ............. I'm glad there is no urge to write an article on this subject.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
Ernst - given your intimate knowledge from working with such a range of printers it is interesting to see you saying this, as I have the same impression - albeit from a lesser knowledge base - but still enough experience and reading to understand that there could be multiple causes of these problems - who knows - perhaps a batch of heads or some other assembly that weren't manufactured quite correctly, or a range of other factors which could differ from one complaint to the next even though the complaints may be about a similar outcome.
I also like to look at such issues from historical and market perspectives. This printer came into commercial circulation early 2009 and machines were available for testing late 2008. Micheal Reichmann reviewed it on this website (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/7900-9900.shtml). It is now early 2012. Given what we know about how quickly product problems go viral on the internet, and the fact that large numbers of these printers have been working in all kinds of commercial establishments and private homes all over the world for several years, if there were really something systemically wrong with it, this would have been known, understood, widely and prominently discussed and most likely dealt with long ago. Not to say that late-blooming problems wouldn't have late-blooming discovery, but one really has to ask oneself carefully whether these problems relate to usage patterns, bad luck with a few handfuls of printers in a sea of many thousands, or in the worst case scenario - late-blooming "new" issues. One would hope and expect that competition between the major brands is keeping them all on their toes in respect of design, QC and support, understanding of course that when it comes to printing with pigmented ink, they all clog. What differs is how the clogs are handled in the product design (and therefore which approach may be more or less suitable for which kind of user). The Epson approach is more immediately self-evident.
All that said, it is good we have these forums for the airing of such issues, and like all of us reading this thread, I'm awaiting with interest the outcome of Eric's hard and daring work.
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Ernst: You probably think of unresolvable clogs in other printers but the x900 when you say that you have encountered many on other than LLK, don't you? Because between myself and another fellow, we have looked at all the posts mentioning clogs on the Epson LF forum for the x900 since the inception of that series, and same thing here until 1 year back, and pretty much only found LLK ones, with the exception in green previously mentioned.
I also have spent hours talking with AIS, who is a De facto telephone center for folks who experience clogging with inkjet, and Scott could not remember any call for any other color but LLK for x900 printers. I'll concede that these are more or less circumstantial evidences, but the odds that all other colors would have even unconsciously plotted to elude my search are not very good, hence my conclusion so far that there is a problem with LLK. I am posting here so that people can prove me wrong, but remember, only x900 (and that does not include 4900 in this case).
I have also made a test on LLK ink, letting some dry at the air in a ramekin, and amazingly, that stuff does not dry, or more exactly does not harden, it becomes way thicker, like grease on a bicycle chain, but it does not harden. It is hard then to imagine how it could do the kind of thing that Eric showed on the head capping station part of the head.
Alan, about the cleaners I used, they have been tested by AIS as being safe with x900 heads for up to 3.5 weeks, and once again, whatever problems was there, existed before the cleaners went into the head. It just does not make sense that they would clog anything, especially two weeks after being introduced in the head. And if they were causing delamination, they would most likely cause clogs randomly, not around the existing problem as is the pattern. Again, I post here to hear some sensible contradiction.
Eric: the cyan and yellow clogs I saw on the picture of your head would most likely have been cleaned by putting the cleaners (007 and 007+) from AIS for two days or less on the capping station. I hate to break you the news so brutally, but hey, if it was just that, we will all have learned nevertheless and your name will remain in our memory for a few centuries. The gunk going out by reverse pressure, that you write about, seems more worrisome.
I also need to emphasize that the LLK issue that I write about, affects relatively few printers as far as I can see, but enough that there is statistical evidence, whether or not one factors in that a lot of printers from this series are under warranty, extended or otherwise. Only Epson mostly hears about the warranty cases which are nevertheless few enough that even they don't feel that there is the plague out there.
Can't wait to read the rest of the story.
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Go349, Bold, I don't know, desperate-maybe. I did tip the unit forward after capping the head with the solution, but I only let it sit for a couple hours. I just wanted to see if there was any results at all. I figured i could do it again for longer. I did a cleaning and ran a nozzle check, and the nozzle check looked the same. I also cleaned the wiper which had very little gunk on it. So after I tried that I placed a folded paper towel saturated with solution in the position where the head stops for the wiper replacement. Then I executed the wiper replacement command and the head moved over the paper towel with solution. While the head was parked there I used a syringe filled with warm edi solution and I injected warm solution onto the paper towel to over saturate it and cause it to swell up and meet the bottom of the head. I let it sit for about 30 minutes, and when I moved the head back the paper towel had a large amount of green gunk on it, but not really any other colors. This makes me think that the head is pretty clean except the problematic green channel. Still the nozzle check looks the same, but I think I am making some progress...
FYI, when I have spoken to The decision one tech he said that the green and light light black were the most common to clog because those inks are used the least and have a higher chance to clog due to the reduced amou t of ink moving through the head. He said that there weren't many people that utilize the full gamuts of the printer especially the extended green gamut.
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Ernst: You probably think of unresolvable clogs in other printers but the x900 when you say that you have encountered many on other than LLK, don't you? Because between myself and another fellow, we have looked at all the posts mentioning clogs on the Epson LF forum for the x900 since the inception of that series, and same thing here until 1 year back, and pretty much only found LLK ones, with the exception in green previously mentioned.
I also have spent hours talking with AIS, who is a De facto telephone center for folks who experience clogging with inkjet, and Scott could not remember any call for any other color but LLK for x900 printers. I'll concede that these are more or less circumstantial evidences, but the odds that all other colors would have even unconsciously plotted to elude my search are not very good, hence my conclusion so far that there is a problem with LLK. I am posting here so that people can prove me wrong, but remember, only x900 (and that does not include 4900 in this case).
This is a small sample compared to the total installed user base of this printer and while they may be reporting more LLK clogs it's likely not statistically significant. It also does not include and Epson authorized service calls done under warranty or extended service contract. Unless we know those data it's difficult to do any firm conclusion.
I have also made a test on LLK ink, letting some dry at the air in a ramekin, and amazingly, that stuff does not dry, or more exactly does not harden, it becomes way thicker, like grease on a bicycle chain, but it does not harden. It is hard then to imagine how it could do the kind of thing that Eric showed on the head capping station part of the head.
Did you look at any of the other inks? All we know is from the MSDS for the various ink sets and I've looked at all of them (put something up on this site last year when there was a discussion about drying of inks). The LLK and LK ink are pretty much the same in terms of components, both based on carbon black with glycerols and water as the solvents with the proprietary polymer encapsulation the remainder. If anything this would point to an equal number of LK clogs. I'm not sure what your ramekin test shows. It clearly is not the same as looking at ink deposits on paper and if you put a large droplet down it's not surprising that you saw something that did not fully harden. I wouldn't put much faith in this.
Alan, about the cleaners I used, they have been tested by AIS as being safe with x900 heads for up to 3.5 weeks, and once again, whatever problems was there, existed before the cleaners went into the head. It just does not make sense that they would clog anything, especially two weeks after being introduced in the head. And if they were causing delamination, they would most likely cause clogs randomly, not around the existing problem as is the pattern. Again, I post here to hear some sensible contradiction.
This may be a perfectly good cleaning agent but my point is that it is not sanctioned by Epson and only users with out of warranty printers would be going down this route. Because we fully do not know the chemical composition of the Epson inks, it is difficult to say whether this cleaner is the most optimal for that purpose. As Mark and others have said these printers are quite complicated and clogs can arise from a variety of factors. As I have noted in the past, I have a 3880 and so far have never had a clog. How much different this head is from the x900 series, I don't know.
Alan
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FYI, when I have spoken to The decision one tech he said that the green and light light black were the most common to clog because those inks are used the least and have a higher chance to clog due to the reduced amou t of ink moving through the head. He said that there weren't many people that utilize the full gamuts of the printer especially the extended green gamut.
I don't doubt what he told you but I've observed on the 3880 that the LB & LLB are used almost in equal amounts. This may be because I do a lot of B/W printing where LLB maybe used more than with color printing.
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This is a small sample compared to the total installed user base of this printer and while they may be reporting more LLK clogs it's likely not statistically significant. It also does not include and Epson authorized service calls done under warranty or extended service contract. Unless we know those data it's difficult to do any firm conclusion.
Did you look at any of the other inks? All we know is from the MSDS for the various ink sets and I've looked at all of them (put something up on this site last year when there was a discussion about drying of inks). The LLK and LK ink are pretty much the same in terms of components, both based on carbon black with glycerols and water as the solvents with the proprietary polymer encapsulation the remainder. If anything this would point to an equal number of LK clogs. I'm not sure what your ramekin test shows. It clearly is not the same as looking at ink deposits on paper and if you put a large droplet down it's not surprising that you saw something that did not fully harden. I wouldn't put much faith in this.
I've also run this test on the LLK and Cyan and it's evident the LLK will not harden!
This may be a perfectly good cleaning agent but my point is that it is not sanctioned by Epson and only users with out of warranty printers would be going down this route. Because we fully do not know the chemical composition of the Epson inks, it is difficult to say whether this cleaner is the most optimal for that purpose. As Mark and others have said these printers are quite complicated and clogs can arise from a variety of factors. As I have noted in the past, I have a 3880 and so far have never had a clog. How much different this head is from the x900 series, I don't know.
Well, what would you then recommend for users and printers that are beyond the 3 year warranty period? Do you just expect everyone to go out an replace the printers after three years of service? Hmmm... and yes the print heads are different!
Alan
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FYI, when I have spoken to The decision one tech he said that the green and light light black were the most common to clog because those inks are used the least and have a higher chance to clog due to the reduced amou t of ink moving through the head. He said that there weren't many people that utilize the full gamuts of the printer especially the extended green gamut.
In my personal experience, I cannot remember any clog that required cleaning on the Orange and green channel in the two years I have had this printer, certainly not on the green, on the orange maybe, but very rarely. Although those two colors are indeed those that people use less on average. In other words, Orange is used way less than LLK, on average, yet I have not been able to find any trace of an unresolvable clog on the orange.
Now the green, you would be my second case, if your problems persist, plus 12 LLK!
AIS theory and mine, is that there is something in the LLK ink, possibly in the green one (?), that under some circumstances (that would go from manufacturing to ?) causes some internal degradation of the head, delamination (unlikely given the non randomness of the dropouts on a nozzle check) to electronic.
Any other theory?
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This is a small sample compared to the total installed user base of this printer and while they may be reporting more LLK clogs it's likely not statistically significant. It also does not include and Epson authorized service calls done under warranty or extended service contract. Unless we know those data it's difficult to do any firm conclusion.
Alan
I am sure that you understand that neither you nor myself have access to Epson Data or are in charge of establishing word statistics. The point here is not academic, but practical. When after looking at already a sizable amount of data through two forums and various other networks, I could find stories of 12 head replacement (needed or effective) due to LLK "clog," and 1-2 due to green "clog," and none due to any other color, my jury concludes that there is something fishy with LLK, possibly Green. Maybe it has to do with what their father did before conception, their astrological signs or their position in the cart, but those two colors are suspect, especially LLK.
Find me cases where other colors have lead to a head change on a x900 and I'll be interested.
Beyond that though, regardless of color speciousness or blindness, if we don't talk real clog but rather internal head failure, the question will be: why would that happen in printers that young, and should the user be held responsible?
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@Jeverton - please describe your testing procedure. I'm a chemist by training and would really like to understand this better. Certainly the inks dry in a perfectly acceptable manner when on paper otherwise one would see this on a print. Putting a drop on a hard ramekin surface is likely not to be of great utility in understanding why something clogs. We also don't know whether the clog is external or internal to the head or what the mechanism might be. Please don't take my comments the wrong way, I'm extremely sympathetic to any user who is going through these problems and self help remedies are perhaps the route of choice when a printer is out of warranty. I think it's also useful to learn from users experiencing these clogs what their print volume is. We've heard from a number on LuLa who do a lot of printing that they don't experience clogging with the x900 printers. I do understand that the print heads are different but clogging has been reported over the years with all Epson printers and it may be that it's because of the approach Epson has taken in designing the print head.
@clic - both the LK and LLK inks are based on carbon black as the colorant and I doubt are materially different. What is key is the encapsulation process and that is what we don't know much about as it is an Epson trade secret as far as I can tell.
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Maybe it has to do with what their father did before conception, their astrological signs or their position in the cart, but those two colors are suspect, especially LLK.
Find me cases where other colors have lead to a head change on a x900 and I'll be interested.
Beyond that though, regardless of color speciousness or blindness, if we don't talk real clog but rather internal head failure, the question will be: why would that happen in printers that young, and should the user be held responsible?
LMAO :P... I'm glad we can periodically add some humor into this dialog.
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Alan,
Of course you should assume that I was not born last spring. I have only 40 years of photography in my boots and while I would not call myself a chemist, I do my entire analog chemistry, although that is perfectly irrelevant when it comes to inkjet inks. I am though probably sensible enough not to just drop a drop on a piece of glass. Excuse me, but it is somewhat annoying to have to make that clear. Once again, notably who I write for, I would consider that part of the assumptions. So no it is not a drop, it is a film, more or less like a quality plastic wrap (Glad), and on glass with plenty of air contact, even heat, it does not fully dry.
Now, I understand that it dries on paper, I have had that printer for 2 years, I have made a few prints with it, that is kind of the way I make a living when I don't post here, or write articles, but when only in contact with glass and air, it does not dry. And actually that is much closer to the conditions it is in the head than paper is.
Now it could be that high volume users do not typically have problems, that data I don't have (Do you? Probably not huh?), although it seems that some of the people in my count of patients seem to be rather solid users as far as volume goes, probably reflecting the proportion of those fellows in the pool of users, but:
* Epson does not provide warning about those printers saying that they should be used, what? Every day? And if not, go buy yourself a Canon.
* in my case, the nozzle check was good 2 days before this problem occurred. So would it seem sacrilegious to you that such a printer could possibly be not used for 48 hours?
Since you are a chemist, I can tell you though, that AIS had once discovered in their testing that when introducing a certain compound that promotes penetration and the loosening of resin in the 9800 inks, at a certain concentration after two weeks of sitting in the head, that was causing similar symptoms as the ones I and 12-13 others are known to have experienced. That is all we know. IS would not tell me the name of that compound as it is part of their proprietary formulas.
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After some discussions about this issue, and being a photographer and not a graphic design production house dealing with Pantone colors or matching logos, if I was to do it again, I'd go for a 9880 or a 9800. I've been told by some knowledgeable people that the 9800 especially is a much more simple design, and the printhead can be replaced easily.
I know for me, I am guilty of buying the 7900 because "the latest greatest just must be better", but I'm almost feeling that the x900 series might just be too much glitz for an average photographer. The green and orange inks, I now know, do very little for the average photographer; they're more for graphic design houses.
Again, simple seems better and that seems to be the x880 and x800.
When I look on Atlex.com, only the 9890 and 9900 are available. (I'm moving up in size if I replace the printer). And I fear that, since I'm out of warranty, the fee from Decision One will be more than what my two year old 7900 is worth. Very sad to chuck a completely good printer, when the only issue is a few missing bars in the LLK line.
I wish the 9880 was still in production. As luck would have it, I sold my 9880 because of tight space, and later replaced it with the 7900, thinking that the orange and green would give me more gamut.
Lastly, if I was dreaming, I'd love one ink cart that was a clear gloss varnish, for use with Epson Exhibition Fiber. I still see that ink differential when the prints are held at a certain angle.
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@Clic - I wasn't casting any aspersions at your testing on the other post that said ink was put in a ramekin. I shall do some testing of my own as I have some almost spent cartridges on my 3880. I don't have any experience with the x900 machines and maybe they are more fickle/problematic than the x800s. Believe me I'm sympathetic to the users who are having problems and perhaps Epson bears some of the responsibilities here. That being said I doubt they would be keeping a machine on the market if it were costing them more in warranty service than their profit margin (but I could also be wrong on that count). We do have a problem in not knowing the ink formulation and whether in fact it is much different from the ink formulations used in the x800s (which seem to have a better record of no clogs).
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Clic, i have a 9900 and LK is clogged. I may not be the only one with a clog on this forum other than LLK. The other day I scanned another thread entitled "Re Epson 7900 - LLK channel clogging, banding - what a disappointment" where Jstar responded that he had been having nozzle check failures on "PK,MK/LLK" paired nozzle checks. Decision One fixed that and then he had a clog on the "LLK" nozzle that wouldn't clean so Decision One came out again and that time replaced the head under his original warranty. LLK isn't paired with PK,MK, it's paired with Yellow. So, I'm thinking Jstar may have meant LK with respect to the failed nozzle checks. I can't make the same argument about LLK and the head replacement, but since he said LLK in the first instance, I'm wondering if he meant LK the second time too. Maybe he'll find this post and clarify. I will say that Y/LLK was the pair I most often had to clean (always successfully).
I think it would be useful if we gave a bit of info for our clogged X900s like how old it is, how many prints were done on it (find via the menu) and whether use was on a regular basis or intermittent basis and, finally, where the clog is.
I bought my 9900 in December 2008 and it clogged 37 months later. I ran 600 prints through it. That's not many over 3 years, but there are probably more than a few owners who have run less than 200 prints a year. Use was intermittent. Sometimes I'd go a month or more without printing. Never had to clean more than two pairs after those long rests.
I'd also like to hear from the members who use their machines on a daily or regular basis. How long have they had the printer? How many prints? Have they have had to do any maintenance or repairs to their machines?
With the possible exception of those who have used their X900s every day to keep the ink flowing and "wet," I'm thinking it's not a question of whether a clog will occur, but when.
Jim
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Not to start any conspiracy theory, but I actually did just find a new 9880 on Atlex, and strangely, it's the only one that does not have the Instant Rebate of $1000.
(http://199.237.236.200/a/atlexgrab.png)
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I could find stories of 12 head replacement (needed or effective) due to LLK "clog," and 1-2 due to green "clog," and none due to any other color, my jury concludes that there is something fishy with LLK, possibly Green. Maybe it has to do with what their father did before conception, their astrological signs or their position in the cart, but those two colors are suspect, especially LLK.
Find me cases where other colors have lead to a head change on a x900 and I'll be interested.
I don't see what the "jury" can conclude about this data. Firstly the sample may be statistically insignificant as others have mentioned, and secondly, the problem may relate to other issues that affected the LLK nozzles, quite apart from the ink. Only the people with the repair or analysis data would know the answer to this. The problem with coming to premature or inadequately informed conclusions about such things is that the true causes may well remain obscure, when transparency would be in the consumers' interest.
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Alan: really I have no idea what difference may or may not be with the 3800 inks, so I will not venture there. The only thing I know is that AIS, which I trust, tells me that he has rarely seen an Epson head fail before the x900, and now that is current, or common, let's say not a rare occurrence anymore. Now that could be because the nozzles are so thin, but that does not explain very well why a couple of heads removed were actually flowing just fine, nor why my head with cleaner in it, no ink, kept clogging some more for as long as I left the cleaner in it.
Jim: well, now I have one case of LK clogged. What have you done about it? Have you tried AIS cleaners on the capping station, and then if that does not work, the cleaner from inside solution?
What I can tell you is that the issue I am studying always manifest itself as a clog in the type of pattern on the test attached: not on top or bottom at first, always as a group, not random nozzles in the color.
About the other fellow on the other thread, if I remember well, what he was describing was unclear, and once again, it is one thing to have a more or less stubborn clog, it is another thing to have one that just does not go away and actually grows constantly. So I only consider clogs that are persistent enough that people change the head or the printer and complain clearly about it. In other words, if you post twice and don't complain, don't scream to high heavens in pain, I am going to assume that you are either extra terrestrial, that your pain threshold is higher than allowed in civilization, or that you just did not have to work that hard and that the clog went away but did not bother to tell us.
I have 13 cases of people aiming for a spot at the Blues hall of fame, and possibly one more pending.
Gwhitf: Why wanting a perfectly uniform glossy print? For several decades in the latest part of the 20th century, photographers saught to have texture in a print, like in a die transfer for instance, that added a richness to the print, vs. a C print or a Cibachrome one at the time, which were the standards, and had as much texture as a chrome plate. In b&w, my mentor had developed a te4chnique to remove part of the gelatin in order to bring the silver to the surface, there again among other things, in order to create texture, different ways for the light to be handled across the image. Certain toners would metalize the shadows, in essence creating "bronzing" to everybody's delight, so why wanting to avoid that now?
Also, as far as Epson goes, only the x900 and x890 can both do glossy and matte at the same time. That was the selling point for me, as I can't have two printers.
Mark: we already have had this discussion privately, but you are stubborn at confusing the issues. The fact that I only have found so many cases, yet more than one can count on one hand might make it a small amount of data, but the fact that the overwhelming part of that data is related to LLK, that is statistically relevant. Once again, there is no reason that logic conceives, why all the other users who would have had head failures on a different color would have massively deserted the places where I gathered the cases I know. Everything points in the direction of an LLK problem, but if you want to be in denial for academic or other reasons, that is your prerogative.
You are right though, that "transparency would be in the consumers' interest."
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Not to start any conspiracy theory, but I actually did just find a new 9880 on Atlex, and strangely, it's the only one that does not have the Instant Rebate of $1000.
(http://199.237.236.200/a/atlexgrab.png)
If it's a 9880, it's an old unit (epson doesn't sell them anymore) so certainly epson isn't going to have a rebate offer on them. amazing they still have a new one available. They probably need to discount it substantially just to unload it.
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Mark: we already have had this discussion privately, but you are stubborn at confusing the issues. The fact that I only have found so many cases, yet more than one can count on one hand might make it a small amount of data, but the fact that the overwhelming part of that data is related to LLK, that is statistically relevant. Once again, there is no reason that logic conceives, why all the other users who would have had head failures on a different color would have massively deserted the places where I gathered the cases I know. Everything points in the direction of an LLK problem, but if you want to be in denial for academic or other reasons, that is your prerogative.
You are right though, that "transparency would be in the consumers' interest."
Well, if by raising valid technical concerns about statistical inference is being stubborn and confusing, so be it; but I would have thought that systematically ignoring these principles creates more confusion than it resolves. The simple fact of the matter is that neither of us know whether a sample of 12 complaints is statistically significant, or even if it were, what it is significant about, apart from a coincidence of outcomes whose causes are not known to us. I'm not saying these people didn't have the problems; I'm only cautioning about how much to read into them absent much better data.
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Wait - there's a suggestion that the LLK is clogging because it will NOT dry and harden? Seriously?
/boggle
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I just want to know if Eric got a print out yet.
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Eric and Steve's most excellent adventure has finally come full circle. What have we learned?
If you have an un-cloggable clog on an Epson 7900:
1 - Changing the Damper assembly won't cure it. It may however avoid one in the first place.
2 - Changing the head-only on an Epson 7900 takes 45min - start to finish. You lose no ink except what it takes to re-fill the head itself (minimal).
3 - Yes you can reset the counter for the wiper cleaner right there from your printer's control panel. No special service programs necessary
4 - Yes you DO need the service program to swap heads - successfully.
5 - No, changing your pump and cap assembly won't cure a clog either. It may however avoid one in the first place.
And finally, the one we've all been waiting for, number 6 - Yes, taking your 7900's head off, soaking it overnight in cleaning solution, then sucking cleaning solution back up through it in reverse until it runs pure and clear, and then reinstalling it - is a lot of work. It can also be a great exercise in male (or female) bonding. As far as it's effectiveness in clearing un-cloggable clogs - I can speak confidently and from experience now that my genius buddy and I have successfully re-fired our Epson 7900 up and run it through it's paces again - that beyond any measure or trace of doubt, it doesn't work for $*&%@!!!
Yes we replaced the damper assembly successfully. The pump and cap assembly too. Took the head out, put the head in. Swapped the wiper cleaner assembly. Purged our lines, filled our lines, reset counters, performed power cleanings on single colors rather than pairs only, aligned the head again through extensive procedures, etc. etc. It all came apart flawlessly. It all went together flawlessly. Not a single problem in the bunch. But the resulting nozzle pattern is IDENTICAL to what it was before. Not surprising in the least, to either of us.
For anyone following this unique journey to the center of the Epson 7900, relax, this is only the end of the beginning of this. Now we strive forward, in a quest for more knowledge. Who makes this head. How exactly does it work. What are it's weak points. And why. Answers to these questions and more will be the key to seeing our way through these endless storms of speculation.
I suspect now, like I have feared for days, that the problem with our head is not actually a "clog" at all. Perhaps it was caused by a clog. Could have been old ink, crap through old dampers, ill-sealing capping station, compromised wiper blade, and on and on. You know the drill. But the reason I suspect that our "clog" is un-cloggable, is that our head is not firing properly. Tonight that's my best guess.
Ironically, our LLK channel is perfect. PK and YW are our problem.
Chin up people. The journey goes on...
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Wow what a bummer.....but don`t give up Eric......keep following this path, it may lead to the source of these problems......Peter
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If it's a 9880, it's an old unit (epson doesn't sell them anymore) so certainly epson isn't going to have a rebate offer on them. amazing they still have a new one available. They probably need to discount it substantially just to unload it.
Based on this thread, Epson may need to increase the rebate on the X900s. :-)
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How dissappointing! I gave it a go today as well, and soaked my 9900 head via a folded paper towel under the head with edi solution on it for 4 hours. When I moved the head it had saturated the paper towel with a BUNCH of ink. I would say enough to dissolve off any surface clogs on the head. I ran a service clean #4 with the green/orange pair, then a nozzle check, and it looked exactly the same, as before the soaking. Even though i didnt go through quite the extensive cleaning Eric did, and I think this leads me to the same conclusions as Eric. Now, what to do next????
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Eric and Steve's most excellent adventure has finally come full circle.
Ironically, our LLK channel is perfect. PK and YW are our problem.
Chin up people. The journey goes on...
Sorry to hear that. Thanks for taking us on the first leg of your journey.
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Eric,
Let me start by saying how sorry I am to hear that after all that effort, the problem remains. Your approach to it is really commendable - take it as a further challenge and not as a defeat. At the very least the learning experience for you guys and the rest of us has been very worthwhile, and it is isn't over yet.
I think for the rest of us, this episode demonstrates clearly the dangers of coming to conclusions about the causes of problems based on incomplete knowledge and information.
If the nozzle check pattern is identical to the way it was before you did all the work cleaning out the whole system, this would lead one to infer, but not necessarily conclude yet, that the problem has nothing to do with ink and clogs, the qualifier being whether despite all the cleaning you did, it failed to dislodge whatever was preventing those nozzles from delivering ink to paper. How likely is that - I have no idea.
Now, I go back to the statement from Dan Berg on page one of this thread: <<It was my 7900 he purchased. For the 3 years I used it, it has run just about as good as one of these can run including the day it went out the door. I even ran 3 prints the night before it was picked up.>>
So that leads one to wonder what happened to it from the time it left Dan Berg until you made your first print? How was it prepared for shipment? Were all movable parts properly immobilized? Were the inks removed and cartridges well-sealed? How was it transported, how was was it set-up (was it based on the set-up instructions), how long a time period elapsed from the time you took delivery till the time you started printing? There may be other questions one could ask - one also needs to know what to ask! I assume you are asking yourself about all of this and more.
But I would like to openly suggest a completely different line of investigation. This thread has generated a tremendous amount of interest. This website is read by about one and a half million unique visitors per month. The thread will exist in the archives probably for as long as the Luminous-Landscape exists - and perhaps longer. This thread has delved into more detail about the workings and working-around of an Epson 7900 than possibly any other resource on the internet, so it will be a reference source for many people long into the future. The outcome is truly unsettling simply because of the fact that the problem remains identical to what it was when you started. If it hadn't, one could ask what you did to aggravate it it, but that isn't the line of inquiry the evidence points to.
For all of these reasons, I would like to see Epson America take a direct, pro bono interest in your case, (pro bono meaning at their expense). Yes the printer is out of warranty, yes it is second-hand and yes it is three years old and yes it has been transported. I am suggesting they set all those fences aside and plunge-in with good-will to help resolve this - at least as far as unambiguously diagnosing correctly what the problem is. They may well need to send the head back to Japan to do this - fine; it can be done. And the understanding would be that once they know for sure what caused the problem they will tell you, they will tell you what needs to be replaced or re-serviced and at what cost and they will not prevent you from reporting this information back to the Forum. I think Epson and the community at large have everything to gain from this.
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Mark,
What a great idea!
Dano S. Can you help with this?
Ps. To add it was taken from my studio with the head securely taped with all the inks in place.
Strapped in the upright position. Regarding the packing and shipping cross country from Allentown,Pa. To California I was not present for those efforts.
Eric can tell you how it came into town.
The only thing not discussed to date would be temperature and it's effect on the inks.
But then why only one or two inks and not them all?
Middle of winter and took a week to make the trip?
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Darn, by now the machine is as new as a baby's butt. I think I can say that. Are you saying you did put in a new head and had the service program? And thank you for including the "other" gender. I caught that one. I'm still impressed. You do realize Epson charges thousands of dollars to certify someone every time a new model comes out. So, you could look at it as all the money you saved but gained the knowledge. Something like that. I still have faith that the printer is going to put out a print it just may take longer than expected.
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Eric,
I commend you for your valor and quest to resolve the 7900 printer issues. The outcome is not what anyone anticipated on this thread and now beckons the call to Epson to help this community understand what is happening with the x900 series printers and the print head.
This fact still remains; Epson has not endorsed a proper preventative maintenance schedule.
Furthermore, we now must take our journey to another level to reach nirvana and commence investigative efforts around the print head. I’m sure you are already thinking about a contingency plan… Will you be replacing the print head? Are you planning to call back Epson Technical Support to report the results – to document the situation?
Or perhaps it’s time for us to unite and sign a formal complaint to Epson management.
Jeff
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Jeff, for clarity, my recommendation is to maintain a non-confrontational approach to Epson, emphasizing the community of interest between the company and its clients to get to the bottom of this highly publicized case.
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Eric,
Thank you for your detailed journey--I'm sorry it did not end as we would have hoped. However, I think you've provided some valuable preventative maintenance for our printers.
Mark- I think that you have a great idea concerning Epson and the only item I would add regarding your ponderings is about ink cartridges being removed prior to shipment. On my current replaced 4900, I had Epson test it prior to shipping it to me. The printer was tested and shipped to me with ink cartridges in place. I suspect this ensures a sealed delivery system.
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Eric,
Thank you for your detailed journey--I'm sorry it did not end as we would have hoped. However, I think you've provided some valuable preventative maintenance for our printers.
Mark- I think that you have a great idea concerning Epson and the only item I would add regarding your ponderings is about ink cartridges being removed prior to shipment. On my current replaced 4900, I had Epson test it prior to shipping it to me. The printer was tested and shipped to me with ink cartridges in place. I suspect this ensures a sealed delivery system.
Which is why they were left in place in the 7900 for shipping.
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I would like to propose another way of helping Eric. Kind of like farmers getting together to help a member of their community whose barn burns down by organizing a barn raising event.
Eric has already invested a large amount of money in trying to get his printer running. He is likely to have to spend alot more if he has to replace the print head, or if he abandons the project, he's out everything he invested, including his original purchase price.
If Epson comes through and helps, that would be great, but I'm sure that will take awhile to happen. And I wouldn't count on that.
What I'm proposing is that we all make a small contribution to a fund to help defray Eric's cost in this project.
Anyone reading this thread knows what he's been through, and how generous he's been in taking the time to share the details of his ordeal with this community, which will ultimately serve to help us all in the maintenance and possible future repair needed for our own printers.
I have Eric's address, (I bought one of the extra wiper assemblies he graciously offered to sell), but I'm not comfortable offering that without his permission. Instead, I will coordinate forwarding any contributions to him.
If we keep the contributions small, let's say only $1 - $10, then it's no big deal for anyone financially, and hopefully Eric won't tear up the checks (as he refused to accept any refund offer from Dan who sold him the 7900).
Eric, please accept any funds that come out of this and think of it as payment for a maintenance manual you can eventually post for all of us to benefit from. If by some miracle, you end up with more funds than you need, I'm sure you'll figure out a worthy cause to donate them too.
So here are the details:
Send a check written out to "Eric G" for a small amount (leave a little room after the "G" for his full last name)
Send it to my office:
Gary Sapolin
171 Katonah Ave
Katonah, NY. 10536
Let's put a time limit of sending it, within the next 3 weeks, so I'm not spending the rest of the year forwarding checks!
I will keep everyone posted as to how it's going, and send everything to Eric in three weeks.
And Eric, don't say you won't accept anything!!! This is not charity, you have earned it!
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Eric,
Bummer about not being able to bring your 7900 frankenstein back to life. As a relatively new 9900 owner, I find this has been a very educational thread thus far, and I'm primarily interested in gaining further insight/tips & tricks to keep my Epson 9900 running smoothly. I think a slow, step-by-step tutorial and/video on basic maintenance items like cleaning the wiper, replacing the wiper, and resetting the counter would be very helpful to the community at large. I think it's pretty safe to say that the vast majority would not delve into their printers to the extent that you have, but basic maintenance/replacement could be what helps to prevent or alleviate a catastrophic clog or head failure.
I was talking to Don Libby who also recently acquired an Epson 9900. He described the 9800 (which I still have) as that good ole reliable pick-up truck parked out in front. It keeps starting and working reliably no matter what you threw at it. The 9900 is more like a high-maintenance finicky hot new mate (gender-neutral for na goodman ;D) that requires you to pay more attention otherwise he/she won't perform for you. Treat the printer well (whatever that means), and he/she really delivers like no other.
So like the 9800, I do watch humidity levels with a hygrometer---though with the 9900, I actually do pay more attention to the humidity reading. Luckily along the central coast it stays fairly humid year round. I've had more "nozzle clogs detected" with the 9900 in one month than I have with the 9800 over the course of about five years. Knock on wood, I give the 9900 a simple affectionate loving nozzle check and she (yeah, my 9900 is a female) says all is okay, I'm ready for you. ;D I've decided to do daily nozzle checks, regardless of if I'm printing that day, she seems to like the attention. The 9800 never cared if I let her sit for a week or so. I keep the 9900 covered and tucked in when not in use. I bought a small vacuum (love the Dirt Devil Scorpion!) and take the time to clean the small debris from canvas rolls (both on the canvas ends and on the printer deck). My thinking is to keep anything that may fall into the abyss from clogging or upsetting my sweet 9900 head. The 9800 never cared in the least, as the dust bunnies I discovered when moving her can attest.
Anyway, thank you much Eric for sharing your journey. I'm sure more than a few would be happy to contribute to a Paypal account to compensate you for your time and efforts should you wish to document a step-by-step primer and/or video on basic 79/99** printer maintenance, like the printer wiper assembly.
Ken
p.s. While writing this response, I see Gary has responded similarly with regard to donations on behalf of Eric's effforts. (I've met Gary ---he's an upstanding guy, though he may deny knowing me! :D)
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I have been following this thread. I have limited knowledge of the working of the printer. I think it appears now that the "dead pixel / electrically dead" syndrome is the likely cause of the problem? If so, I now wonder if electrically dead is cause or effect? Did the electrically dead portion prevent ink from flowing by not opening, or did a clog become so clogged that the pressure applied trying to push it out caused that portion of the piezo head to become electrically dead, or did the damaged wiper leave ink on the head causing pressure to be applied to the head from the outside?
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I would like to propose another way of helping Eric. Kind of like farmers getting together to help a member of their community whose barn burns down by organizing a barn raising event.
Eric has already invested a large amount of money in trying to get his printer running. He is likely to have to spend alot more if he has to replace the print head, or if he abandons the project, he's out everything he invested, including his original purchase price.
If Epson comes through and helps, that would be great, but I'm sure that will take awhile to happen. And I wouldn't count on that.
What I'm proposing is that we all make a small contribution to a fund to help defray Eric's cost in this project.
Anyone reading this thread knows what he's been through, and how generous he's been in taking the time to share the details of his ordeal with this community, which will ultimately serve to help us all in the maintenance and possible future repair needed for
I have Eric's address, (I bought one of the extra wiper assemblies he graciously offered to sell), but I'm not comfortable offering that without his permission. Instead, I will coordinate forwarding any contributions to him.
If we keep the contributions small, let's say only $1 - $10, then it's no big deal for anyone financially, and hopefully Eric won't tear up the checks (as he refused to accept any refund offer from Dan who sold him the 7900).
Eric, please accept any funds that come out of this and think of it as payment for a maintenance manual you can eventually post for all of us to benefit from. If by some miracle, you end up with more funds than you need, I'm sure you'll figure out a worthy cause to donate them too.
So here are the details:
Send a check written out to "Eric G" for a small amount (leave a little room after the "G" for his full last name)
Send it to my office:
Gary Sapolin
171 Katonah Ave
Katonah, NY. 10536
Let's put a time limit of sending it, within the next 3 weeks, so I'm not spending the rest of the year forwarding checks!
I will keep everyone posted as to how it's going, and send everything to Eric in three weeks.
And Eric, don't say you won't accept anything!!! This is not charity, you have earned it!
Gary,
Thanks for taking the initiative.
My checks in the mail.
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Treat the printer well (whatever that means), and he/she really delivers like no other.
This is the part that I'm beginning to question -- unless you're trying to hit a weird PMS for a logo or something, I'd love to hear from someone printing real photographs, whether the 9900/7900 "delivers like no other", or whether, side by side, you couldn't tell a print from a 9900 from a print from a 9800. Virtually identical quality and gamut. Again, photographs, not logos.
For the record, my 7900 has printed fine, for months, but when I left it turned off for a week is when my problem began. Something happened during that period that now seems irreversible.
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Thanks for the endorsement, Ken! As you know, I'm not a big poster, but this story has moved me enough to want to take whatever small action I can to help. Just thinking of the ink wasting expenditure Eric has is painful to me, so I'm hoping this move will raise enough money to help defray those ink costs. I hope folks agree, and I hope my offer is not perceived as being silly, but it felt like something I wanted to try to do for a guy who is giving so much of his time keeping us updated, in such detail, about his efforts.
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Ken was close in capturing my rambling conversation as I compared the 9900 to the 9800.
The worse printer, meaning high maintenance that I can recall owning is the 4000 with al its clogs. Replaced it with the 9800 and never had a moment of trouble in the 61-months of use. In short the printer became that prick up truck you use to haul stuff around (reminds me of how warthog pilots feels about the A-10) it'll take a beating and still be there for more.
I have no doubt the 9900 is soon be in the same position. However, I had the printer for little over 2-weeks and already had 1-cartridge failure (350mil Photo Black). And yes it seems to be more finicky about reporting clogs. I've decided at least for now to keep the auto clean option on and that seems to help. I've also noticed that just running a nozzle check helps keep the number of warnings down. ck the It's odd however I had a nozzle check show up really bad clogs. Ran it again and they were gone. So far the only trouble I've had with a print is the very first when I failed to check the platen gap. User error on my part.
I live in what could be considered an arid environment. Compared to here Ken lives in a rainforest. The heat goes well over 110 for days at a time with the humidity under 10%. I routinely run a humidifier in my studio keeping it around 40% year round. I started doing this shortly before I sold the 4000 and it certainly helps.
Now to answer gwhitf's question....
I've been busy printing images for a show in Jackson Hole next week. I spent 2-months in the area late last year and left there with a print order of 7-sold images and an offer to have a show. I've been balls to the wall processing and printing everyday since we returned. The majority of the printing has been done on the 9800. I actually thought I had all the canvas prints done when I ordered the 9900 however I ran into a major problem with the media that resulted in reprinting on the 9900. I won't go into the problems here however if you can go on our blog to get a flavor.
So, long story cut somewhat short. "Treat the printer well (whatever that means), and he/she really delivers like no other."
As in any other change of equipment there is a certain amount of a learning curve. The workflow I used on the 9800 had become second nature (close to muscle memory). The 9900 seems to require a little closer detail. I needed to be double-checking all my setting prior to printing. I feel this will soon become like the 9800 was and become second nature. I'm speaking about the lcd panel and CS5 speaking to one-another. I will admit that I've been too busy to really see what the communications are as I needed to get the prints done.
Can you tell the difference? I feel I can. It might be subjective on my part however I feel the images are richer with better tones to them. Is it on count of the extra inks? I like to think it is.
There several other aspects of the 9900 which I fell in lust with right away. The cutter is scary fast. I actually feel its the loudest function on the printer. I can now cut canvas without having to invest in a $500 extra cutter. It works.
Not having to screw around with a spindle is great. I've always felt the 2-most dangerous times for media was placing it onto the printer and taking it off the spindle. No need for it. This makes changing rolls much easier and faster.
The last of my high-three most favorite is the auto changing of black ink. I use Breathing Color Lyve canvas which is a matte. All I have to do is hit a couple buttons and presto the printer is set up with the proper black. Replace the roll with say Breathing Color Vibrance Rag, press a button and I'm back to printing with Photo Black.
I no longer have the 9800 having donated it to a local high school. The 9900 was delivered late on a Friday afternoon and early the next morning the first print was coming off it. I don't miss the 9800. Is the 9900 that finicky girlfriend Ken mentioned? Sort of. But our relationship is young and I have no doubt we'll get along with time. After all, I married my wife after knowing her less than 28 days - 30 years ago. If it's right for you you'll know it right away.
This turned out way too long and for that I apologize.
Don
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Mark,
While it would be an upstanding way to deal with this issue, I'm afraid that Epson/ Seiko would be setting a precedence which would place themselves in a position for major liability or culpability problems in the future . Companies tend to shy away from issues like this.
There are just too many factors to consider as to the actual cause of failure in each individual case, as to make any declaration to that effect.
David yes, this is a very possible outcome and I thought about all that before I posted. On top of that, I also thought of the fact that Epson owes Eric nothing and need not do anything, for reasons I stated - and the obvious one I forgot to state - that he did a lot to the printer and poured substances into it that Epson may not support. So for all of those reasons they need not get involved and if they don't it would be completely understandable and not reproachable. BUT, all that said, diagnosing a problem does not expose them to liability on a used out-of-warranty printer and makes them culpable for nothing. It's a one-off diagnosis of a one-off problem and the state of the machine can be diagnosed - it's a piece of machinery they know inside-out. Nor was I suggesting they do any more than that pro bono. As for setting precedents - doubtful. It can be handled in a manner that assures this won't be the case. It's all in the messaging and the context. What other factors are there to consider?
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As far as it's effectiveness in clearing un-cloggable clogs - I can speak confidently and from experience now that my genius buddy and I have successfully re-fired our Epson 7900 up and run it through it's paces again - that beyond any measure or trace of doubt, it doesn't work for $*&%@!!!
Your un-cloggable clogs might be different from other people's clogs. A little while ago, I shipped a printer during winter (from myself to myself, so I know it's history). When it arrived, pretty much all the print-heads were no longer working (clogged?). They had been working properly before the printer's journey across the freezing US. I suspected at the time that freezing ink might have destroyed them. Now, it was an HP Designjet whose print heads and ink are completely different from the Epson, so your problem might have a completely different cause. But given that something obviously happened during the trip and that you shipped the printer in winter, I wonder if freezing ink might have anything to do with your problem.
Good luck,
Martin
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I don't know what to say other than thank you to all of you for your generous thoughts, kind words, and helpful advice so rich with knowledge and experience. Like I said at the beginning of this journey, I am just an enthusiast. You are all more knowledgeable, talented and experienced in this world of photography and printing than I am, by far. But I do seem to have one rare gift - not necessarily the ability to tell a story, but the will to. And so here I have, on Luminous Landscape. Why here rather than on my own blog? Because no one reads my blog. Also because most of you have already helped me. It's been years now I have come here to absorb knowledge I never took the chance to in school. Sharing this journey has been my way of finally helping you back.
Would I create some great tutorial videos on 79/9900 maintenance? I'm already a step ahead of you. Yes I will. Been my plan ever since my own endless searches on the subject turned up nothing.
Would I accept donations of thanks or support? This would screw up my entire life-plan. My goal is to live and die broke... So I offer you the following idea: At the end of each tutorial video I produce, I will include in the credits a matter in which you can send whatever donation you see fit to. I am comfortable with whatever comes of that - everything or nothing at all.
*True story; While at a shop I race for last week, where they have on display some panoramic photos I both shot and printed, I casually walked by a woman who had two of my photos stretched out over a desk. I made no eye contact, I didn't even slow down, but I definitely paid attention to her compliments. As I left the room I heard her say "I'll take both of them please."
That story does it for me. It completes the circle, if you will. I have been passionate about photography for seven years now. Until recently all my work simply died inside my hard drives. I visualize everything. I picture the beginning of my photography to be reading, on here. The next part is buying gear then learning how to use it. I plot these steps visually, on an arc. The arc continues around it's shape while I am out there shooting, then finally back home in post - on the same computer it all started at. But then forever it has died for me about 75% around, always leaving an empty gap near the end - in my passion, in my reason, and in my results. But the day I bought these two Epson 4800s and started printing my work, suddenly it all came to life. The arc became a circle then the circle became a whole new world.
In truth I have a lot more to thank you all for than you have to thank me for. So I really am happy to hear that sharing our journey has, and will for a while yet, help others.
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So that leads one to wonder what happened to it from the time it left Dan Berg until you made your first print? How was it prepared for shipment? Were all movable parts properly immobilized? Were the inks removed and cartridges well-sealed? How was it transported, how was was it set-up (was it based on the set-up instructions), how long a time period elapsed from the time you took delivery till the time you started printing? There may be other questions one could ask - one also needs to know what to ask! I assume you are asking yourself about all of this and more.
I might add that I also just recently sold a 7900 (which had been moved a couple of times). while we removed the ink cartridges and locked the head, the distance was only about 5 minutes so we didn't do extensive preparation. a couple of weeks later it has also developed an identical problem in the same channel (LLK) where about 30% of the nozzles (a large block in the middle) will not clear, the nozzle check pattern is identical no matter what we have tried.
I've moved many epson printers and never had an issue, but I suppose there is some chance moving of these more delicate heads could cause some damage. However, I'm suspecting issues with the wiper might be similar since it has never been cleaned or replace. we'll be plunging in (we've repaired a lot of other Epsons, never tackled one of the x900 series yet) soon. We'll soon see what condition the head is in.
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Hi Wayne,
Once you plunge in, if you can detect what the problem is it would be very useful to any one contemplating moving (or having moved) one of these printers to know what you find. This is an interesting observation, but at the same time very puzzling. A small sample (indeed perhaps insignificant) of factors-in-common seems to suggest the possibility that merely moving the printer can have something to do with its performance. That said, the printers need to be moved from where they are manufactured to markets many thousands of miles away in various kinds of transport arrangements and conditions; but they do pack them extremely carefully. Perhaps when the head of a used printer gets jarred in transport it causes an issue. But if you locked the head, why? Perhaps locking doesn't prevent all types of internal damage from jarring. Did the printer get knocked much in a five minute transport? It would be good for the community to know more about this possibility so that any one else transporting machines that aren't covered by service contracts will know what the risks are and how to mitigate them. Again, only Epson can be definitively helpful here.
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OK back to the task at hand -
This 7900 was actually shipped in the middle of fall, not the middle winter. I know because I just read lots of interesting stuff about winter in this Northern Hemisphere. This year's winter solstice (shortest day/middle of winter) started our winter on December 22. On November 25th however, this Epson 7900 was actually en-route to California mid-way across the US, tucked inside a Fedex eighteen-wheeler, inside a 200lb wooden crate lined with multiple layers of cardboard. Ironically this particular fall will likely go down in history as one of the mildest on record. Here is Noas snapshot of the average temperature of the US during the month of November. I am not saying this machine was not exposed to cold, or possibly freezing temps. But strictly in the interest of fueling a more accurate understanding of why this printer doesn't work anymore, I was definitely on Route 80 traveling over the Sierras this December in shorts and a tee shirt. It's been alarmingly warm this year. So while it is possible that the ink froze in the head, I actually doubt it.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/nov-temps-11.jpg)
I will also add to this head-failing mystery the experiences following the machine's arrival: Packed unbelievably well. Crate alone weighed 200lbs and took an hour to disassemble - and I'm a carpenter.
Very first print was a nozzle check. PK showed the same clog I see today, only not as bad. YW showed the same clog grouping that I see today, only not as bad. These two clogs have haunted this machine since day-one of my possession. Cleaning attempts have only made these clogs gradually get worse. Cleaning solution run through it's lines on these problem channels made absolutely no difference. Removing the head, soaking it's face in solution for 24hrs, then sucking a fresh mix of that same solution up through it's face also made NO DIFFERENCE. Not worse, not better. Exactly the same.
The only difference I have seen on these clogs is them gradually getting worse. That suggests to me that freezing ink damaging these particular nozzles, leading to these particular clogs, is not the most probable cause. I am not saying this is not possible. It just doesn't feel like the answer.
I am, however, suspect of these two carts/colors having such old expiration dates on them (both 2010). The PK and YW carts were both 700ml carts, both about 60% empty. From what Dan told me he also has a 9900, and therefore used this 7900 less often. I don't know, maybe these two carts have been opened far longer than 6 months? Maybe the older ink has more of a tendency to clog.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_0581.jpg)
Finally, considering clogs, I would like to put a request out there to all who know so much more than I do about these heads, and Piezoelectricity
in particular; What happens to these electrically charged crystals if they are kept from "changing their shape" once an electrical field is applied to them? For instance, if I run my circular saw through a wet beam, which results in tremendous resistance and binding of the blade, the saw's motor will burn out. Now I know Piezoelectricity is entirely different than my circular saw's alternating current motor, but can the same laws apply? If you lock up these tiny crystals and charge them with an electrical field which would otherwise cause them to "move" but in this case they cannot, could this cause them to burn out? Because if this is possible, it would then be possible for dried ink to lock up a group of crystals and burn them out.
If this theory holds water then I can understand how a compromised wiper blade, which jammed more "tar" into the head than it cleaned off, could possibly ADD to a clogging problem - which in turn could explain why my clogs in particular have only gotten worse with cleanings - not ever better
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You may be on to something - hence all the more interest to see it properly analyzed by people who know the technology intimately.
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I apologize. I have hit my head far too many times, nut just my thumbs. The more I read about Piezoelectricity the less I understand.
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I've also been trying to figure out the Peizo effect as related to the nozzles. I understand the concept but not much on how the nozzles could be damaged.I don't think moving the machine is what caused damage such as this.If it were the case Epson would not be able to ship them at all. They would stand the risk of having to replace a lot of heads under warrantee! Just doesn't add up! I also agree with your non freeze assessment. Dried ink so deeply embedded is much more likely, and as you say possible? to burn out the nozzles, we may never know.
The field guide ( http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/epson_mimaki_roland_printer_rep/pro79_fg.pdf )starting on page 231 has a list of diagnosis for the causes and remedies for clogged nozzles but it is somewhat ambiguous to say the least.
I believe you followed the correct path!
David
On page 233 it says this: "Note: If the same nozzle or nozzles are always missing, this indicates that the Print Head has a problem mechanically or electrically."
Based on what Eric has related, it sounds as if the problem could be a mechanical or electrical problem in the printhead. If so, we still don't know what caused it from the time it was shipped till the time he used it. Eric mentioned the possibility of expired inks. Eric: do you have the precise expiry dates of the cartridges for the offending colours? I have always been given to understand from Epson staff that those dates are pretty conservative (to be safe) and that in practice the inks should be good for much longer than the stated expiry. When you loaded the inks, did you gently shake the cartridges first? They always recommend this.
The next item of interest in that manual, and Epson staff have mentioned to me before, is the entrapment of air in the printhead from the cleaning cycles themselves, which would show up as nozzle pattern breaks - but usually IN DIFFERENT PLACES from one cleaning to the next. To mitigate that risk, Epson staff have recommended running prints between cleanings to try to force the ink through in the printing direction. But Eric's symptom is that the problem is lodged in the same place, so perhaps air entrapment is not the issue.
On reflection it's really hard to fathom how ink could dry-up so severely within such a short period of time to permanently prevent the in-built cleaning routines from freeing the ink and allowing the nozzles to operate normally, let alone permanently damage them. This is the part of the whole story that actually concerns me the most: why did the basic, ordinary consumer-accessible cleaning routines fail to work? Clogging that users can easily clean-up is an occupational hazard one can live with to an extent, but ink flow problems that users can't clean-up at all seem to be deadly.
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Hey Eric!
Here's a crazy idea that just popped into my head...
If these nozzle are still clogged, I wonder is an ultrasonic cleaner would work to break what ever particles are possible preventing the nozzle from firing/working? I googled it and found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poEDY4f5_4Y
...maybe hope is not lost? In one of the several vids you can see them checking the nozzle to see if they are clear... you see a stream of fluid coming out each nozzle.
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I expect politics may throw up some walls here but I am already actively pushing the limits of standard protocol. My goal is not to find a source to buy print heads from. Rather my goal is to develop an understanding of how these heads work, what are their weak points, and how best to care for them - and therefore ultimately our Epson x900s. My parts contact in SF mentioned to me on Friday that he understands Epson does not make the heads of the x900 printers. He suggested the heads are made in Germany. I do not know if this is true. However there is a US company called Dimatix which specializes particularly in the production of Piezoelectric inkjet printheads and related systems. I do not know if Dimatix makes Epson's heads. The more I research this though, the less I believe Epson makes their own heads. I therefore suspect the most direct route to acquiring more knowledge on Piezoelectric printhead technology and maintenance is likely not through Epson.
My understanding of electricity is pretty basic. Piezoelectricity even less. But I do know that sending electric current (electrons) through a substance that will permit this flow (a conductor - like a wire) is always met with some level of resistance. That resistance generates heat. Think of a fuse - one with higher resistance stands up to more heat than one with less resistance. A 2amp fuse has a thin wire with low resistance - it burns out easily. A 20amp fuse has a thicker wire with a higher resistance - it has a higher resistance to burning out (melting).
Considering this I am suspicious of the following:
1 - just how thin are the "wires" sending electric current to these microscopic piezoelectric crystals?
2 - what is their ability to resist melting?
*3 - how much of a cooling role does the flow of ink past, or through these piezoelectric crystals, play?
*if the healthy flow of ink past, or through these electrically charged crystals does play a key role in their cooling - then my friends we might now have yet another possible scenario to consider in the explanation of one clog growing into groups of clogs. "Overheating"
Again, this unfortunately is all just speculation. But it stands to reason that a nozzle won't get hot until you send a charge to it, so under those circumstances it doesn't need cooling. But if you print a page that's 90% black for instance, your PK nozzles will be firing full time in back to back sequence of about what - four million continuous firings? I don't care how big you are, because I imagine it's all relative, if you charge a microscopic line four million times in a row and don't cool it - it's probably going to overheat. Exactly what happens inside these heads during a power cleaning I wish I knew. Do all nozzles fire continuously flat out? Does SS really stand for super sonic CHARGING? If a nozzle is clogged are they sending it MORE power to help release it? Does more power mean more heat?
These are all questions I think we might all be better off knowing the answers to. I may just be a carpenter but I happen to be one about ten miles from Dimatix. If I have to I will dress in drag and apply for a job answering phones there...
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The people who design the printheads and the people who manufacture them could well be different, but I recommend you have a look at the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiko_Epson, and this: http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/10511/epson_micro_piezo/; and this: http://www.selectsign.hk/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=280; http://fotoflock.com/index.php/learn-photography/tips-tricks/29-tips-and-tricks/2958-the-piezoelectric-phenomenon.
I think it's pretty clear whose technology this is.
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The people who design the printheads and the people who manufacture them could well be different, but I recommend you have a look at the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiko_Epson, and this: http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/10511/epson_micro_piezo/; and this: http://www.selectsign.hk/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=280; http://fotoflock.com/index.php/learn-photography/tips-tricks/29-tips-and-tricks/2958-the-piezoelectric-phenomenon.
I think it's pretty clear whose technology this is.
Well there goes that theory. Thank you Mark. I can never get the lipstick right anyway
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chaddro,
Great find, but this system is designed for solvent based inks.
It sure would be nice though if it worked for a clog,but would not help totally dead nozzle due to an electrical problem.!
David
Hey David,
Looks like the main site has some interesting info, including using with water based inks.
http://hp9000inks.com/store/catalog/Technical-Support-sp-6.html
One thing to note is the red warnings in the pdf.
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There's absolutely no doubt that Epson design and make their own heads, and they're not manufactured in Germany.
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There's absolutely no doubt that Epson design and make their own heads, and they're not manufactured in Germany.
Phil, this means then that the guy who told Eric the head is made in Germany was wrong:
(ref early on in this thread: "Got a huge deal thanks to Justin, our ebay parts contact in SF. I couldn't make Justin's 2pm deadline for pickup so I met his father instead. Pretty cool guy. We talked for a while. I gave him my input on what I thought he should stock up on and why. I even told him about this thread - and David buying one of his damper assemblies just to have on stand-by, most likely due to what we have shared here. He seemed happy. Just before we signed off I said, "Don't forget. Keep your eye out for x900 printer heads.." He responded with a classic smile - "You are my friend. ...Come with me." I followed him through a maze of printer boxes so impressively stacked even a Bloodhound would struggle to get through it. About mid-way through the maze we arrived at his desk. He reached from it's cluttered top holding toward my face a small square box in a manner suggesting it's worth was unparallelled. "It's a 7900 print head. Did you know they are made in Germany?" )
Until I read this I was under the impression that Epson made these heads in Japan, but then again these days companies make so many things under their supervision in so many parts of the world one never knows, so I thought this could be possible. Thanks for clarifying.
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Eric, you're too funny! At least you can still have a sense of humor about the situation. I think just your creativity and personality would be enough to get you the job, forget about the drag thing. Could you please clarify if you did install a new print head and if you had the service program to run. And thanks guys for being gender sensitive. :-*
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Well there goes that theory. Thank you Mark. I can never get the lipstick right anyway
Eric,
The manufacturer may be wrong but your overheat theory could still be valid.
Under normal operating conditions the head may run cooler than other systems, but given a clog it may indeed overheat and cause detrimental issues with the nozzle circuitry. The warnings in the operating manual for the cleaning machine chaddro pointed out, say that it is possible to damage heads by overheating, while cleaning with that machine.
Of course this does not specifically say the Epson heads, but overheating due to clogs, and consequential failure of nozzles, cannot definately be ruled out!
David
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I paid $2350 new after the rebate including shipping 1 1/2 years ago for the 7900.
Those machines are $2300 and up + accessories ( even if they worked for an Epson head)
The problem that arises is there is just no way todetermine if the nozzles are simply mechanically clogged with dried ink, or dead due to an electrical -mechanical problem, the later of which, would make the cleaning machine useless!
David
actually I think there might be. after following this thread and the efforts to unclog a nozzle including flushing, removing and soaking etc. the symptom of unrepairable seems pretty clear ... nozzles that will not clear or change at all despite any attempts to clear it most likely means the piezo effect of those nozzles no longer functions. Despite all efforts (which have been extensive and interesting to follow) not a single missing nozzle cleared, only new ones. Unfortunately head seems dead.
I'm not clear on the technology. However it seems possible that they are sensitive, perhaps more sensitive in the new printers, and moving them might be more risky than before. Maybe even static electricity. Interesting to note that Epson recommends in the 9900 user manual when moving the printer to leave the ink cartridges in place.
I don't think the outdated cartridges are an issue. There are thousands of users that use outdated cartridges all the time. I don't think the ink really "settles" out. Issue with old cartridges has more to do with potential color variations.
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Before you consign a head to the dead pile, may I suggest that you check the ribbon cables? Both for a secure connection and for possible damage. Even if you can't see a break, it's possible.
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Before you consign a head to the dead pile, may I suggest that you check the ribbon cables? Both for a secure connection and for possible damage. Even if you can't see a break, it's possible.
Oh great, two birds with one stone: My friend in SF with the allegedly bad information about where Epson's heads are made, not only held that spare printhead up to me - but he actually gave it to me. For free. Apparently he had sold this head to someone a year and a half ago. They couldn't get it to work right so he gave them their money back. The head has sat in a box in his possession ever since.
After extensive testing with our original cleaned head once we fired our machine up Saturday afternoon, the writing was pretty clear on the wall. Our head is toast. That's when I started the clock, and the job of swapping printheads. Like I said it took us 45min start to finish, mechanically. The next step is "registering" the head.
These heads come with a series of letters and numbers printed on a sticker, glued to one side. There are 45 characters in all. In the adjusting program you have to enter those numbers in order for the head to work properly. The head will work, and the printer will print without registering these specific numbers in the system - but it won't work properly. I don't know yet what those numbers represent or do, but I expect it has something to do with how each head is calibrated, or aligned, or lord only knows what. The point is on a nozzle pattern with this replacement head our PK and YW clogs were clear - printing fine. But many of the other channels needed alignments or had miss-fires.
The reason we couldn't get this head's numbers registered in the system properly is because one row of them simply wasn't there. This left us with three missing characters. End of story.
So I am right there with you Farmer, and already tested it. Unfortunately I believe our head may be hosed. This will not, however, deter me from my goal of communicating with Dimatix. I could be wrong I do this a lot, but I still think the most potent source for getting answers on the characteristics of these piezoelectric printheads is not Epson.
I say we post an attractive prize, perhaps a box of chocolate in the spirit of na goodman (because I know women far better than I know printing - chocolate fixes everything) offered to the first one who finds answers to these questions:
1 - just how thin are the "wires" sending electric current to these microscopic piezoelectric crystals?
2 - what is their ability to resist melting?
3 - how much of a cooling role does the flow of ink past, or through these piezoelectric crystals, play?
4 - what is the best way to clear a piezoelectric printhead clog?
4 - what is the best way to avoid clogs.
If I win I want ice cream. I'll even buy it for myself - I just need an excuse to celebrate something
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However there is a US company called Dimatix which specializes particularly in the production of Piezoelectric inkjet printheads and related systems. I do not know if Dimatix makes Epson's heads.
My understanding of electricity is pretty basic. etc
There are many companies that manufacture piëzo heads of different designs: Spectra, Xaar, Dimatix, Seiko, Hitachi, Fuji, HP, Konica. They are used in all kinds of inkjet printers from mail address printers to 5 meter wide solvent printers. Epson manufactured heads themselves and licensed the manufacturing to other companies for some designs. For example the 9000 heads are still available and at low prices, I am told that is the result of a continuing license to Chinese manufacturers. In contrast some heads are no longer available or very expensive where Epson could influence the production. See the German pricelist I gave a link for. A tale here going round in Eindhoven is that Philips made the very first Epson heads possible with their galvanic processes that were developed to fabricate electric shaver heads. Modern manufacturing processes follow another path and piëzo heads are also made with MEMS technology like the large thermal heads are.
I have written in the past that piëzo heads used at high frequencies will heat up despite fresh ink cooling the system, it simply depends on the droplet size squirted , the frequency and the total nozzle area what the heating up and cooling effect will be. Thermal heads will heat up too for obvious reasons but are cooled with the ink as well and then the frequency per nozzle + the nozzle area has to be considered. The print speed of the Canon iPF models, HP Z6200 will be comparable to the x900, 11880 models, their thermal head printers have 2000 nozzles per ink channel, the Epson 360 nozzles. That is roughly 5x the number, if we keep in mind that Canon and HP keep nozzles in reserve for others to fail. Minimum droplet size is about the same; 3.5 versus 4 picoliter, the Canons have only that 4 picoliter size the HPs have 4 and 6 picoliter depending on the ink channel. In the highest resolutions the Epson will not use the larger droplet sizes it can also produce from the same nozzles, it has to squirt at a 5x rate similar droplets said thermal heads have to squirt to cover the same media area in the same time.
Then there is air in the ink lines, the much simpler thermal nozzle channel and its "steam" pump seems to deal better with air in lines than the piëzo heads do, HP docs often refer to that advantage. Piëzo pumps become ineffective when some air just acts as a shock absorber in the nozzle channel when the piëzo element deforms for pumping. What happens to the ink at that point when no ink is really flowing and heat builds up is something you can imagine. What becomes a permanent clogg and worse may have actually started with air in the lines for whatever reason. It will be hard to determine what a nozzle permanently not functioning contains, simply a build up of dried ink, pigment agglomerations or all that plus electronic damage as well. You probably need an electron microscope and slices of the head to get the information. Epson will know for sure, we do not.
Edit: considering the transport of this 7900 and the multiple 4900s in the other thread I wonder whether air getting into the head from the nozzle side when the printer is tilted etc may be the cause in those cases and possibly even with some new ones delivered. Would a process help where the waste tank pump is first activated + the ink carts pressurised to bring ink back into the head before the heads themselves are activated? On the 5000, 9000s and 10000 I worked on I had for maintenance etc the waste tank tube running outside the waste tank to a vacuum pump with a bottle in between. That way I could reload other inks fast, clean channels and deal better with cloggs without using the heads. All had third party inks then and in the end all went belly up due to pigment settling, fungi or me going too far with DIY approaches.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Fascinating..
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The reason we couldn't get this head's numbers registered in the system properly is because one row of them simply wasn't there. This left us with three missing characters. End of story.
Would it be possible to ask the SF people to look at other heads from the same production batch and copy the numbers to the spare head you got? There is a possibility that the total sum (or alike) of the numbers has to be correct if it is a code but it could also be that they represent a certain character of the head channels. On the 9000s the number represented the voltage that had to applied to let the piëzos act to a standard pump activity. According a Chinese from HK they changed the voltage themselves that way when the thicker sublimation inks were pumped instead of the dye and later pigment inks used with Epsons. I doubt that today's head numbers are that simply related.
Edit: Google - K T Chan Epson -
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware now:
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/six-canvas-wrap-actions.htm
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This thread is starting to read like an international high tech suspense story! A working guy carpenter in California tries to save a buck by buying a used printer from another carpenter across the country, hoping to promote his passion for printing his photographs, only to be drawn into an all consuming "journey inside the 7900"! Now even the Chinese in Honk Kong are becoming characters! Eric, forget about the technical tutorials - write a novel instead! You can call it something like "The Piezo Code" or "The Printer That Ate Brooklyn". My favorite scenes so far are when you made your way through the maze of boxes and discovered the German made print head; and the color map of the printer's cross country journey, with the daily average temperatures included.
I do hope this story has a happy ending!
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If the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu makes an appearance I will really know all is lost! On topic, I started doing a patent search yesterday (the US system is on the Internet and pretty easy to search) to see what is disclosed. Interesting that the ink cartridges for the 3880 and 4900 (thanks to Mark Segal for the 4900 numbers) share the same patent numbers. These patents only relate to the mechanics of the cartridge (hard outer shell and a polymer bag inside that contains the ink) and not the ink itself. I have not yet found any patents on the Epson inks and these may be protected by trade secret (I'm still searching so can't be certain this is the case). I did find one patent on the piezoelectric use to lay down ink but suspect there are more. This may not be the whole story since it is the implementation of the technology in the move from the x800 to x900 machines that may be the major difference. I will certainly report further on anything I dig up.
My read of what has gone on to date with the various posts leads me to think this might be head failure but the cause still remains to be determined.
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My read of what has gone on to date with the various posts leads me to think this might be head failure but the cause still remains to be determined.
This is exactly where my mind is at, and I really think it would be in everyone's interest to have an authoritative determination of what happened. So many theories have been floated here, some more plausible than others, that it runs the risk of creating numerous and for the most part probably needless doubts in peoples' minds about the robustness of the technology. Once the cause or the most likely group of causes are known, people will know what to be careful about and this could save both Epson and its customers a lot heartache down the road, as well as preserve confidence in what is, after all, fantastic printing technology when you think of it.
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The "Ranking" process required to assure your Epson 79/9900 gets along with your new head is simple to follow. You enter the letters and numbers in the order they appear on the sticker glued to the head - from upper left to lower right, until but INCLUDING the last digit in the grouping which falls in the place of in this case, the "%". So for the head pictured just below you would enter from "H" all the way to "%", then disregard "C1R.AH". Here is a screen-grab showing the rank logging procedure as it is described in the manual:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/Ranking_7900_printhead.jpg)
This is a picture of the "Ranking Tag" on our original 7900 printhead. As you can see, easy to log - from the first "H" to the last of the qualified digits, in this case "1", there are 45 characters - like there is supposed to be.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/_MG_5472.jpg)
This is a picture of the Ranking Tag on our replacement "7900 printhead". As you can see, not so easy to log - from the "O" to the last of the qualified digits, in this case "*", there are only 42 characters. Incomplete ranking info. Both Steve and I suspect this particular head is not for a 7900 at all, even though it is identical in every other aspect that we can see.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/_MG_5471.jpg)
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Hard to imagine which other printer it could be, the x900's are all the same I think. If one channel on that head is without any nozzles you got an 11880 head but that should be visible on the nozzle side.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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I don't know for sure, but I think the 4900 head may not be the same as the 7900 head.
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Mark,
You could be right, the German price list shows another order number for the 4900 head and a slightly different price.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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Eric,
That is a QR code on the head (the 3 squares and squiggly marks) ... use a QR reader and see if it gives you the proper numbers for registering your head.
-chadd
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When I scan the QTR it reads as follows:
0H6A6460QVTSWZUUYRTXUVVTRUQQSVTSVVZVUXXWW*MQMSLNNLLLMLPMNMLPMN.....F85291A010060202916AB.
I hope this info helps.
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The instructions guide you to enter all characters up to and including the "*". From your scan Randy, it looks like we entered all that we can enter, and that we did this correctly. I do not know what all those extra characters stand for. Maybe part #s? Model #s? So much of this is still a mystery. But it won't always be. I believe our answers are drawing nearer by the moment.
Please excuse me but the current stale-mate of this thread reminds me of a scene from Jason and the Argonauts. I can't avoid the looming feeling that by people who already know the answers to the riddles we face today, we are being watched...
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/mount-olympus.jpg)
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I did some digging. The 11880 head uses a 42 digits. The 9880/7880's appear to use a 40-digit id.
So, it is simply the wrong head.
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Awesome find Chaddro. How did you come up with that? Do you have an 1180 manual?
Again, awesome find. That's another hurdle under us.
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That also means that success in certain channels doesn't prove that the ribbon cable isn't a problem - they may not connect/fire in the same order.
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Phil, what are you referring to here?
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If the second head wasn't a head designed for that printer, then Eric's note that the second one printed the channels that the first one didn't, doesn't prove that the cable is not the culprit. Indeed, if the first head had say 4 failing nozzles (always the same ones) and the second head also had 4 failing nozzles (always the same ones) you might very well find that the different head had a different electrical order for the heads, so a broken cable could be quite feasible.
Of course, in this specific example, a second hand 18 month old head as the replacement isn't a good yardstick by which to compare because it may have it's own failings.
Basically, because it's not the right head, you can't read into it that, the fact it appears to fire nozzles that appear not to be firing in the original head, means that the cable is not faulty.
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Basically, because it's not the right head, you can't read into it that, the fact it appears to fire nozzles that appear not to be firing in the original head, means that the cable is not faulty.
Up to that sentence I'm with you. Then I got tangled up. I think you're saying the cable may still be faulty even though the second head, which is an incorrect one, fires nozzles that appear not to be firing in the first head. Right?
Anyhow. the more I read in this thread from highly experienced and knowledgeable people such as yourself, the more I'm convinced this case needs systematic, hands-on expert diagnosis, if that's still possible in light of all that has transpired.
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Up to that sentence I'm with you. Then I got tangled up. I think you're saying the cable may still be faulty even though the second head, which is an incorrect one, fires nozzles that appear not to be firing in the first head. Right?
Anyhow. the more I read in this thread from highly experienced and knowledgeable people such as yourself, the more I'm convinced this case needs systematic, hands-on expert diagnosis, if that's still possible in light of all that has transpired.
Right! :-)
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My idea is to get this head analyzed by someone, or something, that has intimate knowledge of these heads and this technology. I am actively trying to make that happen. Might be a dream, but then so was printing at 24" wide. Look how close I came to that...
Ultimately I would like us all to know exactly what we are up against considering clogs, maintenance, and successful use of these x900 printers/heads. Right now our knowledge seems a bit blurry. We should be able to improve on this. After all what good is it to be told your head is bad by a service tech, if you aren't told exactly why it is bad, or how exactly it went bad. You'll just end up there again.
...and Dan Berg, thank you for trying to get "Dano" to chime in on this thread. I just read your blatant thread hijacking in his "Epson Exhibition Canvas Recommendations" thread. It seems he ignored your request but it was a great gesture by you to stick your neck out like that. Thank you
Trust me I am a determined little %&(*#$$. We will get answers. It would be great if they came from Epson themselves but I am not getting the impression that will happen. If push comes to shove I will take this head apart with a razor blade and microscope
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Eric,
Actually Dano personally called me and we talked on the phone for sometime.
He is very limited on what he can say on a very public forum as you can understand.
Behind the scenes he just might be the guy that can help with this?
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Dan,
Did you have any exchange of ideas with Dano on a preventive maintenance plan for the Epson Stylus Pro printers? If so, what was his perspective? I have to presume – just like with an airplane the pilot would expect a maintenance schedule to keep flying. Therefore, with a professional printer, there should also be a documented prescriptive maintenance scheduled – beyond the internal printer notifications – perhaps something written in a user’s manual?
Jeff
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Jeff,
Sorry,we did not get that deep into this issue.
Just wanted to make sure he was following along,and he was.
All we can hope for is that he now passes this on to someone in the know.
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Jeff, this idea of a "preventive maintenance plan" has surfaced elsewhere in this thread. When I got to thinking about it, it struck me that perhaps it isn't really feasible. Look at it this way. When manufacturers design sophisticated machinery like this, you must assume that they think carefully about maintenance, and what parts of the machine should be user-serviceable and which not. Think of the number of things you buy where there is a notice in the manual or engraved on the unit itself saying "There are no user serviceable components in this product", or "The opening of this panel by unauthorized service personnel voids the warranty" - all to the same effect - intended to keep people with no training or inappropriate training out of the innards. Whatever maintenance they do think is safe for most normal untrained users they include in the manual. Having seen what I've seen in this thread and perusing the reference materials people have made available here, my sense of the matter is that Epson has most likely decided very consciously what is user serviceable and already provided for it - as laid out in the manual, the software and the LED panel. I personally would not even attempt to change the wiper blade in my 4900 if that ever became necessary for example, as straightforward to the unsuspecting that may sound, because of what needs to be done to access it, and the risk of expensive collateral damage I could do trying to save dollars on a service call. There are economies that are real and economies that are false, and the theory of comparative advantage actually has practical merit.
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Jeff, this idea of a "preventive maintenance plan" has surfaced elsewhere in this thread. When I got to thinking about it, it struck me that perhaps it isn't really feasible. Look at it this way. When manufacturers design sophisticated machinery like this, you must assume that they think carefully about maintenance, and what parts of the machine should be user-serviceable and which not. Think of the number of things you buy where there is a notice in the manual or engraved on the unit itself saying "There are no user serviceable components in this product", or "The opening of this panel by unauthorized service personnel voids the warranty" - all to the same effect - intended to keep people with no training or inappropriate training out of the innards. Whatever maintenance they do think is safe for most normal untrained users they include in the manual. Having seen what I've seen in this thread and perusing the reference materials people have made available here, my sense of the matter is that Epson has most likely decided very consciously what is user serviceable and already provided for it - as laid out in the manual, the software and the LED panel. I personally would not even attempt to change the wiper blade in my 4900 if that ever became necessary for example, as straightforward to the unsuspecting that may sound, because of what needs to be done to access it, and the risk of expensive collateral damage I could do trying to save dollars on a service call. There are economies that are real and economies that are false, and the theory of comparative advantage actually has practical merit.
Mark,
I think what we are discussing here is a wiper blade change "Out of warranty"
If you add a k for thousand to your save dollars comment it changes everything.
Very little chance you would get Decision One out for a service call for much less than a grand.
I agree I would not touch a thing while this is covered by Epson.
Today with no warranty I'll change that wiper in a heart beat.
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Regarding preventive maintenance: Well then, maybe Epson needs to re-think their strategy. Throwing out a 3 year old, 3 hundred pound printer because Decision One charges insane fees for service and parts is somewhat criminal. BTW... how do you properly dispose of one of these things?
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Even if you run a high risk of destroying a $4000 printer? I'd be really surprised if a service call to change a blade would be that expensive - a few hundred is more credible; but then again, very few of us have probably had the experience to know for sure. As well, one can buy a 2 year extended service warranty from Epson for about $565 or so, providing a seamless warranty for the first three years of the machine's existence. Not even clear to me what the probability of most users ever needing to change that blade would really be. It could be extremely low. You know the story - web forums are a very skewed sample of the population because forums largely attract complaints to leverage attention and get results - it's the power of the internet, to be used or abused as the case may be. But getting back to these service calls - the cost of the extended warranty should give you a clue about the expected trouble level, in the sense that these warranties operate like an insurance system. They create a pool of cash deployed from the total pool of participants to those who need it. The more who need it the higher the insurance premium. That's why car insurance rates are linked to the claims experience and life insurance gets more expensive the older you start buying it. So when I look at a "premium" of around 500 for two years of coverage on a 3000-4000 piece of machinery, knowing that the average single service call is billed in the hundreds of dollars, it tells me that the expected frequency of recourse to the pool is projected to be very low.
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As well, one can buy a 2 year extended service warranty from Epson for about $565 or so, providing a seamless warranty for the first three years of the machine's existence.
Mark,
Under warranty or extended warranty now makes total sense -knowing what we know now. Thinking beyond the three year coverage... What should someone do to retain a printer’s operational state? Hire D1 for service? I think not, but then again it’s your prerogative to make your own call. I personally want guidance from the manufacture (in writing) on what should be done and when (under warranty or not) based on usage models (light or heavy volume). I don’t think this is too much to ask for this type of an investment. Do you?
Jeff
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Mark,
Under warranty or extended warranty now makes total sense -knowing what we know now. Thinking beyond the three year coverage... What should someone do to retain a printer’s operational state? Hire D1 for service? I think not, but then again it’s your prerogative to make your own call. I personally want guidance from the manufacture (in writing) on what should be done and when (under warranty or not) based on usage models (light or heavy volume). I don’t think this is too much to ask for this type of an investment. Do you?
Jeff
Yes I do; I think it is way beyond the pale of anything reasonable. You would need months - perhaps many months - of bespoke training just to learn to do the diagnostics on such complex, precision machinery, and then the correct tools and instruments to do anything safely and properly. You - and almost any one else getting into this - wouldn't even begin to know whether a problem that arises on your nozzle checks is due a wiper blade or umpteen other things without this training - just look at the range of speculation within this single thread. I'll bet you've spent a lot more money on your automobile than you have on your printer. Do you expect Toyota or whoever to provide you with complete written guidance on what to do if your engine (most of which are computer managed these days) konks-out on you once the warranty is expired? No you don't - you take it to a reputable, likely authorized, service outlet for professional attention. Like I said, I'm a believer in the theory of comparative advantage. But of course YMMV - we all have different ideas about how to spend precious time. :-)
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Regarding preventive maintenance: Well then, maybe Epson needs to re-think their strategy. Throwing out a 3 year old, 3 hundred pound printer because Decision One charges insane fees for service and parts is somewhat criminal. BTW... how do you properly dispose of one of these things?
In California you can take it to an electronics recycling center. I've disposed that way of a couple of beasts that occupied the garage far too long. Whether Epson or Canon, the value a 17" printer with dead head/heads lies pretty much in the discounted remaining ink value. I've harvested cassette trays and roll spindles for handy extras in addition to the ink before the final trip...
Pete
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...Not even clear to me what the probability of most users ever needing to change that blade would really be. It could be extremely low. You know the story - web forums are a very skewed sample of the population...
This reads better in the voice of Rod Sterling:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/Rod_Sterling.jpg)
"Dan Berg. An artist. A craftsman. A gifted man possessed not only by his vision, but by the rare ability to form that vision at his fingertips. A competent man. A mechanical man. An Epson journeyman large format printer for whom one 900 series printer was not enough, so he bought two. Soon big overshadowed little so he sold his 7900 at barely a step into it's promised life. Hardly warn? Immaculate condition? Dan thought so himself. But beyond this Epson door lies another dimension. You unlock it with the key of your imagination. You open it with your wallet. You enter it with your faith. Faith that the cumbersome nozzle clogs of the past, promised by Epson to stay in the past, will actually remain there. But this is the Twilight Zone. Another dimension. A place where reason defies reality. A place where less clogs actually means more. A place where cleaning can create filth. A place where maintenance can form harm" - if your wiper cleaner assembly is compromised....
Below is the wiper cleaner assembly on Dan's Epson 7900, after just 900 prints (unfortunately AFTER the tar and splooge was cleaned from it). Note the tear in it, which obviously kept it from sitting flush on the face of the head during cleanings. I post this because maybe "the probability of most users ever needing to change that blade" is actually not extremely low at all. Seems like it took a lot of cleanings for Dan to get 900 prints out of his Epson 7900 - and Dan is a pro:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1160crop.jpg)
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1162.jpg)
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1203.jpg)
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This is very poetic and I almost split a gut laughing, but I know, Eric, you are trying to deliver a serious message, so forgive me. But unfortunate as it is, your wiper blade finding seems to me unlikely to reflect a representative sample of the total number of these machines operating in performance environments around the world; otherwise it would not have endured on the market for the past 3 + years it has been available. No production run of anything most consumers use is 100% fail-safe - that we can take for granted; the important issue is whether the failure rate is above the manufacturer's norm or high enough to impair the market for the product, and on that we don't have the data.
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This reads better in the voice of Rod Sterling:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/Rod_Sterling.jpg)
"Dan Berg. An artist. A craftsman. A gifted man possessed not only by his vision, but by the rare ability to form that vision at his fingertips. A competent man. A mechanical man. An Epson journeyman large format printer for whom one 900 series printer was not enough, so he bought two. Soon big overshadowed little so he sold his 7900 at barely a step into it's promised life. Hardly warn? Immaculate condition? Dan thought so himself. But beyond this Epson door lies another dimension. You unlock it with the key of your imagination. You open it with your wallet. You enter it with your faith. Faith that the cumbersome nozzle clogs of the past, promised by Epson to stay in the past, will actually remain there. But this is the Twilight Zone. Another dimension. A place where reason defies reality. A place where less clogs actually means more. A place where cleaning can create filth. A place where maintenance can form harm" - if your wiper cleaner assembly is compromised....
Well, I see you've been working on your intro to your maintenance video..... ;D
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But will he remain as calm and collected as Rod Sterling? :-)
Just not to put too fine a point on it - crap happens to all of us at one time or another. Recently, Michael Reichmann, positively reviewed the Sigma 8~16mm lens for the Sony NEX system. Based on the sample he had I have no doubt his review was correct. I went onto the B&H website and read a slew of positive reviews of this lens. So I ordered one. It came to me, I tried it, and I found that beyond the center of the image, it performed somewhat better than I would expect from a Coke bottle. So I sent it back to B&H. (B&H are wonderful that way; their order fulfillment and product return processes are efficient to an extent unbeatable anywhere in the world.) So do I think the Sigma lens is junk - no - I just got one that probably wasn't aligned quite correctly; it can happen with a mass-produced wide-angle zoom lens and I've seen it before. So much to say, we need to take all this kind of stuff in perspective.
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Good of you to receive that so well Mark.
again I say what drives me to post is to help others. From what I have read, which is likely as you say "skewed", I get the impression that I am not the only 7900 user who has experienced cleanings which seem to add clogs rather than remove them. I do not know yet exactly why this happens. I can only draw conclusions from what I read, and from what I hold in my own two hands. Soon enough we will all have a uniquely fascinating view, and therefore understanding, of what exactly goes on during a cleaning cycle on an Epson 7900 printer - from the inside out.
Also soon enough we will all have three months of Epson service training jammed into three minutes - which will hopefully set you especially at ease as to how undangerous it is (yes I just made that word up) to change your own wiper cleaner assembly. Until then I hope you can assemble any traces of faith you have left in what you read on the internet - there is almost a comedic level of "risk of destroying a $4000 printer" in changing your own wiper cleaner assembly.
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I've often thought that many of these returned products are simply returned to the next buyer and so on and so on and so on.......... until someone finds it "acceptable'
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Eric,
Cannot tell you how many hours I watched the Twilight Zone trying to imitate that crushed velvet airline voice.
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Dan,
You may have to smoke his brand to match the voice. But - don't do it. :)
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Eric,
Cannot tell you how many hours I watched the Twilight Zone trying to imitate that crushed velvet airline voice.
Dan, the answer to his voice is seen in his left hand! (EDIT added - Randy beat me to it)
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Good of you to receive that so well Mark.
again I say what drives me to post is to help others. From what I have read, which is likely as you say "skewed", I get the impression that I am not the only 7900 user who has experienced cleanings which seem to add clogs rather than remove them. I do not know yet exactly why this happens. I can only draw conclusions from what I read, and from what I hold in my own two hands. Soon enough we will all have a uniquely fascinating view, and therefore understanding, of what exactly goes on during a cleaning cycle on an Epson 7900 printer - from the inside out.
Also soon enough we will all have three months of Epson service training jammed into three minutes - which will hopefully set you especially at ease as to how undangerous it is (yes I just made that word up) to change your own wiper cleaner assembly. Until then I hope you can assemble any traces of faith you have left in what you read on the internet - there is almost a comedic level of "risk of destroying a $4000 printer" in changing your own wiper cleaner assembly.
I shall await my three-minute wiper-blade training with keen anticipation Eric! :-)
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We are not talking about DYI necessarily.
My Toyota Truck User Manual gives me a very definate maintenance schedule to provide for keeping it in as best running condition as possible. If I don't adhere to the reccomended sevice intervals and inspections (too numerous to mention ),I have no one to blame but myself if it conks out.
It appears that at least the the wiper assembly in the 7900 has been designed so that it can be changed easily("even a cave man-woman can do it") ,but absolutely no mention that it should even be examined for wear and tear!!!
The faqs on the 7800 tell users to inspect and clean the wiper in that machine!!!!
David
My Epson 4900 printer comes with a manual that has a whole chapter on user-performed maintenance. Everything they want to let users do is explained there. What isn't explained there is what they don't want users to do, and that includes inspecting and changing wiper blades. The printer is also programmed for auto-maintenance (nozzle checks and cleaning). Different models have different designs and what is recommended to users for one may not be for the others. Doesn't mean to say I'm unwilling to be demystified, but..............well, let's see what we'll see. Time to give it a rest for now.
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Even if you run a high risk of destroying a $4000 printer? I'd be really surprised if a service call to change a blade would be that expensive - a few hundred is more credible; but then again, very few of us have probably had the experience to know for sure. As well, one can buy a 2 year extended service warranty from Epson for about $565 or so, providing a seamless warranty for the first three years of the machine's existence.
The 2-year extended warranty for the 7900 and 9900 is $1,375.00.
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The 2-year extended warranty for the 7900 and 9900 is $1,375.00.
OK, I was quoting for the 4900.
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I think there are a lot of users of this sort of machine who have a great deal of "hands-on" experience with electro-mechanical machinery. Many build computers from the ground up and have had some professional exposure to handling the innards of complex equipment in their lives. I put myself in this category and when my Canon DSLR refused to fire I opened it up, cleaned gunk from behind the shutter blind and got it working perfectly again. So for me threads like this are invaluable.
On the other hand, my wife calls the serviceman if the TV remote need a new battery. This thread has been very useful and I believe that the apparent possibility of clogs being the fault of electronics and not blockages that has been revealed here is possibly a real breakthrough. Could it be that these printers were brought to market before they were really ready?
Keep digging guys.
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Hi,
sorry i jump in this thread with my first post here, but i folow this part of the forum for a while and this thread in particular and i might have a few words to say that helps.
first of all i'm not a photographer, but i print for living. one of my printres is a 9700, not so different as your 9900 photoprinter. for some reasons i use dye inks in this printer, not pigment inks. dye inks are much more thiner than pigments so the clogs are not being produced by pigments accumulating in dampers or head. most of my clogs do occur especialy in the midle of the prints. not if the printer is idle, but in the midle of a very large print with a lot of ink used. after 4 prints of 180g coated paper 1,5 meters by 90 cm i ususly get some clogs.
but i also get clogs on my mutoh draftstation printer both with dyes and with pigments. but not as much as epson 9700.
that is not all, i also have a roland solvent printer. guess what, that clogs to.
all the above printers have various epson heads. for me it is half clear: epson heads do clog by design. more nozzels, more clogs.
but roland user manual describes very well how to take care of your printer. ok, it is solvent , i have to take care of it one, twice a week, but i was very confused that in mutoh and epson manuals thay do not specify any type of deep cleaning. more, for roland i was sugested to replace the whiper ebery 6 months (but again there are different inks). anyway, when i clean the roland i also clean the waterbased printers the way roland told me to clean: clean the whiper, clean carefuly arownd the head, clean the capping station. and cleaning the caping station seems to help the most. there may be debris, hair whatever that prevent the proper sealing of the head and conducts to dry ink and improper cleanings.
i think this was a good approach because i have no missing nozzels and i realy print alot. i have over 5000 pages printed with epson, printed with a RIP, some pages may be over 10 meters long.
i don't know i my sory tells clearly what i wanted to tell: all epson heads clogs. more or less. no matter what ink they carry. i don't think it is heat related, since roland prints even 10 hours without a problem but epson may clog even after 6 sqmeters. a proper maintenance must be done. why it is not specified in the manual it is a mistery to me.
again, sorry for the long story and for my bad english.
Adrian
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Adrian - Do you keep the printers on all the time?
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no, the 2 waterbased, the mutoh and the epson are turn off during night (hit the power button). the roland i'm not allowed to turn off more than e few hours if i want to work with it. but roland in stand by mode turns a short cleaning circle every 12 hours or so, just to prevent ink drying in the heads. a smart move i'd say even for waterbased printers. this way a waste about 1/2 liters of ink every 2 months, including regular clenings.
oh. one more thing regarding heads i forgot earlier: roland suggests that DX4 heads only last about 6 bilion shots. this is part of solvent ink, part, of wearing (?) of the piezo elements. they say that the piezo elements in the head get tired over time (around 6 bilion shots, but i can work OK even after 12 bilion shots) rezulting missfire. i don't have data for the dx6 heads in the 9700/9900. one ideea is to check an dx6 solvent printer and see what number of shots they guarantee the head. how do i know the number of shots? roland tells me that in service menu. i do not know if epson in service menu can tell the number of shots per head's colour. anyway i suspect the number of dropletsthat an epson can safely shot can be substantialy higher since the ink is much softer for the heads. but, still...
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On the endless subjest of wiper blades, maintenance and capping, this is in an old thread on 11880 maintenance:
there's 6 blades that self clean and the head's locked in place by the capping unit so i wouldn't try it.
edit: the capping system and blades are good for the life of the printer, so you won't need them replacing under normal running.
it's a very short thread, located here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=25311.0
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OK who knows how to embed a youtube video on this Luminous Landscape forum?
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You can post a hyperlink to the video.
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Based on what I'm reading here and in other forums, nearly anything I have a technician do to a X900 printer is going to cost between roughly 25% and 60% of the purchase price, or considerably more if it was purchased with one of those big rebates. Given that, having a technician perform preventative maintenance makes no sense economically. A few service calls would cost as much as the printer, so unless you do preventative maintenance yourself it’s a matter of hoping the printer lasts for a while before it eventually fails. For similar reasons, if the printer is several years old it makes no economic sense to have a technician perform a major repair. Of course there’s a gray area if the printer is out of warranty, between 1 and about 3 years old, and doesn’t work. It seems like anything except a head replacement might make sense then, but it’s a judgment call. For the most part, unless you can maintain and/or repair the printer yourself the economics of the situation makes these things throw-away devices. That in turn creates some need for what Eric is doing.
I’ve got an Epson 7900 that’s still going strong after 3 years and 1 month of use. Every device fails at some point, and when that happens I’d have nothing except the parts cost to lose by attempting a fix myself. That’s fine if the problem is caused by the dampers, capping station, wiper, or other similarly priced parts. If the $1800 print head is the cause of the failure there would be no point in attempting any repair. The key is being able to diagnose the source of the problem so you don’t end up spending $500 on parts plus a bunch of time only to determine that the $1800 part is bad. I’ve read here and elsewhere some keys that Epson uses to determine what parts to replace. That may be as good as it gets, but on the other hand a head does not cost Epson $1800, and given burden rates for labor they can better afford to replace parts to see what's broken.
I read the theory here that repeated powerful cleanings used in an attempt to clear "un-clearable" clogs might cause heat buildup that in turn ruins the piezoelectric elements or associated parts in the print head. That makes a lot of sense. These “un-clearable” clogs could indeed be caused by a bad wiper and might not occur if the wiper functions as it should. Piezoelectric transducers (essentially what’s inside the print head) can build up heat, especially along the transducer face. I'd assume they use the ink to keep these cool, and when a head is clogged the ink is not flowing. Enough heat could delaminate the piezoelectric element making it inoperable in terms of pumping ink. If that happens before you pull the head and manually clean it as Eric did, there's no repairing it. All of that seems completely reasonable to me, which of course doesn’t mean it’s what happened. It’s just my two cents.
My thanks go to Eric and his "genius friend". This has been to most fascinating printer discussion I've ever read. If you didn't want to "live and die broke" you could do well as a writer, or better yet a writer/photographer. When the inevitable happens to my 7900 I’ll have you to thank for providing a road-map of sorts should I decide to dive into it. Best of luck and thanks again for all the information!
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I spoke with a very experienced photographer friend today, about my clogged or damaged LLK 7900 channel. He responded, and gave me his permission to post this. He's a photographer, but he's actively engaged in a business that prints in high volume; mostly on canvas. I'm not trying to stir anything up, with brand wars, but earlier in this thread, when I read the post about the design differences between Epson, Canon, and HP, it tweaked my interest. If I chuck this 7900, and start fresh with a 44" unit, I don't want to make a mistake. I've always been an Epson loyalist, up to this point. Below are his comments:
I use the HP Z3200ps. It has a built-in i1 spectro and all the software needed to profile anything you can put into the printer. Great advantage. One thing I'm hoping to do is trying the emulsion you shared a link about. You can put that on a piece of sheet aluminum (or any other substrate) and this printer will do a great job profiling it.
Also, the Z3200 doesn't need a "wasted ink" tank. Nothing like it on this printer. To me that seems to be a much better design. In the 14 months since I bought it, I have not had to perform maintenance on the printer once. Instead, I leave it on all the time (per their instructions) and it goes through a routine every once and a while to keep itself in tip-top shape. My Canon is different. Has a maintenance tank, but still keeps itself in good shape, sometimes pausing before printing to check and make sure.
The HP printer comes with a maintenance contract for the first year. I extended it for another year in January, and will continue doing this as long as I have it. I just don't have the time or interest in tearing my printer apart. Use to be gang-ho for anything, but I'm focused on being productive, not saving money to keep the printer running. When I first got it, something didn't work right and they systematically replaced every single component in the printer until the problem was solved. Turns out the cause was my using illegal characters in naming profiles. So they replaced 100% of the components first, and then started looking elsewhere. Impressive.
All that was done under warranty, and it taught me a very valuable lesson - let the pros do it.
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...So they replaced 100% of the components first, and then started looking elsewhere...[/i]
Quotes like this are the exact reason I rolled up my own sleeves and got into our 7900, rather than calling the pros. Did I make a mistake? The question isn't if I made a mistake, but how many did I make in a row - starting with buying this printer used. If I had to do this all again would I instead have an Epson service tech come work on this thing right off the bat? Not a chance. Of the many mistakes I made, I'm glad I did not make that one - BEING THAT THE SERVICE CALL WOULD NOT BE UNDER WARRANTY.
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I'll say this for HP, you can even buy a warranty for a used printer... even one years old! You just have a 30 day or so period before you have problems.
Eric - where's that youtube vid? did you ever call that print head doctor place to see what they said about your 7900 head?
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Epson Stylus Pro 7900
video tutorial # 1
WIPER CLEANER ASSEMBLY EXCHANGE
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/SERVICE_WIPERCHANGE-tag.jpg) (http://gotagteam.com/epson/Epson_7900-Wiperblade_change.html)
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Ok, so I haven't watched the video yet but I do have to say I do love the construction worker! Got my video working to the end. Great job!
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+1 Epson Stylus Pro 7900 - video tutorial # 1: WIPER CLEANER ASSEMBLY EXCHANGE
Thanks Eric! This is simple enough to make anyone confident with the procedure. What’s the game plan for other DIY videos?
Jeff
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Nice video, Eric. Simple step-by-step and easy to follow. I can handle that. Now if only I could locate an Epson 9900 wiper assembly to keep on the shelf....
Thank you for providing a Paypal address at the end of the video.
Any good sources for Epson printer parts?
While I haven't had any notable issues with my 9900 (knock on wood), I appreciate being able to learn more about how to handle potential maintenance issues with my printer, particularly the easier ones that might help avoid more serious issues later or a service call. Thank you!
ken
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Thank you, David. I agree with you---I wouldn't attempt to do anything more than the wiper assembly and replacing the cutter on my 9900. That I can handle!
I found it interesting to stumble on an article by Epson on inspecting and cleaning the wiper blade and pump cap assembly for the 9800 (I still have my 9800). see, http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=FAQ&oid=60322&prodoid=55197367&foid=76588
Too bad there isn't much on user (read basic) level printer maintenance tips for the 79/9900.
ken
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Fantastic video Eric. Clear simple instructions and you're great in front of the camera. This is easier than adding a hard drive or RAM to a PC.
Paypal donation made thanks.
::Michael
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Users in EU can purchase their 79/9900 wiper assy from here (http://www.gedat-spareparts.com/index.php?sess=980720120205049331030&model=STYLUS%20PRO%209900&refnr=568&artnr=1504179&action=epsdetail). €7 !
Eric, a small contribution from Scandinavia will drop in from Paypal.
Thanks
/Sven
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The San Fran man with the New Yak accent. ;)
Sent a check by mail through Gary and enclosed enough to cover the wiper assembly if your still holding it for me.
Good job!
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Eric, your video is very well done and the instruction well presented. For 7900 owners it could be useful (I use a 4900). But first they should be sure that if they are having ink delivery issues, the wiper blade exchange is the whole cause and the whole solution. That is where recourse to a trained technician would come in handy. Having said that - there are basically two approaches for resolving operational problems - (1) the analytic approach, (2) the trial and error approach - just trying out various things that one has reason to think could be the culprits and seeing what happens. When that approach is as cheap as sixteen bucks and as apparently low-risk as your video would suggest, and just takes a minute with your guidance, it would appear to be worth a try before going the other route. I suspect that beyond what you have shown here, it starts getting more complicated pretty quickly, but I'll be watching for your next installments with interest.
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Humour and information, a stellar combination.
I laughed out loud at your video and I learnt something at the same time that was extremely useful, you have a remarkable gift and I give you hearty thanks.
Cheers
Tom
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Awesome. I am so glad you guys like the video. I knew Mark especially would appreciate the stop watch near the end. Thank you very sincerely for the generous donations. It's a fine proposition I think - spend a little and save a lottle (another word I just made up).
jeverton ; my intention with the video(s) is to create a channel on youtube - specific to 7900 maintenance. It's been suggested to me that a video on cleanings would be useful - from the serviceman mode. I have small video cameras from another element of my life (no not FBI) that I can use to get some never-before seen angles on exactly what goes on during cleanings. Not sure yet if we'll be able to see anything but I intend to try. I think it will be useful for people to see their wiper blade in action.
I am open to other suggestions as well.
Special thank you for any and all support offered in thanks. Every dollar here goes toward the purchase of a new head for this Epson 7900. It's a handsome machine no doubt, but it'd be better looking with a 24" print coming out of it's chin. Still have yet to experience that.
PS - true story. Obviously I am from NY. My whole family still lives there. I sent this video to my younger brother Justin - a NYC Fireman. Bed Stuy is his territory. If that name doesn't ring a bell, just imagine it's a rough place. His response, written from the firehouse, said so much in so few words, "You're gonna wake up with the fishes." So if I suddenly go silent, check the Harbor
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+10, that tutorial is great, just to watch for fun.
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that video is class! brilliant! :)
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Can't even explain how great it is you guys like the video. Thanks for watching it.
I wish I could update the printhead diagnosis saga but I'm struggling to break through the barrier walls of Dimatix. I really want to talk to someone who can give me straight information on what exactly makes these things clog/fail/die. Not what might cause these problems. More what exactly causes these problems. May have to resort to dressing in drag after all. Dam lipstick..
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Eric, failure analysis can be tricky stuff, I seem to recall from years gone by in other endeavours - what I took away from it is that failures are seldom caused by just one thing. It's usually a sequence of events, each one of which compounds on the other to produce an inevitable outcome, once you know the chain and the potential impacts, meaning one needs an understanding of the underlying science and engineering. As mere mortals, most of us aren't terribly well-positioned to get into that stuff for an Epson Stylus Pro print head, which is a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment whose functioning depends on a number of critical systems, as you've seen. In your particular case, I'm still fixated on unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions about what happened to that printer from the time it left Dan's house until you set it up and started using it. In this case, the answer MUST lie somewhere within that chain of events, whatever they were.
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I wish I could update the printhead diagnosis saga but I'm struggling to break through the barrier walls of Dimatix.
Barking up the wrong tree, Dimatix knows its own products, I doubt it can tell you why an Epson 7900 head failed.
BTW, have you tried to clean the head in an ultrasonic bath or shifting the nozzle area over a vacuum tube end while feeding cleaning fluid into the head, preferably with a damper in between. The more drastic methods.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Ernst, are you sure after what Eric has done with the head that it can properly survive the treatment you are proposing, or is that a suggestion to experiment along the lines that perhaps he has little to lose at this stage? But do we know this? Would it not be preferable for that head to be sent to professional service people for an evaluation? Suppose the head is damaged in a manner that cleaning will not help it any longer. Isn't it worthwhile knowing whether that's the case before spending more time and effort on it? Or suppose the head isn't damaged beyond repair yet, but it needs treatment of a particular kind otherwise it could be damaged beyond repair? Shouldn't he know that too? This is expensive, delicate, precision technology to tinker around with, don't you think?
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Expensive it will be as soon as professional service people get their hands on any part of your printer. Vacuum is 1 bar at most, I have seen more drastic methods. The capping station pump will probably apply a similar vacuum but not on individual nozzles so it is not as effective. Ultrasonic cleaning has been used often for cleaning inkjet heads, both thermal and piëzo. Google for it and also try to find the cases where it did not work. If you can not get that head cleaned get a new head and forget all about what may have caused the problem. You need X-ray microscopes for the best hypothesis then and with that hypothesis the head is still not open. Today I saw an ad for a water pick, too sophisticated for my teeth but with the advertised maximum 6 bar I thought it could help Eric get through the debris in the nozzle holes, with warmer water for example. If I had to spend approx. 1000 Euro on a head I would make sure that the old one is actually dead, and yes it may die in the process to resurrect it. If it still shows life in 90% of the nozzles it is not dead to me but as unusable as a dead head.
All an opinion of course. Using HP gear here and I had to exchange two heads last week, total 120 $. I might revive one for curiosity but I do not feel the urge right now, sealed it in the cup of the new one with a moistened cloth in there too.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
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Why would piezo heads that should last for many years die on such a new printer? I don't get why Epson is going around replacing heads on these printers that are a year or two or less old. Our previous models could go a decade without replacing heads, and that was with everyday use. Actually the only Epson heads I ever had to replace were ones I shorted out by spraying cleaner in them trying to break clogs. I've seen a lot of these reports of having to replace the heads prematurely in the latest series. It that really what is going on or is it the pressure leakage issues?
john
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I can't get this image of my head now. Thanks a lot Ernst. There I am on all fours barking up a tree at some innocent Japanese man in a white lab coat. I just know I'm gonna wake up to that tonight..
Do you really think piezoelectric printheads from different manufacturers will vary greatly in general design? I am not baiting you here - I am sincerely asking. My idea in asking the very scientists who design these piezoelectric printheads themselves, is to break away from endless speculation and gather a more specific understanding of how they work, how they are cooled, what exactly their tolerances are, etc. I can't help thinking that rather than abiding by some arbitrary rules we are told to follow, that if we all had specific knowledge about what exactly goes on in our heads, we would be better prepared/motivated to provide more appropriate care for them. For example I see many posts about moisture, capping stations, and drying ink. Some put jars of water in their machines and hope for the best, others monitor their rooms daily and run humidifiers. But what exactly is the moisture doing? Does it keep the ink from drying around the seals of the capping station only, or is it more. Is the moisture intended to reach the printhead itself? And if it is, it must also make it's way into the ink in the printhead itself? I am just thinking out-loud here but what I am after is actually less random.
I would like to understand exactly what happens during the time your printer sits between prints. For however long, doesn't matter - because theoretically whatever happens begins to happen the instant your head parks itself over the capping station, and gradually works toward clogging your head. When I say I want to understand things like "tolerances", what I am referring to is the relationship between the size of the nozzle opening in the x900 printhead, to the viscosity (thickness) of the Epson UltraChrome HDR ink. For instance - in monkey language, using whole numbers so I can understand this better - if the ink measures 1mm wide and the nozzle openings measure 2mm wide, then in this case we have 1mm of tolerance for our ink to get "thicker" as it is exposed to the open air through the face of the printhead, and still fit through the nozzle opening when it gets fired out during a print. Obviously the reason we have such a thing as a capping station is to protect the face of the printhead from exposure to the "dry" open air. And obviously, even with a capping station, the face of our heads are not completely protected from dry open air - otherwise we could leave our printers idle for a week and have no clogs to clear.
imagine for a moment, Ernst, that you are a piezoelectric printhead engineer wearing a lab coat. You are in a tree. I am barking the following questions at you:
So for instance just on the subject of humidifiers, which I am confident not every Epson x900 user runs in the room of their machine, what EXACTLY is going on with all this extra moisture in the air of the room that houses our printer? Because it's not purposely affecting our printheads, per-say, but rather the ink that is inside them. Is it a "thickness" thing? I assume it is. How much of a thickness thing is it? And then how exactly does ink in the printhead react as it sits idle over time? And how does this in turn affect the piezoelectrics? Is a "clog" (dried ink blocking the nozzle opening) actually even a clog? Or could it mean the ink in the printhead has simply "thickened"? And if it has indeed thickened, what exactly goes on now? Does this thicker ink slow down the piezoelectric movements? Does that in turn build up resistance, which leads to overheating causing misfiring, which shows up as "clogging"? Is "overheating" sometimes what we are actually referring to as clogs? Is the reason we are supposed to let the printer sit after cleanings meant to allow the Piezoelectrics to cool? Is there some tolerance to overheating then - like do cleanings clear thickened ink from the head to provide thinner ink and in turn better FUTURE cooling? So are automatic cleanings actually then maintenance, or could they be preventive maintenance? In the case of these uncloggable clogs then, are these indications of what we sometimes call "dead pixels" on our sensors? Is a dead head really a dead head - an electronic failure, or is it simply a drain-o clog clearing clog failure? Is this why our printers are set by default to regularly clean themselves - to run thickened ink out of our printheads? Is THIS the preventive maintenance step we are all screwing ourselves out of by "saving ink" and changing our default cleanings settings? Is it actually not clogs Espon is concerned about, but instead "thickend" ink that's been exposed too long to open air entering the face of the printhead?
Are you scared yet Ernst?
Stepping back a moment - questions like these are what I want answers to. Maybe the guy in a lab coat would laugh me out of a room for asking such nonsense. But, then, maybe he would look up at me and say, "That's our biggest challenge."
Because if overheating is what causes clogs, rather than clogs being what causes overheating - and ink is what plays a key role in piezoelectric printhead cooling - then maintaining the proper tolerances of Epson UltraChrome HDR ink viscosity would soon be appointed the new sheriff in town.
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I get clogs with dyes. In the same head as you have. Clogs are not ink thickness related. You say that a clog is dried ink in the nozzle. It may be paperdust as well. Combined with ink can easily get cement like.
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I get clogs with dyes. In the same head as you have. Clogs are not ink thickness related. You say that a clog is dried ink in the nozzle. It may be paperdust as well. Combined with ink can easily get cement like.
Just to be clear what I really am saying is I would like to avoid speculating. At first my go-to response to gaps in the nozzle patters of this 7900 was clogs. I understood clogs back then to mean dried up ink in the nozzles. Now after all this open communication about clogs and printheads I understand it the problem(s) could actually be more involved than what I originally assumed.
Thanks for your input. Cement sounds horrible - I see enough of that crap in my day job. And by the way it's pretty thick, so maybe clogs are thickness related? :-)
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Eric,
Check Dimatix products, there is a PDF file. Not one of their heads squirts droplets smaller than 10 picoliter. The nozzle strips are one channel mainly and often a single trip of nozzles so several are assembled next to one another to print the colors needed. If water based inks are used in them it is in the textile industry. They squirt typically solvent or UV curing inks for industrial uses, sign industry etc. Used on systems that can clean the heads in the evening etc. All kinds of piëzohead patents exist, Epson is just one of the developers and its goal has been photo quality printing with water based inks. They are not really used in the sign industry for example just one Epson printer and some Mimaki, Mutoh, Roland models with Ecosolvent inks. When inks get really tough you will see Spectra heads, Konica heads, etc. Printers like that asks for much more maintenance and are build for that service. Rolands and Mimakis allow more maintenance by the user even when equipped with Epson heads.
Humidity at 55% is a general condition for working with papers and will not be bad for inkjet printers either. But an inkjet printer that is not in use but used often enough should have enough "humidity" within the capping station. If not, the seal of the capping station to the head is compromised by paper lint etc. and should be cleaned. When that issue often happens and users increase the humidity in the print room there will be less issues but the real problem is a bad seal in the capping station that should be cleaned. The glycols and glycerols in the ink medium function more like a retarder than the water in the ink medium does, humidity in the print room is no equivalent to their function. The waste ink pump underneath the capping station pads is a tube pump, it seals off any air getting into the pad/nozzle area if no tube or valve there is leaking. I guess in transport of your printer the capping station was not completely sealed off and possibly some ink retracted into the head. When started up again the bad condition of the wiper blade was no help either. The piëzo pumps can not handle air in the head and any dried ink on the nozzle surface makes it worse. Imagine the situation where the piëzo pump tries to pump air through a hole that is blocked, without a fluid there is no pumping done, no pressure build to blow out the dried ink, no fresh ink reaching the dried ink to dissolve it. The ink has not lost much of its normal consistency but does not reach into the actual pumping area.
Pigment particles are a factor of 200 or more smaller than the nozzle diameter. Already talking about microns for the nozzle diameter. The rheology of an inkjet ink is based on much more components than pigment and water and has to suit the nozzle geometry, pump activity, travel, paper coating and drying while keeping the pigment particles suspended in the carts. You can read endless documents on the web, patents, whatever and it will not help you in resolving what happened to your printer.
The advice to stop with extensive cleanings and let the printer rest for some time may be related to air bells near the nozzles that could escape in time and to give the glycols and water time to dissolve dried ink near the nozzle. I do not relate it to the electronics in the first place but it could be that the latest heads are more prone to overheating too. Blocked nozzles, air in the pump and no fresh ink around will not help then.
Based on some educated guesses, gut feelings or just my intuition.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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Ladies and gentlemen, that's barking up the RIGHT tree.
I feel like I should send you brownies now Ernst.
Thank you
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I get clogs with dyes. In the same head as you have. Clogs are not ink thickness related. You say that a clog is dried ink in the nozzle. It may be paperdust as well. Combined with ink can easily get cement like.
This may not be related, but I had been printing many prints with Epson Cold Press Bright the week before going on vacation, and shutting down my 7900. I wonder if something related to "paper dust" from the rag paper could have contributed to my nozzle clog. I had done an entire week with Matte Black and watercolor-type papers.
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I posted earlier, and i think I got discouraged after my simple cleaning attempts, and Eric's thorough head cleaning didn't provide any positive results. I have decided to sell my 9900 with a tough green clog as-is. I guess I just don't have the repairman stamina that Eric does and I have decided to sell it as is on eBay. (item #220952497644) if anybody wants a "fun" project or a parts printer. I'm starting it at a "low" price. ($1000.) its just over a year old and only has 300 pages on it (50 of which are nozzle checks) prints good except the green channel.....
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Ernst +1. I think you are right.
Ultrasonoc cleaning maybe a good thing. Or not, but the head is compromised anyways. And i suggest a weekly maintenance for al 9900 users. Each friday afternoon take a few minutes and clean the whiper and the edges of the caping station. And leave some drops of cleaning fluid on the flushpad and in the caping station. For those who dare i suggest to clean arownd the head itself. NOT the bottom of the head, just the edges. Head is 90 degres rotated and is hard to see, but with a swab you can doit.
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I did read an article on clogging a while back that stated that printing with the art (rag)type papers can indeed induce more chance of fiber dust and clogs, as opposed to resin coated and glossy type papers.
Right, you only have to look on the surface beneath the head carriage path what dust paper lint and coating particles of art papers can create. I noticed my Z3200 had too much of it last Friday. Vacuum cleaning should be done but I have to make sure that the felt there stays flat. Self discipline for cleaning is a virtue. I think the users that have little issues must have RC papers, films, etc on their printer, that makes a lot of difference.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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One of the advantages of sheet feed printers (3880) is that you can brush all papers to get rid of paper lint prior to printing. I do this whether using gloss or matte paper and maybe it's a contributing factor to no clogs.
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I have gained alot of knowledge about my newly purchased, one owner, 7900 and I thank everyones input. I sold my trusty 7800 and it truly was like the old pickup that kept starting in the morning day after day. As my friend had trouble with his 9900 he bought from someone with a known clog issue I have followed this thread to keep mine from doing the same thing and possibly facing a $2500 head repair visit. Being more paranoid I guess I have printed out a daily nozzle check status and turned on my 7900 everyday (which I never did with my 7800 and it was fine) to stay on top of a possible problem. I will also do the wiper blade exchange in the near future. I was wondering (maybe I missed it in the earlier pages) was if keeping the machine off for longer lengths of time initiates the clogging and is the humidity level a factor? It is more humid where I run my printer and think that will help keep the clogging at bay? Also, as I was reading the manual last night I ran across this on p.176 regarding after you move the printer after the initial setup:
"Keep in mind that the first time you start printing after moving the printer, the print head nozzles may be clogged _ especially if the printer hasn't been turned on for a long time. You may need to run a cleaning cycle (p 154) and realign the print head to ensure good print quality."
This struck me kinda weird as the problem seems to be with print head nozzles being clogged and don't know if it was in my 7800 manual. Just my little 2 cents worth ... but with products being rushed out the door and the consumer seems to be the testing ground (an electrician pointed out that these days alot of electrical devices go bad and they seem to use the field electricians to cull out the bad switches/plugs/etc) rather than fine tune a product until any known bugs are out (an ideal world I know)!
Thanks Eric for the video and anyone sharing their knowledge and experiences with the 7900/9900 Epsons.
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I posted earlier, and i think I got discouraged after my simple cleaning attempts, and Eric's thorough head cleaning didn't provide any positive results. I have decided to sell my 9900 with a tough green clog as-is. I guess I just don't have the repairman stamina that Eric does and I have decided to sell it as is on eBay. (item #220952497644) if anybody wants a "fun" project or a parts printer. I'm starting it at a "low" price. ($1000.) its just over a year old and only has 300 pages on it (50 of which are nozzle checks) prints good except the green channel.....
SacredEarth this is very unfortunate and I for one will not let this happen to all of us in this clogged predicament! It’s time to get to the bottom of these recurring concerns… if the manufacture will not respond to this community and identify recommendations on a prescriptive or suggestive maintenance schedule, and identify alternative service providers with reasonable repair costs it only leaves one avenue worth our pursuit.
Jeff
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..........Being more paranoid I guess I have printed out a daily nozzle check status and turned on my 7900 everyday (which I never did with my 7800 and it was fine) to stay on top of a possible problem. I will also do the wiper blade exchange in the near future. ...........
I'd be interested in some clarity on the following questions relating to your experience with your recently acquired 7900: when did you get your 7900? For how many days now have you been printing the daily nozzle checks? What have the results been? Have you made any prints yet? What do the prints look like? What first-hand experience have you had or observed with YOUR printer that makes you think you need to change your wiper blade?
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I got the 7900 a month ago from a neighbor a mile away (we babied it home). He bought it new July 2010 and had 71 prints on it. I read the pages last Sunday after my friend at sent me the link since he was the one who was initially happy about his 9900 until it looked like it may have expensive repair work after trying some solutions on his own. I was starting to have buyers remorse and the sweetness of the deal was becoming tarnished. I did a regular morning nozzle check printout and have only seen great results. I print regularly but don't want to turn the 7900 on everyday due to being paranoid it will clog if I don't. I called the previous owner and asked him the longest he went without turning it on and he said a couple of weeks. He had it set on an automatic nozzle check/clean which I have turned off. It makes great prints and can see a subtle difference than my 7800. I mainly had issues with out of gamut colors on my 7800 as well as the Apple operating system possibly causing color management issues. I don't have any issues with the printer and just want to be aware of potential problems/issues and their solutions as a minimum $1000 service call is not what I live for. Hope this helps. My 7800 spoiled me; I know there are 100's of 7900/9900 owners with no problems and want mine to be as trustworthy as I have been used to. I don't think I can get the new 7800 owner of my machine to let go of it as he loves it!
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All that sounds fine. I would recommend forgetting about the wiper blade and forget about ANY fiddling around inside the machine unless real trouble erupts - and then be real careful about what you do so you don't compound the problem. Your preventive measures sound sensible to me, especially as you don't need to print with it every day. x900s are meant to be production machines.
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x900s are meant to be production machines.
It would be interesting to know how many 7900's are production machines, and how many are used for lower volume. You'd almost wonder if a more consumer-friendly version of a 24" printer might be desirable; something like a big brother to a 3880. It's a bit off-putting to think these 7900's are so delicate that you have to turn them on and off every single day in order to avoid a printhead disaster.
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What would you define a production machine mark? I am a photographer who also prints for other artists. Sometimes I print very little and other times I run the printer all day. Is there a print qty amount that ones use?
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It would be interesting to know how many 7900's are production machines, and how many are used for lower volume. You'd almost wonder if a more consumer-friendly version of a 24" printer might be desirable; something like a big brother to a 3880. It's a bit off-putting to think these 7900's are so delicate that you have to turn them on and off every single day in order to avoid a printhead disaster.
I have a 9900 and after reading this thread I decided I should check mine. It hasn't been on for more than a month and I have auto check/clean turned off, ran a nozzle check and it is perfect. IMO what you usually read on forums (not only here) are those that are having problems and seldom from those who are not. I have owned a 7600 and a 9600 before buying the 9900 (used) and it is by far the best printer of the three and has been problem free, but you never know :-).
Gale
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What would you define a production machine mark? I am a photographer who also prints for other artists. Sometimes I print very little and other times I run the printer all day. Is there a print qty amount that ones use?
A production machine normally means that it spends some time every day actually making prints. I have a 4900 and find that it can sit turned off for 3 or 4 days without needing to be cleaned, but beyond that it will need a light cleaning to get all the nozzles laying ink on paper. If I use it daily, there are fewer cleaning cycles.
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It is so great to hear good news like this thank you very much for sharing it. I've had this looming feeling of doom hanging over my head for a while now. Like if we get ours working somehow how long will it last? Maybe it's not worth fixing? Etc. etc. I am very glad to hear not only about your good experiences, but also in other new threads. What a relief
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I did a regular morning nozzle check printout and have only seen great results. I print regularly but don't want to turn the 7900 on everyday due to being paranoid it will clog if I don't.
One question has been puzzling to me… Do you leave the wide format printer on or off? What is the manufacture’s recommendation? What does your experience or the distributor tell you? If you turn off the printer for a period of time and then power up the unit… Are you more likely to experience clogging?
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I usually turn the printer off at night. Always did this with my 7800 for years. Not sure what Epson recommends. Once I turn it on in the morning I leave it on as it goes into a sleeper mode. Starting today I did not print out a nozzle check status and will probably move it to a weekly or every 10 days routine. I really am starting to believe the reported issues are the exception to the norm and there are alot of happy running 7900/9900 machines out there in use and may never have any problems. Let's hope I'm right.
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I know this is an Epson thread, but a few things I know about my Canon 6100 might be worth sharing. A Canon distributer told me never to continue printing after the menu tells me the cartridge hasn't enough ink to finish the job.. It's possible to continue because the menu offers that choice. The risk is the ink will then completely empty during the print, and the head will suffer overheating and nozzle damage due to no cooling by the flow of ink. I'm not sure if Epsons allow the printing to continue like that, so I offer the info for what it's worth.
The Canons perform much better if left on, they wake up at odd times and when they do the panel says "Agitating" or "Checking temperature and humidity" or "Nozzle check". Leaving it on also consumes less ink than only turning it on to do a print.
I recall earlier in this thread a discussion about the electrical impulses that force the piezo operation which shoots the ink from the nozzles. Later discussion seems to be more about clogging than electrical or piezo failure. Are we closer to knowing which really is the most likely cause of failure?
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I have read this thread with great interest and wish to share my thanks along with many others for the OP's courage and open discussion of his clogging problem and solutions (and the delightful video). I own a 7900 and a 4900 and have owned Epson printers back to the dark recesses of time. I replace them about every third generation (my last 24" printer was the 7600) With acknowledged fear (or superstition) for breaking that which does not need to be fixed, I am happy to report that I have never had a clog that was not easily cleaned.
My printers are certainly "light duty". If I am not planning to use the 7900 in the next 24 hours I turn it off. Sometimes it remains off for a week or more. The 4900 powers itself off after about 6 hours of idle time. My studio is in a non climate controlled basement and both printers are within 15 feet of a oil fired furnace which produces prodigious amounts of dust and ash. I do not cover either printer when not in use. Epson printers just seem to work, at least for me.
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This is not an Epson issue. There is always ink left in the cartridge after the system forces you to change the cartridge for exactly this reason.
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A few observations:
* "x900s are meant to be production machines." Where is this coming from? Where is the evidence? If that is so, then Epson would need to make that clear as not to sell printers to people who clearly would not "qualify" to use/own one. As a matter of fact, I have talked to Epson management people and they clearly expressed interest in selling these printers to more than just "production" folks, so I guess that it is safe to write that Epson never intended x900 printers to be only production machines.
* Eric, you don't have a clog anymore, and your current situation is probably not due to a clog. As posted much earlier in this epic saga, I have collected data that so far shows that most printers affected by this "dead head syndrom," have that occur in LLK. So, yes, especially with this thread, we learn that other colors can be affected too, albeit so far not cyan for instance, one of the most clog prone color in the x900. Beyond that, verified experimentation establishes that LLK hardens much less than cyan for instance, it remains more fluid much longer. It is therefore nonsensical to imagine that it could clog more, and as a matter of fact, most users would agree that LLK clogs less than most other colors, especially cyan and yellow for instance. This goes further in demonstrating that typically a head failure on the LLK channel cannot be caused from actual clogging. Now we do not know if Eric's case is exactly similar as far as the causes go, but I tend to think that it has the same symptoms, except for the color(s) and that it therefore is likely to be actually the same problem on different colors.
* Eric and the rest of us affected by this have a head with either premature delamination, most likely in the upper chamber, or fried nozzle connections. A good way to eliminate the delamination theory would be indeed to flush thoroughly the head from the nozzles out, reinstall it and see if anything has changed? If delamination is the cause, then surely flushing the head with cleaner in the opposite direction as the normal flow, should have a tendency to clean the particles that presumably obstruct the filter before the nozzles. If delamination is the problem, then surely such a job would change the situation, the physical obstruction would have a tendency to either be expelled, or at least move. So by comparing a nozzle check done before and after, there should be a noticeable difference.
* But I am leaning more toward a "frying" of the nozzles'connections, as the issue does not seem completely in line with the normal symptoms and behavior of delamination. Except that the frying could not possibly due to blockage or heat, given what I have observed both in my printer and the rest of the cases that I know.
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A few observations:
* "x900s are meant to be production machines." Where is this coming from? Where is the evidence? If that is so, then Epson would need to make that clear as not to sell printers to people who clearly would not "qualify" to use/own one. As a matter of fact, I have talked to Epson management people and they clearly expressed interest in selling these printers to more than just "production" folks, so I guess that it is safe to write that Epson never intended x900 printers to be only production machines.
....
I think this comes from the basic premise that in general these Epson printers need or like to be used. They simply run better---unless you like doing multiple nozzle checks and cleanings. And the time in between usage that the printer can sit unused (imho) is a variable that varies greatly with environmental factors, humidity, etc. of individual users. Even a car if left garaged (unused) needs servicing---fluids breakdown, battery drains, etc). I would guess Epson doesn't care if the end-user is in a "production" environment or not. The business model is just to sell relatively inexpensive pro-printers and ink. It's up to the user to determine how to make the best of their printers and maintain. And yes, I think it'd be helpful to have an Epson recommended tips/maintainance/service schedule. Until then---we have Eric and this forum. ;)
So, in my "production environment" I do try my best to run at minimum a nozzle check on days I'm not printing. I shut off the printer each day. I do wonder about printer utilities like www.harveyheadcleaner.com (runs nozzle checks automatically) for times when I leave the studio for days/weeks at a time on vacation/assignments. Humidity kept between 40-60%. Carefully vacuum media roll ends and printer areas with dust from canvas and fine art papers. And now with Eric's shared experience here I will be occasionally inspecting and cleaning the wiper---as well as replacing it after about a year or so. That much I can do----and I've had basically a great trouble-free experience with my more-finicky 9900 (than 9800) thus far. And I suspect that is what the vast majority of 49/79/9900 users experience: a great printer. But I also believe in doing the little things noted above helps to protect my investment and keep my 9900 running, just as I would with any other piece of equipment in my studio.
This is not to say that those that do suffer clogs/difficulties with their printer are necessarily to blame or to diminish their frustations. But I do believe the vast majority of 49/79/9900 users don't experience these mortal printer head deaths, and do enjoy their Epson printers. I do appreciate those that have had difficulties with their printers, sharing their experiences so everyone else can perhaps learn from their experiences. So I am thankful for Eric's detailed breakdown and experience. I can now confidently clean my wiper and replace it. Anything more and I know quite confidently I'll be calling on Decision One.
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A few observations:
...
* Eric, you don't have a clog anymore, and your current situation is probably not due to a clog....
* Eric and the rest of us affected by this have a head with either premature delamination, most likely in the upper chamber, or fried nozzle connections...
I want to understand you better; You are saying I "don't have a clog anymore", but at one point I did? And my current situation is probably not due to a clog, but rather fried electrics?
Just so I am clear(er) here is my experience: Purchase machine used / first print a nozzle check - PK clog, YW group-clogging / many cleanings later "clogs" gradually get worse, not ever better / remove printhead, soak-etc, reinstall / clogs exactly the same.
At this point I lean more toward the problem in our 7900 printhead being fried electrics. BUT... there is one lingering piece of this puzzle which may not match up with the fried electrics theory so appropriately - the "clogs" have ever so gradually gotten worse. Grown, if you will, like a virus. From my experiences electric failures happen two ways; 1 - total blackness indicating what in this case would be a dead nozzle, or 2 - intermittent temporary failures, or reduction in power, due to faulty connections.
So I don't know. To me my clogs grew organically. They didn't appear like an electric failure would. That's just my gut feeling. Not scientific. I am probably wrong. But I expect an electronic failure would be brought on by overheating. If one nozzle had failed electronically it would produce no heat - therefore it would not jeopardize the life of the nozzles surrounding it (at least not from overheating). But I definitely can see a clog which was formed by dried or gummy tar completely blocking the nozzle from behind, growing like a virus and affecting other nozzle around it.
I do not understand what you mean by "delaminating". I know what the word means, I just don't know what elements of these printheads are laminated. Could you please explain more about this? Because delaminating I can definitely also see as something which would slowly grow, like our clogs did.
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Some interesting reading...
US Patent Application 20100007706 - LIQUID EJECTING HEAD, LIQUID EJECTING APPARATUS, AND PIEZOELECTRIC ELEMENT - http://www.patentstorm.us/applications/20100007706/fulltexhtml
Inkjet Printheads
http://mindmachine.co.uk/book/print_42_inkjet_heads.html
J
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Nine to five I am a carpenter. I live the life of a thug. A heavy steel framing hammer hangs from my belt. Something won't go in, won't go up, or won't come down - it gets smashed. Life is very simple. Things makes sense.
Five to nine I am a husband and a step-father, to a rebellious 19 year old boy. I live the life of finesse. No framing hammer hangs from my belt. Something won't go in, won't go up, or won't come down - I can't smash it. Life is very complicated. Little makes sense
...and then I met my Epson Stylus Pro 7900, which doesn't work. So I traded my clumsy thug of a framing hammer for the finesse of my fine-tipped philips head screwdriver. "If it doesn't work I will learn how it does. If it's broken I will fix it. I hope."
Two months ago I came to Luminous Landscape to learn. Two weeks ago I came to share. I never expected the monsoon of learning we would all soon unleash. But somehow after all this learning, after all this sharing, and especially after all this speculation - two remarkable things remain: We still don't have the answer. I still dream of finding it.
So it's time I think I trade this gentle philips head screwdriver for my trusty thug of a framing hammer..
What if Ernst is right? What if this might still be a clog, and possibly not electric at all?
LARGE BOLD PRINT HERE, I'M GOING OUT ON A LIMB...
I followed Chadd's advice and called the Print Head Doctor. Asked about his machine, our x900 heads, our ink, our clogs, and then for his advice:
Eric - WTF is wrong with my printhead?
printheaddoctor.com - Could be it is clogged. With those Epson heads we have 100% success cleaning, but only 60% success with them working again - because 40% of the time the problem is electrics, not clogs.
Eric - Do you perform the cleanings?
printheaddoctor.com - No we do not. We only sell the machines.
Eric - How much are these ultrasonic printhead cleaning machines?
printheaddoctor.com - $1,700, plus you need a specific adapter for your printhead. Yours is $250. Then you need the cleaning solution. We have four grades.
Eric - So it's two grand for your machine
printheaddoctor.com - Yes
Eric - But it's $1800 for a new printhead
printheaddoctor.com - Yes I know that. You wouldn't buy this machine to fix one head one time. It would be to service many.
Eric - That's a big ask - $2,000 when I don't know if it will work. How about I make you a deal?
printheaddoctor.com - I am listening
Eric - I will mail you my head, you clean it with your machine and send it back to me. I will install it in my machine. If it prints like new I will buy your machine, then I will fix all the un-clearable clogs in the printheads of all my friends on this tiny web forum which nobody ever reads. Deal?
printheaddoctor.com - Deal
I do not know how long this will take but I just mailed my Epson 7900 printhead. So we will all know for sure in time exactly what the problem with the printhead on this Epson 7900 is. If it's electrical the "clogs" will remain. If they shoot clear the clogs were simply clogs.
...I love my framing hammer
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Let's hope when you get it back it's not "Hammer Time" :)
"Can't touch this..."
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printheaddoctor.com - Could be it is clogged. With those Epson heads we have 100% success cleaning, but only 60% success with them working again - because 40% of the time the problem is electrics, not clogs.
Wow! I can’t wait for the final verdict. Any side bets on the outcome???
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It's really time for EPSON to step up to the plate and answer some questions / give some guidance, otherwise we are fishing in the dark. Hello Epson PR department? This thread has 9,000 views so far and that will surely grow everyday. MANY people come to this forum to figure out what printer to purchase. I just bought a box of Epson Fine Art Velvet Paper, on the box is a big photo done by LuLa's own Jeff Schewe. Jeff has mentioned numerous times that he has a "relationship" with Epson. Perhaps he can point someone with clout at Epson to this thread. I don't expect them to spill trade secrets or anything.. I just want them to be helpful, after all, its their product.
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I have more potentially great news for anyone who feels like they are backed into a corner with no way out of their failed printhead completely negating the value of their entire Epson X900 printer. No your printer is not suddenly a worthless pile of rubbish. No a replacement printhead for your machine is not $1,800. In fact it's quite a lot less.
Brand new printheads purchased directly from Epson (this price was just quoted for me 12/13/12 by Epson themselves) are $1,132.12. They are in stock. They can ship today.
Here is the deal on buying Epson replacement parts from Epson themselves: You can't. You have to buy Epson parts from any of their distributors. And the parts are sold with the intent that a qualified service technician will be installing them. Here is where it gets interesting though.. There is an exception to this rule. If YOU are installing the printhead yourself, you CAN order it directly from Epson. They offer no assistance, no manuals, no programs used for installation. But they DO offer you the part. It's expensive, but it's not the end of your printer expensive.
I already pm'd the new-to-Luminous Landscape member who stated his 9900 was for sale on ebay as spare parts because he has unclearable clogs only on his green channel. I told him to end the auction.
Something is changing here, finally. Our answers are drawing near. In fact we may soon have 2 solutions to unclearable clogs. But we definitely already have one - replacing the head at an unprohibitive cost. Yes I just made another word up.
Before you jump on the "Oh hell no I can't take the printhead off by myself " bandwagon, rest easy. If enough people are cornered by this unclearable clog dilemma, and you support the cause I will create an Epson 79/9900 printhead replacement video that a Chimpanzee could understand.
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Eric,
I was doing more endless searching and found this print head recover service ... and they DO perform the clean and TEST before returning:
http://inkjetperformance.com/id33.html
They don't list the x900 printers, but the page may be old. Might be worth a call to pick their brains also. They put a nice bold red notice about the drawbacks of using ultrasonic "jewelry" cleaners...
Take a peak! I also saw that 9900 on ebay and was about to email him with a link to this thread!
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Some of you may find this interesting, but the dx5 printhead (from the 9800/7800 printers) has been marketed pretty widely for a variety of printers including solvent printers. I also read a couple recent FLAAR reports talking about epson's dx5, dx6 and dx7 print heads:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flarge-format-printers.org%2Fcomparative-reviews_evaluations_price_wide-format-inkjet-printers_UV-cured_solvent_textile_resin_latex-ink%2F55_D-PES-Dongguan-2011-China-Sign-exhibitor-list-Epson-DX5-DX7-printheads-Lexmark-Lenovo_printers.pdf&ei=0Kc5T_H0BOns2gXCi_WhCg&usg=AFQjCNFTpH3QJfwMFCNi4w758uYKMMv2Sw&sig2=wZEeFkNc7oahOUsbavz3kg
http://www.large-format-printers.org/comparative-reviews_evaluations_price_wide-format-inkjet-printers_UV-cured_solvent_textile_resin_latex-ink/55_D-PES-Dongguan-2011-China-Sign-exhibitor-list-Epson-DX5-DX7-printheads-Lexmark-Lenovo_printers.pdf
And for your viewing pleasure:
http://support.chinaprinter.net/ECO-Solvent-Printer-Installation/Epson-DX5-Printhead-Install/
My 7800 never made THAT much racket!
PS: FLAAR has a lot of free reports:
http://large-format-printers.org/large_format-download_page/free_pdf_reports.php
And while we cut our teeth on the new 9900/9890/etc. other manufacturer's are doing interesting things like this with that "out dated" 9800 print head:
http://www.kingsign.net/products/printer/epson.html
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Ok, Eric just convinced me, and I just pulled my clogged 9900 off eBay. I'm going to wait and hear Eric's results with the ultrasonic cleaning. $1200. For a new print head is still just out of my budget for repairing this printer. I already put $$$ into purchasing what I thought was a working printer, wasted a bunch of inks trying to clear the clog, and then needing a working printer right away and putting more $$ into a 9800, to get my back log of print orders out the door. I'll just wait and see..., but it still may end up on eBay. Thanks again to Eric for his time and willingness to put his printer through the paces and post his findings on this forum!
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Eric,
Nobody can say whether you had a serious clog originally or not, but correct me if I am wrong, my understanding is that at least since the head dip in cleaning solution overnight, there is just no clog left in the head, right? Yet the head still has drop outs on the nozzle check, so there is something else, and that something else can either be premature delamination (premature because such a young printer should not be subject to delamination) or its nozzle connections are fried.
If you have delamination, I think that everybody will agree that it is extremely unlikely that it may have been caused by a clog, which means that you probably did not have any serious clog in the first place. The only problem with the delamination theory, is that one would think that delamination would manifest itself more randomly in the nozzles than the rather regular order of progression it is known by. And this is really why I believe more in the fried nozzle connection theory.
If you have nozzles connections fried, then who knows what caused it, but it is unlikely that it is nozzles clogged, because even as we post here, your head does not have any nozzle clogged, and yet it keeps loosing nozzles, just as mine does, and just as all the other heads I know do or have done. The fact that the number of damaged heads still seem to be overwhelmingly affected in the LLK channel makes me think of a chemical component of the ink that would promote a "corrosion" of the electronic/electrical contacts under specific circumstances, and if you admit that for the sake of the argument, then it seems to make sense to envision contamination just like rust propagates. But my understanding of this is no better than my expertise in what propulses the Star Trek space ship.
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God dammit that's the Enterprise, not the Star Trek space ship!
Hey you started it. It's your fault I now assume you have a sense of humor :-)
Yes we soaked the face of our head in distilled water and cleaning fluid. Mixture about 20% solution, 80% distilled water. However, do we know if that cleared our clogs? We definitely do not. After soaking our printhead's face in the solution for 24hrs we then very gently sucked fresh cleaning fluid mixed at the same proportion, up through the face of the head and out the back into a clear tube attached to a syringe. In this clear tube we did see crap come out of the PK channel. I was not watching during the YW sucking. By assumption yes, this gave us the impression our head would be clear of clogs. But no, we do NOT know if they were actually cleared. We don't even know if our clogs are clogs at this point. The only thing we know for sure is our head has drop-outs in the very same places it has since we got this machine. Only difference since day-one to now, they are slightly worse. But not from the soaking. Mostly from the cleanings. The soaking made absolutely no difference.
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But my understanding of this is no better than my expertise in what propulses the Star Trek space ship.
Indeed, same here, because I don't design piezo-electric printheads nor the chemistry of the inks. It could be a number of things and those of us who are allowed to converse have neither the data nor the expertise nor the context to diagnose it with any confidence.
Perhaps just getting on the right track for diagnosis needs to start with the initial conditions. As I've said before, if the printer was working fine the night before it left Dan Berg's house and it was not working fine when it arrived at Eric's house. whatever caused the problem *most likely* happened in-between, unless by a low probability coincidence a problem unbeknown to Dan was brewing from some time before and just happened to erupt as the printer came to Eric, perhaps exacerbated by what happened between their two houses. I think Eric's current path of investigation makes a certain amount of sense. It will probably reveal whether clogs remain the issue. Failing that, I believe it unlikely that the root cause will be definitively nailed on this Forum.
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Wow! I can’t wait for the final verdict. Any side bets on the outcome???
Well, I'd bet the head still has issues. This sounds like a classic head failure, which unfortunately does happen. they are pretty rare, but evidence does seem to point to the new heads being more prone to this, and after moving a 7900 and seeing a similar failure one has to wonder if moving these printers can cause problems. Maybe we should be flushing the heads before moving printers.
The printer I sold and moved developed a few clogs that were challenging (in the LLK channel), and the user executed several cleans consecutively, even a couple of SS cleans. that begs the question whether aggressive cleaning can actually damage the head.
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that begs the question whether aggressive cleaning can actually damage the head.
Epson technical staff have advised me that successive heavy-duty cleanings can introduce air into the system and this is to be avoided. Hence they recommended running prints between cleanings and not to run successive power cleans.
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Eric,
If you have nozzles connections fried, then who knows what caused it, but it is unlikely that it is nozzles clogged, because even as we post here, your head does not have any nozzle clogged, and yet it keeps loosing nozzles, just as mine does, and just as all the other heads I know do or have done. The fact that the number of damaged heads still seem to be overwhelmingly affected in the LLK channel makes me think of a chemical component of the ink that would promote a "corrosion" of the electronic/electrical contacts under specific circumstances, and if you admit that for the sake of the argument, then it seems to make sense to envision contamination just like rust propagates. But my understanding of this is no better than my expertise in what propulses the Star Trek space ship.
This sounds like the typical modus exodus for Canon iPFxxxx thermal bubble jet heads, which seems to be thermo-electrical burnout rather than reversible ink clogs. I have yet to hear a report of reversible clogging associated with banding and/or printhead error messages in 6 years of following the Canon LF printer Wiki closely.
The design difference is that Canon iPFx300 series printheads (two of six colors each) have a large nozzle redundancy, with auto re-mapping as they fail - 2560 nozzles/color, vs. Epson's 360/color for the x900 series. The downside is that every few years you replace printheads as they fail, which takes about a half hour's time between purging and removal of the old and refilling of the new - at $450 each for the new x300, and $600 for the earlier gen. x100 series. Then total freedom from nozzle checks or forced cleaning cycles - for 5 years of regular use with my iPF5000 after the original PF-01 heads failed and were replaced under warranty with the x100 series PF-03's.
Pete
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Well, I'd bet the head still has issues. This sounds like a classic head failure, which unfortunately does happen. they are pretty rare, but evidence does seem to point to the new heads being more prone to this, and after moving a 7900 and seeing a similar failure one has to wonder if moving these printers can cause problems. Maybe we should be flushing the heads before moving printers.
The printer I sold and moved developed a few clogs that were challenging (in the LLK channel), and the user executed several cleans consecutively, even a couple of SS cleans. that begs the question whether aggressive cleaning can actually damage the head.
You might be on to something here... I was thinking the same thing last night. What if too much electrical current is sent through the printer head during several cleans consecutively? This is definately not highlighted in the printer manual under the maintaning and transporting the printer. And if we should print in between cleaning cycles - where is this documented? ???
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I'm thinking like Wayne as well. If you're shipping your printer maybe do more than what is advised - leaving carts in place. Perhaps those flushing carts are a good idea. Might suck to feel like you're wasting ink but really you could be risking a lot more expense than ink.
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I watched the videos of their machine in action, but do not undestand how you could possibly do a back flush drawing cleaning fluid through the head without removing it on a 7900/9900, and drawing fluid though the nozzle plate itself as Eric did.
I think the ink connections on those other machines are set up differently allowing fluid to be drawn through the head in a different manner.
It could be done on the Epson 10000 if I parked the 3 head assembly at the left side of the printer with the cover there removed. Two empty cartridges in the two corresponding slots for the head (2 channels) I wanted to clean, tubes in the carts to a bottle + vacuum pump. A small perspex + rubber plate with a tube to a bottle with cleaning fluid and that plate put on the nozzle surface in the very narrow space between the nozzle surface and the media transport axle. I also had to keep two channel valves open at the back on the other side. The 10000 had dampers in the head assembly so you could not replace them (at least I did not know how), a reverse flow could take out the pigment settling on the damper's sieves. Running MIS inks on that printer then. I do not have fond memories of jobs like that.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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If you have nozzles connections fried, then who knows what caused it, but it is unlikely that it is nozzles clogged, because even as we post here, your head does not have any nozzle clogged, and yet it keeps loosing nozzles, just as mine does, and just as all the other heads I know do or have done. The fact that the number of damaged heads still seem to be overwhelmingly affected in the LLK channel makes me think of a chemical component of the ink that would promote a "corrosion" of the electronic/electrical contacts under specific circumstances, and if you admit that for the sake of the argument, then it seems to make sense to envision contamination just like rust propagates. But my understanding of this is no better than my expertise in what propulses the Star Trek space ship.
This is highly unlikely given the chemical composition of the inks. LK and LLK are basically the same thing with different amounts of carbon black ( think MK is based on carbon black as well while PK has a dye based component). Corrosion in the classical sense is ionic in nature and there are no salts in the Epson ink formulations. Glycols and the ink component which is a polymerized dye/carbon component would not be sufficient to do this.
I also suspect that Epson are reading this thread. We know that one of their marketing people is a contributor to LuLa and Dan already had corresponded with him with regard to this thread. Whether Epson reply directly or indirectly to what is being discussed is unknown at this point.
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I also suspect that Epson are reading this thread. We know that one of their marketing people is a contributor to LuLa and Dan already had corresponded with him with regard to this thread. Whether Epson reply directly or indirectly to what is being discussed is unknown at this point.
Maybe it’s time Epson steps up and sets the record straight… a whole lot of conjecture going on with no position? ::)
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Maybe it’s time Epson steps up and sets the record straight… a whole lot of conjecture going on with no position? ::)
At this point, I'd be very surprised if anyone at Epson seriously thought it was "time" for them to do anything of the sort on this particular case. How can they? They didn't see the printer, they weren't consulted on anything that was done to it, all manner of things were done to it that they had no control over and haven't seen first-hand. If you were them under these conditions what would you do, being a manufacturing enterprise with reputational risk and potential commercial liability - as far-fetched as that may be insofar as no warranty provisions would appear to apply?
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If you were them under these conditions what would you do, being a manufacturing enterprise with reputational risk and potential commercial liability - as far-fetched as that may be insofar as no warranty provisions would appear to apply?
At the very least the company should make a more proactive positioning on preventive maintenance and best practices to dealing with ink clogged nozzles and the nozzle test pattern. I’ve heard many times on this thread and others the recommendation by technical support is to print in between nozzle pattern tests… Where is this documented?
With respect to the liability and company’s reputation, it would be prudent to be proactive vs. reactive to all the conjecture and set the record straight… regardless of what happened to a specific printer.
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At this point, I'd be very surprised if anyone at Epson seriously thought it was "time" for them to do anything of the sort on this particular case. How can they? They didn't see the printer, they weren't consulted on anything that was done to it, all manner of things were done to it that they had no control over and haven't seen first-hand. If you were them under these conditions what would you do, being a manufacturing enterprise with reputational risk and potential commercial liability - as far-fetched as that may be insofar as no warranty provisions would appear to apply?
If I where Epson, I would give some general guidance, try to clear up any misunderstandings about how their technology works and try to be helpful. They don't need to comment on specifics of the particular 7900 that started this thread. Based on past LuLa readership, this thread will probably hit 30K+ views, that is too big to ignore... of course they can choose to ignore it, but that shows hubris.
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At the very least the company should make a more proactive positioning on preventive maintenance and best practices to dealing with ink clogged nozzles and the nozzle test pattern. I’ve heard many times on this thread and others the recommendation by technical support is to print in between nozzle pattern tests… Where is this documented?
With respect to the liability and company’s reputation, it would be prudent to be proactive vs. reactive to all the conjecture and set the record straight… regardless of what happened to a specific printer.
I checked my 4900 manual and indeed this recommendation from tech support is not documented. If Epson as a company officially supports this recommendation (which can differ from tech support advice given by staff of the company - believe it or not), then yes I agree with you, it should be documented in the manuals that we get with the printers.
As for pro-activity, given where things are at now, they are being neither proactive nor reactive. They are saying nothing. I have to assume they are well aware of what's being said around them and they have done their homework on what to say or not say. They would have their own view of what's in their best interest, taking more information into account than we have access to, and obviously, their judgment of what is in their interest to say or not say about either this case or the technology in general may not be the same as that of some others here.
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At this point, I'd be very surprised if anyone at Epson seriously thought it was "time" for them to do anything of the sort on this particular case...
I'd like to make myself clear on this - I do not hold Epson responsible, I do not hold Dan responsible, I do not expect or even hope that either of them should come to my rescue. In fact Dan offered and I denied him. It's a used printer, it's out of warranty, there is no service contract, I had it shipped across the country, AND I worked on it. At this point I may as well have built this printer out of spare parts from Stanford's robotics classroom down the street - I am on my own.
What would be great though is someone with lab-coat-like Epson knowledge chiming in to help us better understand what we are all up against considering these X900 heads. Because as time goes on we are only going to need more knowledge and more help. Could be it's impossible for them to nail the cause of our specific problem to the wall, but I bet it's very possible for them to eliminate some of the ideas which we have considered, but they likely know are non-sense.
Like Mark suggests, I am sure they have angles to consider here which some of us can't even imagine. So be it. Maybe we'll never hear a word. But it sure would be helpful.
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Based on past LuLa readership, this thread will probably hit 30K+ views, that is too big to ignore...
While I agree this site is certainly one of the most visited photography sites on the internet, for good reason, are those "unique" visitors or are they just visitors? (meaning I count as 30 or 40 of those visits since I've checked this thread once or twice a day since it started, just like many others).
It still does represent a pretty large group of interested parties, but all it has really shown is a few users out of thousands have had head failures which may not be any larger of a % than is typical of earlier epson printers, just means no one has done this extensive of a discussion about them.
I will admit it does seem strange, as head failures in most other epson printers seem rare (they just seem to run for years), and the LLK channel does seem to be the most common channel affected. Still it's an extremely small percentage.
This has been a very interesting thread and I think Epson should perhaps look at doing some changing, for example I see no reason they shouldn't recommend replacing the wiper every 12 months. It appears easier to change than the cutter blade.
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This has been a very interesting thread and I think Epson should perhaps look at doing some changing, for example I see no reason they shouldn't recommend replacing the wiper every 12 months.
They have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by even acknowledging any issue. I doubt you'll ever hear a peep out of Epson.
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They have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by even acknowledging any issue. I doubt you'll ever hear a peep out of Epson.
I don't think that's the operative consideration. My sense of it is that if they were of the view that the wiper blade should be a user-replaceable consumable like a cutting blade, inks or the maintenance tank, they would have provided clear instructions in the manual for doing so. Of course nothing prevents them from rethinking this down the road, but I imagine if they were to do so at all, it would be on the basis of accumulated world-wide performance data on the machines.
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You're not the only one Wayne. My genius buddy Steve reads this thread every day as well. But I'm starting to wish he didn't..
We bought this 7900 together, Steve and I. We set it up at my house next to my heat press machine. Oh the printing dreams we shared. He even brought his rolls of paper over. But it's been a couple of months by now with nothing good come out of this machine yet. So last night after my genius buddy came over for dinner, he left with all his paper.
...heartbreaking. I think he's lost hope. And he's way smarter than me so if he's lost hope, oh brother that's not a good sign.
I don't know a lot but I do know our 7900 will print again. Sometimes I think it's an advantage not being so smart.
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If you google: "Epson Micro PiezoTM Print Head Technology" you'll find an Epson Published white paper on the new print heads. Although it's really an advertising piece for marketing the new print heads, the comparison to the old 9800/7800 heads is interesting. They tout how much better the new generation heads are by showing the relative size of nozzle and chambers on page 8.
A single piezo layer 1 micron thick vs 16 layers 25 microns thick. Hmmm... I have no idea how tough these new heads are but it makes you wonder.
That tiny chamber make me wonder if despite the back flushing that Eric did on the head, that ink was still plugging said nozzles and that the clear nozzles were simply allowing for the back flush... and the possible dangers of doing just that... 1 micro is thin? Wow. That head may have needed DAYS to soak in the proper cleaning liquid. Unless, of course, there was some mysterious electrical failure.
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Could you please post the link to that paper, that sounds interesting, and when I google this, there are quite a few docs that pop up, and are not the one you seem to mention.
Thanks.
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Hope these links paste correctly. First is the consumer version, second more scientific published by the designers of the heads.
http://pos.epson.com/lp/epson-color-works/pdf/Micro_Piezo_White_Paper.pdf
http://www.imaging.org/ist/publications/reporter/articles/Rep23_1_NIP2007_OKUMURA.pdf
I'm sure there is more out there if you know how to dig for this stuff. The second article is much more interesting from an engineering point of view.
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Chaddro - the google mercenary of hidden resources
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Thanks Chaddro.
It seems that it would be conceivable that if some ink dried in the upper chamber, it could then flake and go obstruct the path of each nozzle's chamber, possibly following the non random pattern we have witnessed all across the known incidents. The problem that is stubbornly defiant with that theory is why then would that occur predominantly in LLK channels? Especially when LLK seems to be thinner and less prone to clog than most other colors.
Of course even if some ink dried in the upper chamber, then why does it dry there? It is not supposed to, air is not supposed to be present there.
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How many times do I need to repeat the same thing? Out of all the post on the Epson LF forum regarding clogs on x900 printers, and going back on Lula to June 2011, plus various other networks, I have found:
* 11 issues of "clogging" resulting in head needing to be changed.
* 9 of them were about problems with LLK. Eric is one of the two others. And for the record there a couple of other cases presumably caused by LLK that I do not count, as the users never contacted me back.
That's what pollsters would qualify as a "valid sample," and while there are undoubtedly many more users who have experienced the issue than the ones I have found, there is no credible reason that would explain that my sample is "biased" toward people not "liking" LLK. Given the relative and unhelpful stubbornness, let me chew it down for you: I understand that people with issues (I am not talking of people with intellectual issues that would prompt them to want to appear as more scientific than their neighbors for instance. I am talking of people having technical issues) are more prone to post or just be present on the forums, but nothing would explain that out of all the people who need a head replacement, the LLK ones would be overwhelmingly more present than the other ones combined.
If after this you are still not convinced, you might want to check the definition of "denial" in your favorite dictionary.
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Of course even if some ink dried in the upper chamber, then why does it dry there? It is not supposed to, air is not supposed to be present there.
The ink feeding system is no longer based on a siphoning effect like available in the 9000 - 9600 generation. Ink is delivered from carts that are below the head(s) in most of Epsons wide formats. When switched off there is no pressure on the air around the cartridge ink pouch and the ink flow backwards into the carts is prevented in 3 ways (based on my old 10000):
1/ a small backflow preventing valve in the cart (makes refilling difficult for the same reason)
2/ an electronically activated valve just after the cart slot that is closed when the printer is idle or off power
3/ the capping station sealed against the head nozzle surface and the waste ink tube pump seals the other side
Of the three I have the least confidence in the capping station seal, the cart backflow valve comes second.
While the electronically activated valve may be enough to withstand the ink pressure down in the channel there are other physical phenomena that could retract ink from the nozzles into the channel when the printer is off power:
1/ changed atmospheric air pressure could already have that effect
2/ changed temperature affecting a different thermal expansion of the channel length of ink to the channel length of tubing
The damper membrane could prevent part of the mentioned effects but it becomes a delicate balance.
When on power I can imagine that there is some prevention with sensors and/or scheduled ink flows to let this not happen but off power and worse on transport it will be much more difficult. Taking the carts out does not change that, it is about the inks already in the channels.
On transport, a pallet forklifter in a warehouse can do a lot to the ink gravity that valves ot seals will not control, up or down. Depends how macho the operator is and his coffee break near or not. That box does not have to drop off the pallet for the effect.
On statistics: I would like to see an independent poll with unbiased questions on a randomly selected group of 3000 users, throwing in some odd questions too, before I would make any assumption on what the most affected ink channel could be.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Ernst,
And I'd like to be able to go on week ends on the Moon! At least once in a while.
The fact is that polls on say elections, are currently done on panel samplings sometimes as small as 500, rarely much larger than 1000, and they can still predict the result quite accurately on average. I have no idea what's the size of the sampling I am pooling data from. I would have to guess how many people visit the forums I have researched, deduct from that mass how many would not post their problems unless threatened of examination by the McCarthy commission, add how many people are reached by the networks I pool from, deduct there again the "McCarthy" factor etc... But my barely educated guess is that altogether, that "pool" is anywhere between 500 and 1000. IF that is true, then my stats are perfectly revealing.
Other than that, your analysis of how air could get in the channel in pretty convincing, the question is then, would that be enough to thicken the ink so that head failure occur? I am not convinced of that, because in my testing, which have been verified by somebody testing independently, LLK thickens, but does not harden just by contact with the air. It is therefore beyond unlikely that it would flake. Then the cleaners that I have used inside my head, and probably the cleaner that Eric used, would definitely have cleared that. It therefore does not seem very probable that dried ink is at stake here, but of course, all I just wrote is not a scientific demonstration, just an educated guess.
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clic,
Do you have 1000 respondents or are you drawing from a pool of 1000 possible respondents? You are also limited to 1. folks who read forums and 2. folks who read forums AND are willing to answer a poll. I also suppose (unscientifically) that those with problems are much more likely to respond to a poll about problems. I think your poll is dreadfully skewed to the negative.
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Actually over the years, polling has become a highly scientific undertaking based on the professional application of rigorous statistical methodology. Unfortunately, with the advent of web forums and the internet, it has become all too easy to cull or solicit information and then cite it is a "poll". No one trained in this field or familiar with its methodology would consider much of what passes for polling on web forums to be of any real value.
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Folks, Epson would just not still be in business if the generality of its customer's experience was as black as it is being painted here. Especially with these big, very expensive professional printers. So I am inclined to think that we have a pretty small sample.
John
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I am more than *inclined* to think.........
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I am more than *inclined* to think.........
;D funny.. Agreed!
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Randy,
I don't now how many people there is in the pool of people qualified in my previous post, but as I wrote, my guess, for what it is worth, is that we are talking of probably 500-1000 folks. Out of that number who could and probably would have posted or manifested themselves, had they had any head failure on a x900, I have identified 11 cases. I have also heard of three other cases, but have more than one degree of separation with them, and therefore I do not retain them as valid enough.
So for the nth time, yes, we are talking of a small fraction of users. It is difficult to know how small a fraction given the bias of the methodology as well as the non negligible amount of people experiencing the issue under warranty and therefore non reporting to me, that's the other bias of this study. My estimate, once again for what it is worth, is that it seems that we are talking of something around 1% of users, maybe slightly less. That is not a whole lot, but given the severity of the situation when that happens to you, that is no joking matter.
A little bit like if it became known that you have a 1% chance to die tomorrow, randomly, from an unknown killer. 1% then start to be far too many, and you'd want to get the guy before he gets you.
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Clic,
As I recall, you got most of your data on which channels clogged on the Yahoo wide format group. Why don't you take the opportunity to do a poll here, using a new thread so people can't miss it, asking people who have (or had) 4900, 7900 and 9900 printers that clogged (despite cleanings) to specify which channel or channels they were?
I don't know how many people will respond, but any additional data you get would seem worthwhile whether it supports your hypothesis or not.
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Actually I have gotten the Data on Lula as well, foraging through all the posts since June 2011. Ideally I would have gotten back to Oct 2008, when these printers got out, but I was starting to get a headache and this issue seems to have started to get strong last summer. I have also gotten data from AIS and ASMPFA.
I could do a litany of things, but at some point one's time become better used somewhere else. About Lula, the presumption is that anybody who comes on Lula these days and has a relevant problem is likely to see this thread and express her/his case on it, since it has been consistently on the top of the list. This is how I actually found 2 other cases on top of Eric. I found another two on another thread which has dried now.
If somebody wants to disprove my case by coming up with a verified list of people having had head failures with Cyans, Magentas, Yellow, Blacks, Orange, (so far I only have Eric for Yellow and Black) please step up to the plate, and I will stand corrected in total humility. Until then I'll have to assume that my theory has legs.
Of course if those cases were to surface, the cause would then seem to have more possible origins, but the problem would still remain, only bigger with a larger pool, because no matter what, there does not seem to be such a percentage of head failures that require a head change in previous generations. In those days if you had a terrible clog, worse case scenario you would used some cleaner in a cartridge and that would take care of it in 99% of the cases, and the remaining 1% would get cured by a manual unclogging. Most of the time letting the head sit on Windex for a while would have put you back in business in the first place.
Does anybody know if it possible to find out how many people have come to this thread, of course only counting once the folks who came 29 times?
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Shouldn't the problem be identified as clogging or electrical before going much further with this discussion?
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Shouldn't the problem be identified as clogging or electrical before going much further with this discussion?
You think after 23 pages of inconclusive discussion with close to zero probability of resolution about exactly these issues it shouldn't kinda get to wind-down yet?
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Shouldn't the problem be identified as clogging or electrical before going much further with this discussion?
I understand you enduser. And I agree. When my head gets back here after this ultrasonic head cleaning procedure, and it still has clogs (if it still has clogs) - we will then have some concrete evidence as to whether or not these "clogs" we have been discussing are even clogs at all. My bet is if this is the case, these 23 pages of inconclusive discussion might actually arrive at some helpful "resolution". That would be great actually. And that is the single greatest reason I sent my head out for this procedure earlier this week. Enough guessing already...
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I understand you enduser. And I agree. When my head gets back here after this ultrasonic head cleaning procedure, and it still has clogs (if it still has clogs) - we will then have some concrete evidence as to whether or not these "clogs" we have been discussing are even clogs at all. My bet is if this is the case, these 23 pages of inconclusive discussion might actually arrive at some helpful "resolution". That would be great actually. And that is the single greatest reason I sent my head out for this procedure earlier this week. Enough guessing already...
Eric, nothing I said above diminishes the value of the step you have taken to send the head for another round of intervention, because at this point I sense you have little to lose. That procedure either works or it doesn't, and then you always have the choice of taking the matter up with Epson's authorized service facility to see whether that could yield any useful outcome at a reasonable cost. If the ultrasonic cleaning works - yes in that case it would be reasonable to conclude it was just extremely stubborn dried gunk. But my skepticism about that goes right back to the beginning of the sequence of events underlying this whole saga. And if it is not dried gunk that this outfit succeeds in dislodging, I'm afraid what I said above may be the bottom line at this point. But as you say, let's see..........and for your sake I hope for the best.
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If the head comes back from the ultra sonic cleaning and still doesn't work, will that prove that the head is not clogged with ink or other substance(s)and that it is an electrical problem, or could it also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the ultra sonic cleaning? An autopsy may be required to actually see if the head has no ink or other residue in it. Not sure this is even possible as I don't know how the head is constructed.
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If the head comes back from the ultra sonic cleaning and still doesn't work, will that prove that the head is not clogged with ink or other substance(s)and that it is an electrical problem, or could it also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the ultra sonic cleaning? An autopsy may be required to actually see if the head has no ink or other residue in it. .........
I agree. Unless it comes back working, we don't really know what the problem is or how it started.
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I did some reading on the ultrasonic cleaning. Some head designs are very suitable for the process especially solvent based printers where the size of the nozzles seem to be much larger. But it also appears that the Epson heads can be damaged during this cleaning process if too much pressure is applied during the flush/back flush so there is STILL a chance that a nozzle can be obstructed because the force necessary to clear the clog would damage it.
Interestingly, these heads are designed by physicists, and diving further into the science and design behind piezoelectric heads, I found that the nozzles should have a life span on the order of 1 Billion to 10 Billion drops (this higher limit was described as zero failure acceptable). Another reference described this life span as about 5,000 hours. Also, Piezoelectric heads do not suffer from heat like bubble jet (bubble jet heads deteriorate with time due to the affects of high heat and eventually need replacing), so the idea that the Epson nozzles over heat and fail seems insignificant. Nozzle failure was attributed almost entirely to air trapped in the nozzle, or dried ink obstructing the nozzle usually cause by poorly capped heads. I found very little reference to "electrical failure" and the couple that did gave no further explanation.
From an industrial point of view, I found machines using the "older" heads (with 1 to 4 heads in the machines!) and some with recommendation to replace heads every 1-1/2 to 2 years. These industrial machines have been designed with head replacement in mind. I think most of us would be printing FAR FAR less and should expect years of use from our machines. New head: $700.
The 9900 and newer 9890 have been around for 3 years, right? In that time we've seen issues with ink carts being bad and Epson swapped these out without question until FINALLY changed the packaging. Even so, I haven't found a definitive explanation as to why these cartridges were getting damaged. Oh, and there were some firmware updates that were supposed to help with unrecognized carts. I myself have had 4 cartridges exchanged since my purchase last August.
Of more interest to THIS thread is the recent (Nov 2011) firmware update that now allows for Paired Power Cleaning - but it did take them some three years to get around to adding this! I can imaging endless complaints to Epson's Techs when told "Please Sir, do a power cleaning... Still one color clogged? Well, then do another power cleaning. No, no way to clean just that one color, sorry Sir." The new firmware was a small concession to the fact that a nozzle pair can get really fudged up!
Hey Eric!
Perhaps when you shinny clean head comes back you can give us some pictures of how well that capping station covers the heads? It looks like there is a seal for each color pair. I wonder how resilient that seal is to damage and if it can be knocked out of alignment somehow.
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Chaddro the google mercenary of hidden information, strikes again.
If this head comes back with clogs I plan to do an autopsy on it. Have to figure out how to take pics of things so incredibly small. Since all my gear was stolen in December all I have to shoot with is my wife's D700 and an 18-200. I am open to ideas if anyone has any.
Back to the capping station making a proper seal on the face of the head - if you ask me this aims a finger back at having a good wiper blade. Splooge left on the face will definitely compromise your capping station's seal.
Yes I plan to take pictures Chaddro. Video too. I've been working on camera angles up inside the machine. The capping station moves differently than the wiper cleaner assembly. The wiper travels up and down. The capping station moves forward and backward. This will all be clear soon enough. Right now I'm saving my ink for cleanings with a purpose other than just filming. Waiting to hear back from my friend Vladimir on Monday. He should have our head by now.
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UPDATE:
1 - Vladimir from printheaddoctor.com contacted me this morning. They are designing/building a bracket to mount the X900 head to their cleaning machine now. No idea how long this will take, but things are in motion on the printhead cleaning front.
2 - Who did I say is the google mercenary? Chaddro? Well guess who emailed me last night with a hot tip on a brand new printhead listed on ebay - for 800 bucks? That's right. Chaddro. So I instantly shifted my ever so calculating money saving mentality into high gear and contacted the seller. I don't know what's wrong with me, like I'm not broke enough already with this flipping (beautiful, sorry) Epson 7900 from the Twilight Zone. So I emailed the seller and asked for a break. Told him I'd send him cookies if he said yes. "Mo's" response was classic. "I have been there, and I totally get it.." Next email I got was the sale going through at Mo's discounted price.
...and here is where it gets interesting;
I thanked Mo this morning by telling him a bit about our story here, on Luminous Landscape. I just came home to his response - apparently he read this entire thread - "Dude I'm hooked! I can't wait to see what happens next!" And then Mo went on to tell me that his father actually lives in Oakland (thirty miles from here), and has worked in the service/repair industry for thirty years. You wanna know what's been his specialty for the past decade?
Come on dammit I know you want to know.
That's right, Epson printers. Mo's dad has been one of the only two (that's right, I said 2) Epson service techs serving ALL of California, parts of NV and OR. The story actually gets better. In fact it gets way better, but it's not my story to tell. Let's just say for now, maybe I better get on this head swapping video tutorial sooner than later.
Thank you Chaddro
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You sure know how to keep tension in an evolving storyline... keep the updates coming ;)
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I can't believe it! This may make up for your "genius" friend taking his paper home. That was heartbreaking. I can hardly wait. I'd tell you my gut feeling of what is going to happen but I'll keep that to myself. I hope they get that bracket built fast.
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Yellow yellow yellow! I have had to do so many power cleans to clear JUST the yellow on my 7900 it's pathetic. In addition, I've had numerous 350 ml carts of all colors that...brand new...wont work...bad chips. In addition the button that loads the paper is tricky...sometimes I have to wiggle it back and forth a little to get it to connect.
I also have the 9880 and 7800 and by far have more problems with my 7900. Eleanor
Actually I have gotten the Data on Lula as well, foraging through all the posts since June 2011. Ideally I would have gotten back to Oct 2008, when these printers got out, but I was starting to get a headache and this issue seems to have started to get strong last summer. I have also gotten data from AIS and ASMPFA.
I could do a litany of things, but at some point one's time become better used somewhere else. About Lula, the presumption is that anybody who comes on Lula these days and has a relevant problem is likely to see this thread and express her/his case on it, since it has been consistently on the top of the list. This is how I actually found 2 other cases on top of Eric. I found another two on another thread which has dried now.
If somebody wants to disprove my case by coming up with a verified list of people having had head failures with Cyans, Magentas, Yellow, Blacks, Orange, (so far I only have Eric for Yellow and Black) please step up to the plate, and I will stand corrected in total humility. Until then I'll have to assume that my theory has legs.
Of course if those cases were to surface, the cause would then seem to have more possible origins, but the problem would still remain, only bigger with a larger pool, because no matter what, there does not seem to be such a percentage of head failures that require a head change in previous generations. In those days if you had a terrible clog, worse case scenario you would used some cleaner in a cartridge and that would take care of it in 99% of the cases, and the remaining 1% would get cured by a manual unclogging. Most of the time letting the head sit on Windex for a while would have put you back in business in the first place.
Does anybody know if it possible to find out how many people have come to this thread, of course only counting once the folks who came 29 times?
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You just have to love the character names in this dramatic saga (okay, so maybe everyone is snoozing except those of us with 79/99** printers), Vladmir and Mo... Next scene opens with Eric walking down a dark seedy alleyway, Mo's shadowy figure seen just ahead. "Hey buddy, wanna buy an Epson printhead?" ;D
I look forward to hearing/seeing the next installment, Eric. Thank you for the great video---while I would not myself dig into my 9900 as you have, I certainly have adjusted my maintenance/attention paid to my 9900. Inspecting, cleaning, and/or replacing the wiper assembly is very easy, and something I'll be doing every few months.
I'll be chipping in a small donation to your 7900 repair----or perhaps more aptly, filming the maintenance pointers videos for the 79/9900 series printers. :)
Fyi for others wanting to help with Eric's printer exploits, Eric's paypal address from his video is: eric@GoTagTeam.com
Ken
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Eleanor are you talking about when it says to push the pause button to load? One thing I have learned over the years is if you want your paper to load correctly never push the pause button. I've been on site with Decision One techs and they say the same thing. If that is your situation try without pushing the pause button. I tell all my clients never push the pause button, just let the printer load the paper. If you don't push it the printer just goes ahead and loads correctly.
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I didn't even know you could push the pause button to load...what I push is the bottom arrow button below the "OK" button in the center. Is this correct? thanks, Eleanor
Eleanor are you talking about when it says to push the pause button to load? One thing I have learned over the years is if you want your paper to load correctly never push the pause button. I've been on site with Decision One techs and they say the same thing. If that is your situation try without pushing the pause button. I tell all my clients never push the pause button, just let the printer load the paper. If you don't push it the printer just goes ahead and loads correctly.
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I don't want to distract from this thread so I'll send you a PM if that's ok.
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Eric! I gotta say man, you're making me blush! LOL! I hope Mo's dad can fill in some of the gaps of our knowledge!
Unfortunately, I've only touched the tip of the iceberg. I broke up with my gal some time ago and no longer have access to Korean, Japanese and Mandarin/Cantonese - she was multi-lingual, and her father was a retired translator... we here in the west have no idea the amount of info out of our reach in those markets.
Anyway, here's something to ogle at while we wait on your head: The MOTHER LOVING GODZILLA of all CIS!
http://factory.dhgate.com/continuous-ink-supply-system/mdb05003-large-bottled-bulk-ink-system-for-epson-7900-/-9900-printer-continuous-ink-system-ciss-p45531241.html
Click the link for some interesting photos. 1700ml ink tanks!
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Anyway, here's something to ogle at while we wait on your head: The MOTHER LOVING GODZILLA of all CIS!
http://factory.dhgate.com/continuous-ink-supply-system/mdb05003-large-bottled-bulk-ink-system-for-epson-7900-/-9900-printer-continuous-ink-system-ciss-p45531241.html
Click the link for some interesting photos. 1700ml ink tanks!
But the real question is are these inks clog free??????????? ;D
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But the real question is are these inks clog free??????????? ;D
Hi Alan... I have no idea about the quality or archival nature of the ink they make. But it seems few (if any) of these industrial versions of our Epson printers use Epson ink. Of note, they are selling dye, pigment, solvent and dye-sublimation inks. I was just amazed at the size of their CIS unit and the fact it provides a vacuum based system like our cartridges.
Here is the manufacture's site, and the godzilla printer (much like a GS 6000) that they make:
http://www.3vdg.com/en/ITTEN%20Photojet-1620.asp
Of note is this statement: "There is a self-adaption structure between the print head and cap station.When the printer is shut down,the cap station and pump will be sealed automatically so that the print head can be kept in a humid condition."
As I pointed out much earlier in this thread, the Epson piezo heads are being use widely in non-epson manufactured printers. What really drew my interest was the different approach to capping/replacement and repair. From everything I've dug into and read, so much leads me to believe that the capping station is of paramount importance in maintaining a clog free printer and so many of these other market machine have really robust looking capping solutions.
I think so much of the success of the 3800 has been due to a well designed capping station. I had a 4000, and the capping station was easy to knock out of alignment. This is why I am so curious about Eric's Epic. If the capping station is off by 1/2 mm it could have a huge impact on the seal of the head. From what I can see, each nozzle pair has it's own seal.
If this is true, and a single pair is miss-aligned, then you will have trouble with that pair.
My 9890 has had problems with the Yellow (like Elanor's). I've used MORE YELLOW than any other color. Yellow, the blasted color that supposed to outlast every other by nearly double!
It is very easy to examine the capping station on my other printers to make sure the sealing gasket is in good shape... Not so easy on these 79/9900 printers. I was lucky 4000 owner because my machine kept a good seal. Didn't keep it from drawing air back into the ink line when not in use, but these new capping stations appear to be design to give a tight seal. Can the seals be adjusted? Were they miss-aligned by some poor sob working for $2 an hour at the end of his 60+ hour work week?
I see absolutely NO reason for my 9890 to clog any more than my 3800. It was my amazement with my 3800 that encourage me to get the 9890 over a 9880 to replace my 7800. I expected the same performance if not better.
Off to see the wizard...
[edit] Speaking of capping stations, look at this:
http://www.3vdg.com/en/serviceshow.asp?id=317
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Enter the Mo. I've always wanted to say that. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for the opportunity. ;)
Anyhow, to clear up a few things - Mo (me) is a lady. Just kidding, I'm not particularly lady-like, but I've got all the requisite parts to achieve that title. You do get partial credit for spelling my name correctly, though. I'm definitely not a stooge. Technically I'm a Maureen, but I've sort of always been a Mo.
Now, I have read this thread in its entirety, and I'm at the edge of my seat to find out how this saga ends. I'm really hoping it is with some exceptionally well crafted prints. A couple of years ago, I opted out of my corporate gig and bought a struggling little antique shop in Portland. I'm in love with it, even the part where I never have any money, and I hate Mac'n'Cheese now. I get to do what you guys are trying to accomplish with this printer, just with old stuff. It's awesome. I've been trying to figure out a 1940s National register for about 3 weeks now. I've only nearly electrocuted myself twice. I'm getting there, baby steps, etc.
Enough about me, let's get on to the Epson saga, and the tale of my Pop. He's the guy who has been working on these printers for about a decade now. His company used to work on big main frames, and then those went away. Then they started working on medium computers, and those went away. Then it was small computers, but now people just toss them and buy new ones, so the company partnered with Epson to provide in-home/office Epson printer repair for these, what I like to call 'Mo'Money Mo'Problem' machines. I have noted in this thread the general belief that most Epson repair guys kind of mash around and swap out parts until something fits. I can tell you, that's pretty much the truth. In large part its because Epson provided these outsourced techs with about as much training as you guys get when you buy the printer in the first place- a repair manual that references 8 other repair manuals that you can maybe find online. There's good business in parts, and since you spent your last penny to get the machine, you sure aren't going to toss it and start over- you are going to a) spend money on one of the Epson guys or b) become like Eric, and essentially go "nucking futs" with determination, tackle the problem head on, and teach others the inner workings of one seriously involved machine. I think most people probably opt for route A. In both cases, replacing a lot of expensive parts while wasting a lot of expensive ink ends up being part of the solution.
Some guys, like my Pop (and Eric it seems) are born to fix things, and dang good at it. My Pop knows these machines inside and out, and he did tend to curse them when his job involved driving all over CA, parts of NV and parts of OR to fix them. He can talk for hours about the parts shortage on these machines, and the frustration of working for a Company that doesn't provide adequate support in finding solutions for the techs that actually do want to fix the issue in a timely fashion and go home to their families; and not just because they were told by their Company that driving to/from a repair job, in their own cars (even if it was 8-12 hours away) no longer merited pay, but because being home tinkering for fun is awesome and way more rewarding.
I won't bore you with the rest of the details, but suffice to say that being good at repairing these printers meant actively trying to point out methods that would improve the repair process as a whole- for both you guys and the repair guys. Ultimately, I suspect this was the cause behind my Pop being laid off via a phone call, from a guy across the country that he had never met. No 'Thanks for 30 years of service, or here's a broken Epson to tinker with in your early retirement.' I'll be nice and assume it was simply because no one knew my Pop had been there for 30 years, because he was the only one who had been there for 30 years- even as the Company was sold and consolidated over time into a decentralized outsourced labor group that does Epson's 'dirty' work. So now there's one guy servicing all of CA, parts of NV and OR. There may be others, at other decentralized outsourced labor groups, but I bet they have the same parts issues and 'here's a bunch of .PDFs and manuals training.' Some of them, hopefully, are like my Dad - and able to roll with that set of punches. But let's face it- not everyone is. And, even if they are, they might be kind of tired from driving 8 hours with no pay, and might just do things the "standard operating procedure" way and just throw parts at it until it works. That appears to be the way to not get laid off.
Moral of this story, if you'd call it that, is a few things:
1. The kind of strategy Eric, and others of you are taking is critically important and totally awesome. It's messy, painful, frustrating, and probably kind of expensive - but its success will certainly help a lot of other folks get more hands on. I love the information sharing I've read on here, and I think you guys/gals deserve to bask in your own coolness for a few. Done and done!
2. I'm sure at the end of the day Epson printers are relatively no different than other compatible brands with regards to failure rates, internal weakness, design flaws, etc. I also can't speak to whether other compatible brands have more active/friendly repair process and training strategies for their third party outsourced labor groups, but I sort of imagine that parts are probably big business in general, so maybe not.
3. Too bad my Pop is legally prohibited from repairing these machines himself for awhile, as part of the terms of his severance package which turns out to be significantly less than it originally seemed when it becomes clear the cost of insuring a man (in CA) in his 60s who has pretty bad arthritis in his hands- gained from decades of fixing everything from old school main frames that took up entire building wings- to Epson printers, to anything else that broke in between. Don't think the third party outsourced labor groups would want competition from a guy that actually just likes to get things fixed the right way. But this is all just my opinion, and of course not the opinion of any printer company, or decentralized outsourced labor group. Etc. It's a shame because fixing stuff the way you guys are, is what my dad loves to do best. Though, now that he has been laid off, he's fairly aware that the likely hood of him finding a job in his field, in CA, at his age, are pretty slim. If he does get a job before he's actually old enough to formally retire, I guarantee you it will be along the lines of "Would you like fries with that?" Way less frustration. I think for now he is content not driving 8 hours a day, and getting to kill zombies in his expanded free time.
Sorry for the long side-story to the real story of this thread. I'll go back to eagerly anticipating the outcome - from a dark, shadowy alley way (I liked that!). I really really hope the print head is the solution! I'm always a sucker for a good project spearheaded by what seems to be some pretty stand up folk. Besides, as I said to Eric - getting to play artsy shouldn't be so much damned work!
Best of luck.
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Holeey MOleey. Mo isn't a dude at all. This feels like "The Crying Game" only backwards - and I don't have to run for the shower now.
...so you see what I mean about the videos? I gotta get a camera man
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I see absolutely NO reason for my 9890 to clog any more than my 3800. It was my amazement with my 3800 that encourage me to get the 9890 over a 9880 to replace my 7800. I expected the same performance if not better.
This is exactly what I have been wondering about through this entire thread. I have been using a 3800 for the past 4 years (7,600 pages printed) with very little problems. We don't hear about many clogging problems with the 3800/3880. So much of the core technology is the same with the 3800/3880 and its larger siblings. So what are the differences? A more finicky capping station may be the culprit!
~ Jeff
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Well I resorted to doing a power clean on my 7900 couple of days ago just to get the yellow unclogged (after trying several targeted yellow cleans plus a regular clean to no avail) ! Today all colors have clogs!!! Had to do a regular clean to get clogs free. I have the 9880 and 7800 printers also and have never had this much trouble with clogging. Eleanor
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Well I resorted to doing a power clean on my 7900 couple of days ago just to get the yellow unclogged (after trying several targeted yellow cleans plus a regular clean to no avail) ! Today all colors have clogs!!! Had to do a regular clean to get clogs free. I have the 9880 and 7800 printers also and have never had this much trouble with clogging. Eleanor
Hi Eleanor,
Have you updated your 7900 to the latest firmware. I believe it's Nov. 2011. There were a number of firmware updates last fall to deal with unrecognized carts, and the Paired Power Cleaning was added in Nov.
If you are still under warranty, definitely give Epson a call to discuss the issues with them. They sent me out a free replacement cartridge for my Yellow since I had mysteriously used more yellow than any other color. YMMV. I had a different tech give me 'guff' over my TWO BAD 700ml cartridges... made me mail them out first. And yet another tech had yet another bad 350ml cartridge out to me like next day and I could return when I had time!
Did you check your wiper to see if it's clean? It's so simple to do it can't hurt!
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Many thanks for all the excellent suggestions!! I need to update my firmware and what is the "wiper"?? thanks again, Eleanor
PS-have been trying to update my firmware via Epson Printer Utility 3 and it won't recognize the connection to my 7900. I've also downloaded the firmware to my Mac computer but it won't open when I try to double click on it. What am I doing wrong??
Hi Eleanor,
Have you updated your 7900 to the latest firmware. I believe it's Nov. 2011. There were a number of firmware updates last fall to deal with unrecognized carts, and the Paired Power Cleaning was added in Nov.
If you are still under warranty, definitely give Epson a call to discuss the issues with them. They sent me out a free replacement cartridge for my Yellow since I had mysteriously used more yellow than any other color. YMMV. I had a different tech give me 'guff' over my TWO BAD 700ml cartridges... made me mail them out first. And yet another tech had yet another bad 350ml cartridge out to me like next day and I could return when I had time!
Did you check your wiper to see if it's clean? It's so simple to do it can't hurt!
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Eleanor,
Start at the beginning of this 450 post thread and you will know more about the wiper when your finished then you want to know.
Or just watch Eric's video on page 18.
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Eleanor,
Start at the beginning of this 450 post thread and you will know more about the wiper when your finished then you want to know.
Or just watch Eric's video somewhere in the middle.
This is a riot Dan. I think this thread is making Luminous-Landscape history - may even get into the Guinness Book of Records......... :-)
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Eleanor here is a link to updating the firmware: http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/pro79_/pro79_gd.pdf go to page 54.
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Wow!!! If this is not compelling enough for you to replace your wiper blade assembly periodically… then I don’t what will convince you otherwise. Thanks Eric for the replacement unit :)
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Wow!!! If this is not compelling enough for you to replace your wiper blade assembly periodically… then I don’t what will convince you otherwise. Thanks Eric for the replacement unit :)
Awesome to see that your wiper looks like crap. ....Too
Sure feels like we're zeroing in on a weak link in the chain here - wiper/capping station/seal/ and air.
They relate to one another just like our camera's aperture/ISO/shutter/(come on I need a fourth one dammit) and ice cream
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Thanks very much everyone for your suggestions. My firmware is being updated as i type this. I needed to have paper loaded in the 7900 to update which I had not done. Now it is updating fine. I will also work on getting any air that night be in my lines, out...
thanks again, Eleanor
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Does anyone know how to check what firmware version you have on a Mac with a Epson 7900?
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i was never beeen abble to update the firmware. i can print, by driver, by RIP, but when i want to upgrade the FW the LFP remote 2 cannot find the printer :D
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That happened to me... You have to have paper loaded and ready to print and it will find the printer! Eleanor
i was never beeen abble to update the firmware. i can print, by driver, by RIP, but when i want to upgrade the FW the LFP remote 2 cannot find the printer :D
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Damn... what a story!!! Waiting to see how it ends... I started reading this morning (I live in Spain) before going to work... and I finished it now (I have not read all comments, mainly Eric posts). I really enjoyed it!
And nice video...
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Pronter is ready, paper loaded. Printer conected by wired network, all ok.
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Can't thank you enough for posting your experience here. Just finding this now, but I jumped through just these hoops about a year ago when lt. mag. suddenly dropped a bunch of nozzles on my 7900. I had had a head strike within a day or two of when it went bad, so I blamed that. Replaced dampers with high hopes, then the head itself. (By myself) (hands quaking with fear), and went on printing happily for the last 10 months or so. But today I've got the Cyan dropping just the same way. A very consistent pattern. Trying to justify getting another head...$1200 every 10 months really isn't sustainable.
I've got to make a move here before you will get to see how the cleaning machine works, but if you end up with it, I may have not 1 but 2 heads that you can try it on next!!
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So Mo came through. Every morning now I stare at a great white box containing a virgin printhead full of promise that our Epson 7900 will soon print clog-free again.
But it isn't printing clog-free yet, is it.
We haven't installed it yet, have we.
Me and my genius buddy Steve have decided to sit idle, and not get this 7900 printing again, yet, for the good of all of us here on Luminous Landscape. After all, these twenty five pages weren't filled by the singular hope that this one particular 7900 would print again. These pages were filled with the hope that any and all of us would some day understand WTF is happening with these x900 printheads. Why do they clog like they do? Is it dried ink, is it bad capping station seals, is it air in the lines, gooped up wiper blades, old ink and on and on....? or is it the mother of all hellishly looming threats, the piezoelectric nozzles simply failing, and ever so gradually showing more and more "clogging" like some hauntingly expensive computer virus - regardless of how many combinations of cleanings we come up with?
These are the questions which we have in some ways already addressed, and already answered. The answers are yes to all of these I believe, and they are all also very solvable problems. All but one that is. The piezoelectrics..
So this 7900 will sit, and wait instead for the arrival of it's original head - like some sacrificial lamb trembling in the corner of a room I once called the "The printing room", but now call "The Twilight Zone".
Vladimir's latest update suggests he has completed design of the new bracket which will attach our x900 heads to his ultrasonic cleaning machine. Now he is producing the brackets. So at this point we place our our mysterious faith in a man no one here has ever seen, met, or spoken to - Vladimir of printheaddoctor.com. And we continue to wait...
There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going.
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing.
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing
so the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of hell a glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes! The danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing. And they're certainly not showing
any signs that they are slowing!
.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/Wonka.jpg)
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Sorry if this causes confusion but my manager just made me change my old Luminous Landscape screen name (go394) to my new Dancing With the Stars screen name, for marketing purposes. I'm so excited..
::)
OK that's not really the reason
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Please promise you won't change your name to Metta World Print before the new season starts.
Tom
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hi folks.
Count me among the masses. bought a 9900 a little over a year ago. Right when the warranty ran out, it developed a clogged(uncloggable) LLK. When I first called Epson I was told that I had 4 days left on may contract. Then later that day I was asked for proof of purchase and was informed that I WASN'T under warranty after all and it would be a out of pocket expense call.
Needless to say this is crippling for a small business that didn't realize that the machine could go up in a puff of techno magic smoke. (metaphoric only- there was no smoke-event related with this devices failure).
So tomorrow I'll call Epson again and try to convince them that the right thing to do is to help me out in this case with some sweet sweet warranty action. I have serious doubts, but worth a try. If not, buying a new machine will be the most reasonable course of action, which is seriously Effed up.
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James,
Check your Private Messages
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To be clear, is the basic printhead the same in the 7900/9900, but also the 7890/9890 as well?
Is it the "xx90" that we are to be concerned about, or is the "x890" a different setup?
Or do you have to go all the way back to the "xx80" in order to get the more stable printhead?
Thanks.
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It is believed that the basic design of the x900 head is the same as for the x890. As a matter of fact, I have found in my research, 1 case of x890 affected by the LLK syndrom.
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As a matter of fact, I have found in my research, 1 case of x890 affected by the LLK syndrom.
Well, I still am down with a bad case of 7900 LLK Syndrome.
Only solutions seem to be the dumpster, or Decision One.
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Well, I have an update. I called Epson back, and seeing that I was just over my 1 yr. warranty, they were willing to grant an exception to fix the machine under warranty and let me purchase the two year extended plan, which (all things considered) is a good deal when you're facing replacing the print head. The techs were out the next day to fix it. I suppose I couldn't be happier unless a better understanding of these issues were to be had.
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I suppose I couldn't be happier unless a better understanding of these issues were to be had.
It's coming James. A better understanding of these issues is around the corner.
...now if I just knew how long this corner was
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Well, I have an update. I called Epson back, and seeing that I was just over my 1 yr. warranty, they were willing to grant an exception to fix the machine under warranty and let me purchase the two year extended plan, which (all things considered) is a good deal when you're facing replacing the print head. The techs were out the next day to fix it. I suppose I couldn't be happier unless a better understanding of these issues were to be had.
Did the tech offer any explanation of what was wrong?
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It is believed that the basic design of the x900 head is the same as for the x890. As a matter of fact, I have found in my research, 1 case of x890 affected by the LLK syndrom.
The value of your research is of course limited by the quality and scope of the data base you have access to. It is a good idea to remind your readers of these limitations. As for "syndrome", whether such a situation constitutes a "syndrome" depends on the facts underlying the value of the research.
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Well, I have an update. I called Epson back, and seeing that I was just over my 1 yr. warranty, they were willing to grant an exception to fix the machine under warranty and let me purchase the two year extended plan, which (all things considered) is a good deal when you're facing replacing the print head. The techs were out the next day to fix it. I suppose I couldn't be happier unless a better understanding of these issues were to be had.
That sounds like a very fair and equitable solution. I plan on extending the warranty on my 9900----no problems so far, and I hope it's the biggest waste of money! ;D
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Nope. No words of wisdom, but I was actually out of the shop for the day. They showed up within 12 hours of my phone call to EPSON. They changed the head directly, no playing around.
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Well, I have an update. I called Epson back, and seeing that I was just over my 1 yr. warranty, they were willing to grant an exception to fix the machine under warranty and let me purchase the two year extended plan, which (all things considered) is a good deal when you're facing replacing the print head. The techs were out the next day to fix it. I suppose I couldn't be happier unless a better understanding of these issues were to be had.
I don't know, but all of this just seems ridiculous to me. Surely you shouldn't ever expect to have to replace the print head after only a year of usage? That's like having to put a new engine in your car after 10,000 miles and everyone at the garage saying this is quite normal, sir.
John
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I don't know, but all of this just seems ridiculous to me. Surely you shouldn't ever expect to have to replace the print head after only a year of usage? That's like having to put a new engine in your car after 10,000 miles and everyone at the garage saying this is quite normal, sir.
John
There's nothing ridiculous. Until you know the total number of machines that have had this kind of failure and the intensity of their use relative to all the 7900s that have been sold world-wide from the day the model was introduced to now and the intensity of their use, you have no way of knowing whether the failure rate is above or below that expected for the model. All equipment has expected failure rates. It's only when a piece of equipment exhibits failure rates above the expected value that there is what the industry would consider to be a problem. The main thing is whether the company makes good on its warranty, and in this case it would appear that Epson has more than done so. It's nice to read of stories with happy endings. Still keeping my eyes open for the final episode of Eric's saga! :-)
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I would only add to Mark's point that MTBF (mean time before failure) was a key issue in evaluating disk drives in the early PC days. Some manufacturers had real problems with lots of drive failures (I had a Compaq computer that went through three drives in 18 months). These days drives are much more stable and failures are rare (don't get complacent, back up every week). We really don't know what Epson's MTBF for the print head is.
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As another point of information, I was away recently and my 7900 was turned off for four weeks. There were some clogs when I turned it on. These "clogs" moved all around on consecutive cleanings of various color pairs, but after perhaps 4 such cleanings not all the nozzles were clear. I removed the wiper (wearing powder-free latex gloves so as not to contaminate it) and found it had a lot of "gunk" on it, consisting of liquid ink and particles of dry ink. It's easy to see how this thing wiping over the head would clear some nozzles while depositing junk in front of others. I cleaned the wiper as best I could with a dry PecPad, which is lint-free. I didn't use solvent because I didn't know what could safely be used on the blade. Of note is the fact that the wiper blade itself was in perfect condition after being in service for 38 months. I reinstalled the wiper and one cleaning then cleared all the remaining clogs.
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There's nothing ridiculous . . .
Yes, Mark, fair comments. Unless you know the service history behind a failure it is pointless to speculate, of course. It's also possible that you can get this sort of failure because you haven't used the printer enough, perhaps.
John
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Thanks for that Dean. Good information & experience
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It is true that we can design a mechanical device to never fail, however it would be cost prohibitive to do so. Every device can fail and the more complicated a device the more likely it will fail. Imagine spending $80K for a Mercedes and having the transmission go south and the MB rep telling you "This never happens, there's not a transmission in the USA because they never break down", but they do, even after 195 miles. I know a lot of people are happy with their Apple products, I have about a 50% failure rate with Apple products, I'm positive Apple doesn't have a 50% failure rate. And it's difficult to determine via these types of forums because people are more apt to complain than commend. Anecdotally one could surmise Epson does have a major issue with clogging, however to be fair, my 3880 I just fired up for the first time in 3-4 months, I did a nozzle check and it was perfect, printed some photos, not a problem. The clogging issue does seem to be a problem with the large format printers and I'd be curious as to why? I wouldn't expect a printer to have the print head go bad within 1 year, but if it did, it wouldn't surprise me.
"Those who always have great expectations are usually disappointed and those who never expect anything are always pleasantly surprised"
I'm totally surprised that my Epson 1280 is still running since 2001.... I was hoping it would last for a few years...
It's OK to be a little frustrated and upset when something breaks that we hope won't, however put it into perspective.
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This is a lot of non-sense talk. I had an Epson 10K that I ran for 12 years with the same heads, and I specialized in using cotton rag Hahnemuhle media with all the nasty cotton fiber. Hundereds and hundreds of rolls of everything went through that machine. Every other 10k I heard about functioned the same way. Actually I ran absolutely everything trough it including kozo papers etc. It never once clogged more than would take one single standard head cleaning to clear, and even having to do that was rare. My two 9600s went for like 7 years without having to have heads replaced. I've also had many little epson desktop units that produced thousands of prints with alternative inks and rag papers and the heads NEVER went out on these either.
Epson makes good heads, that isn't the issue. The issue is this retarded pressurized system they designed for some of the latest printers. Everybody knows that. Even the Epson techs know that. Look, using that many big carts in one unit where the carts are inserted horizontally surely doesn't help. Maybe if the 10K had used 8 carts instead of 6 it would have had issues too. Whatever the cause of it, it isn't a problem with poorly made heads, it is a bad ink flow system and it's driving people nuts.
I've got a 9890 and it's been running great, but now all of a sudden out of nowhere my MK channel just totally disappeared causing a wasted day or two and more ink down the drain ( you can't just clear one channel you have to clean at least two at a time). I thought these new 890 series were immune to that. Guess I was wrong. If they want to fix something on the new versions, fix that.
john
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It's OK to be a little frustrated and upset when something breaks that we hope won't, however put it into perspective.
That is extremely well said.
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Epson makes good heads, that isn't the issue. The issue is this retarded pressurized system they designed for some of the latest printers. Everybody knows that. Even the Epson techs know that. Look, using that many big carts in one unit where the carts are inserted horizontally surely doesn't help. Maybe if the 10K had used 8 carts instead of 6 it would have had issues too. Whatever the cause of it, it isn't a problem with poorly made heads, it is a bad ink flow system and it's driving people nuts.
It just may be that Epson need more pressure to deliver the ink for this class of printers. Of course this is difficult to tell from the specifications but they do have double the nozzles compared to the x880 class of printers.
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It definitely doesn't seem to be a nozzle / head issue with the larger printers. There's a fix just waiting to be found.....
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I think your right, and I think they will solve it eventually.
I don't want to come across knocking the 9890 printers. I'm producing some giant outstanding work with it and these heads are excellent. Most of what they are doing with this line of printers, including the price, is outstanding. I just think that if they WERE to improve anything the next time around, the pressure distribution situation would be first on my ( and many people's) list. They do that and they will stay in first place.
john
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I would be truly surprised if there were a GENERIC problem of the type you are pinpointing. Firstly, one has to surmise that the company would have tested these systems THOROUGHLY before committing the huge amount of manufacturing and marketing resources needed to put a new model on the market. Not to say that companies haven't had these kinds of failures, but again - really surprising. Secondly, I'm not sure how much I would rely on the information from EVERY tech (how many have you discussed this with?) because their own knowledge of these systems is not necessarily all that deep - depends. I'm not saying there isn't a problem here, but how systemic it is remains an open question in my mind.
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I think your right, and I think they will solve it eventually.
I don't want to come across knocking the 9890 printers. I'm producing some giant outstanding work with it and these heads are excellent. Most of what they are doing with this line of printers, including the price, is outstanding. I just think that if they WERE to improve anything the next time around, the pressure distribution situation would be first on my ( and many people's) list. They do that and they will stay in first place.
I think that's a good angle to come from and a good suggestion. May I suggest that, if you haven't already, feed that back through your dealer or direct to Epson?
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I would be truly surprised if there were a GENERIC problem of the type you are pinpointing. Firstly, one has to surmise that the company would have tested these systems THOROUGHLY before committing the huge amount of manufacturing and marketing resources needed to put a new model on the market. Not to say that companies haven't had these kinds of failures, but again - really surprising. Secondly, I'm not sure how much I would rely on the information from EVERY tech (how many have you discussed this with?) because their own knowledge of these systems is not necessarily all that deep - depends. I'm not saying there isn't a problem here, but how systemic it is remains an open question in my mind.
I wouldn't be surprised by any type of "generic" problem, cars have them and they put a lot more testing into cars than printers. Obviously software has issues all the time, though more complicated than a printer. I can recall (pun) Canon 10D having a back focus issue (I had to send mine in), wouldn't they have tested that camera "THOROUGHLY"? Wasn't there an orange shift issue with the Epson 1270 or 1280? Nothing surprises me, I believe these companies allow us to be guinea pigs to a certain extent.
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Nothing surprises me, I believe these companies allow us to be guinea pigs to a certain extent.
Yes, "to a certain extent" - noting that companies need to make judgments about when products are ready for "prime time", and in haste to satisfy revenue objectives they may "jump the gun". BUT, whenever they contemplate doing so, they also need to consider the cost and reputational risks associated with fiascoes. Given how fundamental the ink supply system is to the overall functioning of the printer and the accumulated experience Epson has had designing these things, it is these considerations that make me wonder whether the problem John ("Deanwork") identified is indeed a generic issue. Again, I'm not saying its inconceivable - I'm just wondering how likely.
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Yes, "to a certain extent" - noting that companies need to make judgments about when products are ready for "prime time", and in haste to satisfy revenue objectives they may "jump the gun". BUT, whenever they contemplate doing so, they also need to consider the cost and reputational risks associated with fiascoes. Given how fundamental the ink supply system is to the overall functioning of the printer and the accumulated experience Epson has had designing these things, it is these considerations that make me wonder whether the problem John ("Deanwork") identified is indeed a generic issue. Again, I'm not saying its inconceivable - I'm just wondering how likely.
Mark, I'd hope very unlikely, but that would be an altruistic POV. I suppose my naivety has waned since 1996 when my wife educated me on how big businesses are run, since then I have a much different outlook. I'd love to believe that companies test products and make sure they are "perfect" before releasing them, but I believe they get them to the stage of "Good Enough" and then start to ship them. They probably know what percentage will come back, how many repairs per unit (just like cars) and adjust accordingly. Also, being surrounded by so many engineers some of whom do finite analysis and failure analysis work for some pretty large and well known corporations leads me to believe a lot of products are released before they should be. You don't think Apple knew about the antenna issue before they released the IPhone 4? Sure they did and to placate their customers they gave us all a "Free" case.... Was it worth it to them to release the product without fixing the problem? HELL YEAH, it didn't hurt their reputation and they sold millions of them, no delays in shipping or cash flow. It was the cheapest way to solve the problem and what's a public company's number one priority?
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I don't disagree with any of this in principle. Notwithstanding, it is still reasonable to be not totally convinced of its applicability to the case at hand.
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I don't disagree with any of this in principle. Notwithstanding, it is still reasonable to be not totally convinced of its applicability to the case at hand.
One can't be totally convinced in this case or any case until the problem has been fully diagnosed and documented. My opinion is if clogging were a major issue with a mass produced printer there would be a lot more "squeaky wheels". I don't know what the percentages are, but I would guess Epson only sells a handful of large format printers compared to their consumer / prosumer units. Has Epson ever gone on record as saying "We have a clogging issue with our large format printers" ? I've had nothing but success with Epson products, so I can't commiserate with the poor souls who are having time consuming problems.... I'm sure trying to get a print completed only to have a printer not work would be frustrating. "Product Karma" there's something to be said...
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Yes, I agree. I would add that we are unlikely to be given access to the kind of data that would definitively make these determinations, but it's likely that the total number of x900 models in use world-wide is probably quite large.
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As a statistician might tell you, rather than seeking to validate the absolute importance of an issue from a single sample, it can be a lot more enlightening to take a comparative approach. In this case I see that compared to other brands, printer forums with "clogging" threads combined with the Epson brand, are much, much more common than "clogging" threads combined with the Canon or HP brands. (No "brand-wars" please)
As for "expectations", I think it's reasonable that a printer will work for a long time before becoming unusable without major expense. This a reasonable user expectation. I think that if auto makers can offer 5 year, unlimited mileage warranties, large format printer makers should be doing something similar.
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As a statistician might tell you, rather than seeking to validate the absolute importance of an issue from a single sample, it can be a lot more enlightening to take a comparative approach. In this case I see that compared to other brands, printer forums with "clogging" threads combined with the Epson brand, are much, much more common than "clogging" threads combined with the Canon or HP brands. (No "brand-wars" please)
As for "expectations", I think it's reasonable that a printer will work for a long time before becoming unusable without major expense. This a reasonable user expectation. I think that if auto makers can offer 5 year, unlimited mileage warranties, large format printer makers should be doing something similar.
Much depends on the quality of the sample and how representative it is of the population. As for a comparative approach - sure it can help, but then you want to be sure about what you are comparing. There is much discussion here and elsewhere about "clogs", but the issue may not be clogs. Then there is the fact that even if it were clogs, different printer technologies have different ways of dealing with them. One technology makes clogs apparent to the user to do something about; others do not. The difference between measuring what you see and not what you don't see can be very large and distort the value of the exercise.
I'd love to have a five year warranty on my printer (but then the price would have been correspondingly higher); however, I just don't know on what the basis to expect that just because I get a 5 yr./ 60,000km. limited warranty on my car, I should expect the same of a printer.
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As a statistician might tell you, rather than seeking to validate the absolute importance of an issue from a single sample, it can be a lot more enlightening to take a comparative approach. In this case I see that compared to other brands, printer forums with "clogging" threads combined with the Epson brand, are much, much more common than "clogging" threads combined with the Canon or HP brands. (No "brand-wars" please)
As for "expectations", I think it's reasonable that a printer will work for a long time before becoming unusable without major expense. This a reasonable user expectation. I think that if auto makers can offer 5 year, unlimited mileage warranties, large format printer makers should be doing something similar.
I think Mark's statement is straightforward and I agree. There's no doubt that there are a lot more online complaints regarding Epson printers regarding "clogging" than the other two...Is it because Epson sells a lot more printers or is there another reason? It's been established that pigment printers from all of the Big 3 (sounds like the car industry) clog. but that HP and Canon deal with it in the background while with Epson it's a part of the user experience (I have never had a clogging problem with an Epson printer). I do agree that one should be able to own a printer for several years without expense, but as I have mentioned before, warranties are used in marketing and not engineering. Hyundai has perhaps the longest warranty in the car industry (as long as you own the car), why? It was a way to gain market share (they have) Apple doesn't need to gain market share (they'll eliminate PCs someday) and therefore don't give much of a warranty. what are they now 90 days? That brings us to Epson, do they need to give a longer warranty in order to sell more printers? I highly doubt it and neither do the other 2. Warranties are also a way of getting customers back who have left the brand, imagine Epson or another company saying, "We are better now and we'll give you a 5 year 10,000 print warranty"
The question is still, what's the problem? Are any of the inks in the 7900/9900 the same formula as the 3880? If the answer is yes, than I'd say it's probably not the ink. What about the heads? It's possible it's not a clogging issue at all, it's possible it's a delivery problem.
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The question is still, what's the problem? Are any of the inks in the 7900/9900 the same formula as the 3880? If the answer is yes, than I'd say it's probably not the ink. What about the heads? It's possible it's not a clogging issue at all, it's possible it's a delivery problem.
It is likely that the inks are the same. They are covered by the same patents and Material Safety Data Sheets (which give you the composition of the various chemicals). We don't know the exact compounds since they are covered by trade secrets and one could reverse engineer them (as has been done by some third parties). We've been all over the clogging issue with regard to Epson printers and as has been said, Epson has chosen a different print head technology than either HP or Canon. Only Epson know for sure the scope of the clogging problem with regard to number of units in the field vs. number of repairs for this issue.
With respect to the engineering issues and testing about when a particular product is ready to go into the market, this is a call by the manufacturer. It is very difficult to identify every single problem prior to market entry since a relatively small issue cannot be identified prior to "large" scale introduction into the market. In my field of pharmaceutical development we see this a lot with respect to rare adverse drug events. Routine clinical trials of a new drug involve maybe 5000 patients in a clinical trial at the high end (not counting vaccines which are given to healthy people). If you have a rare event that occurs in 1 out 10,000 patients, you cannot reliably measure that unless you have a clinical trial of 30,000 (which leads to much higher development costs). "If" clogging is a rare event, the manufacturer may not know about the issue until the printer sees widespread use and the question then becomes should the manufacturer do lots more pre-market testing (and delay sales which could lead to a weaker competitive position if say Canon or HP enter with a comparable printer). Complicated business decisions.
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Here's a Nozzle Check from yesterday, on Epson Exhibition. For weeks now, the same exact identical missing bars, only in the LLK area. Power Cleanings; Pair Cleanings; nothing will budge it. Frustrating on just how few bars need to be missing in order to show very boldly, on an actual print. It shows up as "horizontal banding".
(http://199.237.236.200/a/Strip013.jpg)
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I seem to recall reading in my 4900 manual that in such situations they recommend calling Epson technical support for a solution. Have you done that yet?
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Aww c'mon Mark,
All 'tech help' (and I use the term lightly), is going to do, is tell him to do what he already did! We already know the routine... If the printer is under warrantee it will be a free service call, if out of warrantee, good luck!
Two points: (1) Don't under estimate them, and (2) if there is an established route for problem resolution, use it. If it doesn't work or proves unsatisfactory for whatever reason, web forums become an excellent resource for sharing experience and alerting the company in a public kind of way to what the issues are - but first give them a real chance to help you - that's why they make a service option available both during and post-warranty. The main point I'm making is first things first.
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Time for a service call.
;)
David
Indeed - we end up at the same place! :-)
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I seem to recall reading in my 4900 manual that in such situations they recommend calling Epson technical support for a solution. Have you done that yet?
I did that the first day after reading this thread, weeks ago. I called Tech Support. Once determined that the printer was out of warranty, I got the canned impersonal response to contact Decision One. And that was that.
So much for your snide arrogant remark. Do you even own a 7900?
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Sorry, there was nothing snide or arrogant meant or implied - you didn't say you had done that, so put yourself in the position of another reader - what was he to presume? There are people who run to web forums before they exhaust the discussion with their equipment suppliers, either out of frustration, fear or because the first person they spoke to didn't do them right. My suggestion - in case that wasn't done - was simply to exhaust that route first (including appealing for escalation if necessary) because one can often be pleasantly surprised. I was actually trying to be helpful. You don't know me and I don't know you, so please be mindful of how you react to what it is said in such circumstances.
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Sad but true,
There's been a lot of reference in this thread concerning warranties. When I call Epson I simply give them my phone number and they take it from there, usually two or three minutes for them to get caught up on the issues with my 9900 and then back on the line. I cannot complain about their service, but that's because my printer is still under an 'extended' warranty, which I will be extending one more time in a few weeks. After that I'm on my own I guess, since three years seems to be the limit. I suppose I could probably get a contract with Glodyne Decision One, but not sure I can afford that. I have aired out just a few of my issues here in past posts and will not go there again now. I will however put in another word or two concerning my belief that an extended warranty on the x900 series printers is an excellent investment. Had I not taken that route after the first year I would have paid for another printer in repairs on the current one. It's a great piece of business when it works as expected, and it is just that, a big piece of my business. Therefore, I cannot be taking any chances on it being out of commission for any length of time. The warranty is the best insurance policy I could possibly have taken and it has paid for itself in spades. Just a thought.
Gary
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I hate hate hate buying "extended warranties." But this is one of those times that in all likelihood, I'll be buying an extended warranty for my 9900. She's simply much more finicky than my 9800 (which is still performing perfectly, btw). The 9900 demands a bit more attention otherwise she becomes passive aggressive with needed nozzle checks generally appeasing her. The 49/79/9900 series are simply more technologically advanced and require a bit more attention to workflow and details. Yup, the extended warranty is probably a good investment in this situation.
Still waiting to hear from Eric on next season's episode/finale, and looking forward to picking up more maintenance tips on my printer....
ken :)
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Mark, I think that one more guy has become somewhat impatient with your tendency to apologize for Epson every inch of the way, paired with assuming the best from them, and the worse from the users. Had you paid attention, you would have remembered the story of this poor fellow a few pages ago on this thread.
Personally I was not born with a prejudice for or against Epson, I just wish they would take responsibility for what is clearly a manufacturing of engineering defect. warranty or out of warranty, period. It is ludicrous to contemplate LLK drying inside the head, clogging and the like. LLK is one of the most fluid inks in the lineup, one that hardly ever clogs (regular clogging) and it does not dry solid at air contact. If by extraordinary it could have "solidified" it would have been dissolved by the cleaners that I have put in the channel, and instead, while there was no ink left to create clogging, the head kept "clogging." The only logical conclusion is that there is no clogging going on in this case. On another hand most head failures on x900 are extra overwhelmingly on the LLK channel, and anybody with logic and a reasonable understanding would start to assume that the likelihood of an engineering or manufacturing issue here is quite high, and certainly the first presumption.
The extended warranty is a solution for volume printers. For others, it prices Epson well outside of the affordability range let alone that the alternatives are already roughly 50% less before the extended warranty.
Thank goodness for Epson that there are people like Mark distracting us from the real issues at play here, otherwise they might have a real problem selling their printers to more than a handful. Oh and Mark, don't post any question toward me, even if you clearly have nothing better to do, I will not answer. You have exhausted my patience, can't teach a donkey how to bark.
Epson should bite the bullet. I have very good reasons to suspect that they don't know how to technically resolve the problem, prevent those premature head failure to occur. But since the users are not responsible for that, and since we are talking of a relatively small numbers of users, it would be feasible and the honorable thing to do, to rescue that relatively small amount of people, just like they did with James Haswell (page 25), and emerge ahead in terms of image. Don't you think?
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It is unfortunate that you interpret my recommendations for objective analysis and logical procedure to be "apologizing for Epson every inch of the way". I have absolutely no interest in that and it makes no sense to impute that I do. I am also recommending disciplinary action to the moderator because referring to another forum member as a "donkey" is unacceptable behaviour under any circumstances.
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It is unfortunate that you interpret my recommendations for objective analysis and logical procedure to be "apologizing for Epson every inch of the way". I have absolutely no interest in that and it makes no sense to impute that I do. I am also recommending disciplinary action to the moderator because referring to another forum member as a "donkey" is unacceptable behaviour under any circumstances.
I AGREE!!!
Gary
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Just to be clear, I did not call anybody a donkey.
I referred to the fact that one person in particular here, systematically displays what amounts to stubbornness in face of a body of evidence, and that spending any more energy in trying to convince that person, would for me as frivolous as trying to teach a donkey how to bark.
There so called "skepticism" of the person in question here, amounts to be a consistent apologist, whether on purpose or not. When that person does not even own the equipment in question while I and others do, and we are the persons who actually have a grievance here, and a serious one jeopardizing our businesses, the persistence of the said stubborn fellow, becomes quite difficult to take.
I was not trying to insult anyone, just making it clear that I and others have had enough with the so called "skepticism," which at this point is irrational.
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I'll add to what I said by also bringing to your attention that calling some one an "apologist" for a corporation is also impugning that person's character and that too is completely unacceptable - in fact it is slanderous.
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Mark,
For someone who bills himself as the paradigm of logic, you do not seem to understand the subtleties or logic of language very well. It would be slanderous to accuse you of being a covert apologist, in other words somebody who acts benevolent, but is in fact compensated for advocating in a certain manner. And I have only accused you of being an apologist, a plain one, somebody who day in and day out, find all the possible excuses for one party while expressing irrational skepticism for the other, a fact that anybody can verify by combing through this 27 pages long thread.
In fact, apart from being illogical, borderline idiotic, it might be slanderous in this case of accusing me of slander.
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Mark,
For someone who bills himself as the paradigm of logic, you do not seem to understand the subtleties or logic of language very well. It would be slanderous to accuse you of being a covert apologist, in other words somebody who acts benevolent, but is in fact compensated for advocating in a certain manner. And I have only accused you of being an apologist, a plain one, somebody who day in and day out, find all the possible excuses for one party while expressing irrational skepticism for the other, a fact that anybody can verify by combing through this 27 pages long thread.
In fact, apart from being illogical, borderline idiotic, it might be slanderous in this case of accusing me of slander.
Finita la commedia.
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This is gone far enough.
While I think the comment made was overly aggressive and inappropriate, it falls short of being a ban-able infraction.
I would suggest an apology and then let's let the matter drop.
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Michael,
Out of deference for your opinion, I will apologize for having used language that could be interpreted as insulting, and above all became a pretense for distraction from the substance of my original post. I will submit as attenuating circumstances though, that as one of the few people whose business is indeed jeopardized by the premature failure of my 9900, which has a near 100% probability of being imputable to a defect in manufacturing or engineering, it becomes really aggravating to read some posts which are consistently, and beyond reason, advocating in the defense of the manufacturer in a way that is very insensitive to our pain.
So now, please bear my re posting some of my comments that this incident has distracted us from:
Personally I was not born with a prejudice for or against Epson, I just wish they would take responsibility for what is clearly a manufacturing of engineering defect, under warranty or out of warranty, period. It is ludicrous to contemplate LLK drying inside the head, clogging and the like. LLK is one of the most fluid inks in the lineup, one that hardly ever clogs (regular clogging) and it does not dry solid at air contact. If by extraordinary it could have "solidified" my testing demonstrates that it would have been dissolved by the cleaners that I have put in the channel, and instead, while there was no ink left to create clogging, the head kept "clogging." The only logical conclusion is that there is no clogging going on in this case. On another hand most head failures on x900 are extra overwhelmingly on the LLK channel, and anybody with logic and a reasonable understanding would start to assume that the likelihood of an engineering or manufacturing issue here is then quite high, and certainly the first presumption.
The extended warranty is a solution for volume printers. For others, it prices Epson well outside of the affordability range, let alone that the alternatives (Canon, HP) are already roughly 50% less costly before the extended warranty.
Epson should bite the bullet. I have very (let me retype VERY) good reasons to suspect that they don't know how to technically resolve the problem, prevent those premature head failures to occur. But since the users are not responsible for that, and since we are talking of a relatively small numbers of users, it would be feasible and the honorable thing to do, to rescue that relatively small amount of people, just like they did with James Haswell (page 25), and emerge ahead in terms of image.
Don't you think?
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I am not a usual forum user or poster, but because my 9900 has an uncurable clog I have come to follow this thread daily. It does surprise me how people can become worked up over other peoples comments. Like it or not, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and is free to voice them!
With that aside, when I compare this situation to my own business, here is what I think Epson should do:
Let's say I get 1000 orders for large mounted and framed Fine-Art prints at a cost of $5000. Each. 10 of those clients call me because the mounting process I used, for whatever reason (humidity, dryness, they hung it in their bathroom...) the photograph began to bubble up from the mount. These 10 customers become dissatisfied because the photograph no longer looks as it did when they purchased it. I offered no warrenty, or extended warrenty when they purchased the photograph. So should I tell them too bad, here is the name of a framer who can fix it for $2500.-$3000., or should I offer to replace or fix them myself at no charge? Personally to keep a customer like this happy (a customer who also might refer some of their wealthy friends to purchase more of my work) I would offer to fix the issue. If I chose the other path, it only takes those 10 disgusted, unsatisfied customers to reach out to thousands of other potential customers and steer them away from purchasing my work and purchasing work from someone else. And, especially with a web forum like this and the way people communicate today bad business could spread very quickly. The cost for me to replace that photograph will be far less then the price I might pay to not fix it.
In the case of a corporate giant such as Epson in a very competitive market it seems to me that they would want to keep those printers printing so they can sell more ink! (isn't that where they
Make their highest profit margin anyways) something to think about....
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Michael,
I have very (let me retype VERY) good reasons to suspect that they don't know how to technically resolve the problem, prevent those premature head failures to occur.
Don't you think?
Hi Clic...
perhaps it would lend more credibility if you explained your VERY good reasons - or are they just what you have already mentioned?
James
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I offered no warranty, or extended warranty when they purchased the photograph.
I'd do the same thing and replace their print. But if I did offer a free warranty period, and an extended warranty they could purchase (presumably priced to help defray some of my expected costs), it might be a different story. If someone comes in with a problem after the free warranty expires, who did not purchase any extended warranty, should I give that person the same service my other customers had to pay paid for? What would be the reaction of the customers who did buy the extended warranty if they find I'm giving those who didn't buy it the same service? If it's a couple days after the warranty expired then perhaps no one would care, but when does that end -- a week, a month, 6 months, or a year out of warranty? The whole thing quickly becomes a quagmire and I suspect I'd be better off following a set policy that's written down on a piece of paper that I give to everyone who buys a print. That way everyone knows what to expect up front, and they can even have the entire free warranty period to decide whether to buy the extended one.
From any large manufacturer's perspective it's all statistics. They all produce large numbers of printers, and they are complex devices. There is always some "infant mortality" as electronic parts "burn in" and there are always some manufacturing defects. I have no inside information regarding Epson, but it would be a huge problem if these issues affected more than a fraction of a percent of the units they produce. This sort of thing typically happens during the warranty period, but it's a statistical distribution and sometimes it takes longer. Also, it's normal for complicated systems to have a few common end of life failure modes, or ways in which the system typically fails, usually due to some specific "weakest link" component or subsystem that on average fails earlier than the rest. Subjectively speaking that usually that takes a long time, or "long enough", relative to our need for the device. Statistically some units will fail prematurely while most will last far longer.
With all that said, I didn't purchase an extended warranty for my printer and I'd have been as upset as anyone if it had a major problem after the warranty expired. The first thing I'd think is that I should have purchased the extended warranty. The next thing I'd think is that I probably shouldn't buy another one of these, but if I did I'd certainly buy the warranty next time. I virtually never buy extended warranties, but that's the same as placing a bet that you're not going to need it. As with all wagers, sometimes you lose.
I've been reading this thread regularly with great interest and wanted to share these thoughts. There's no intent to ruffle any feathers.
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Excellent post Dean. I think from the macroscopic perspective this lays out the whole issue in a very rational and sensible manner, much as, also logically, the bigger picture doesn't really cure the pain felt by those who have been affected by major out-of-warranty issues.
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I feel shy now. I'm surrounded by more knowledge and talent than I'll ever possess. I won't even mention experience.
"But I did save 15% by switching to Geico!"
Latest update on our Canadian head cleaning; I talked to Vladimir and he predicts the end of this month we will have the head back. So our answer is looming...
Congratulations Clic. I wish I was that good at anything.
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For an L.F. Epson printer, a reasonable life expectancy is 6 to 10 years unless intensive usage, maybe more for really low volume, and the real life expectancy is typically actually determined by technological improvements available in newer machines than by actual deterioration. That is the situation and what warrants Sacred Earth eloquent demonstration of what should be a no brainer for the manufacturer.
According to whom? What is the criteria here?
I have already demonstrated on this thread that the problem is not one of clogging, but rather one of engineering and/or manufacturing. Beyond that, I enjoy a rather high consideration in the photo industry. Apart from my work having been recognized by Leica among others, a full feature documentary film is currently hitting the festival circuit about my work. You pretty much can take to the bank that the director of that movie would not have committed his resources if he did not think that I had quite a bit of credibility. As a matter of fact, a good part of the film is about affirming what apparently is an off the charts artistic integrity.
The fact that you are a more than capable photographer does not make you an engineering expert (I couldn't find any reference to your educational background that would make you knowledgeable about anything more than a bunch of Internet anecdotes).
In order to erase any doubt, I should also be able to post early next week, evidence of a new recognition from the Rolls Royce of photography (leica would be Bentley).
Congratulation but see the above comment. I have also received a number of awards during my working career but none of them relate to making value judgments about engineering issues (though my late father was a very capable civil engineer so maybe part of my genetic makeup predisposes me in that direction).
It is quite obvious that the credibility deficit here, is in the camp on the other side of this story, the one who thinks that it can erect a wall of silence and pretend to be in denial. So really, for now, please just take my word for it, as I am not the one with a credibility issue here. We shall see later if there is a need for going public about the nuclear grade, wilkipedia type of information, that I am sorry to be in control of. It should suffice to say that the world does not like cheaters, and the mood is not especially tolerant of corruption lately. The recent Greg Smith/Goldman Sachs story should inspire better behaviors here.
Rather strange analogy here. Epson offer a solid one year warranty on their professional printers and an additional 2 year extension for those willing to purchase it. I can tell you point blank that if my livelihood depended on a wide format printer regardless of the manufacturer, I would get the extended warranty. If you don't like Epson, there are two other manufacturers out there that would be pleased to sell you a printer (I've had two medium format Epson K3 inkset photo printers that never had a single clog in 3 1/2 years of moderate use).
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Alan,
I knew if I waited a while someone more eloquent than I would put my thoughts into words. Thank you.
I've said this before on threads and it bears repeating. We have sold thousands of Epson printers from 17" to 63" and ALWAYS advise our customers to call us first when they have a problem. We get very few calls with ink delivery issues on Epson printers. Our sample is quite large - wink, wink, nudge, nudge - and if I were Epson I'd be happy with the track record. This does NOT mean they should put their feet up on the desk and light a cigar and I don't believe that is their attitude. I'll bet Epson is constantly striving to make better printers, which seems obvious, as their products have gotten better with each new generation. Oh, am I straying into 'apologist' territory? No problem.
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In an altruistic world Dean's post resonates with pure sincerity and accuracy, however, I can commiserate with Clic and certainly can understand his thought process and POV.
Allow me briefly digress
The check engine light on my ex-wife's SUV came on so I took it to the dealership (it's the Mercedes of cars :-) ). The warranty had expired, I hadn't purchased the extended warranty (I never do, invest it and pay for repairs) so when they told me it would cost $2000.00 to repair the vehicle I wasn't too happy... The service advisor ( FYI, they are salesman) was attempting to explain the problem and told me they had to replace the intake manifold because a part broke and the flaps inside the manifold wouldn't operate which would screw up the emissions....... I wasn't quite following him (I have never replaced an intake manifold except for restoring or modding a car) so I drove to the dealership to have the mechanic show me what the problem was. The mechanic took me into the shop and showed me a unit they had off another car with a broken piece of plastic, it had two metal levers attached to it that operate the air flaps inside the manifold, the piece of plastic is about 2mm thick - 4" x 2" approximately and I'd say it cost about .05 to manufacture. The intake manifold "assembly" which the aforementioned piece of plastic is a part of is $1,200.00, YES, this cheap piece of plastic can fail costing the customer $2,000.00 to repair. I had the option of buying an extended warranty, however I thought since I was paying $80K for a vehicle it should last 250,000 miles or at least ten years without major repairs, Mercedes of the past seem to last this long. How could I possibly know that a .05 piece of plastic could cause a $2,000.00 repair? Is that reasonable? I didn't think so and called Mercedes, the bottom line on the repair, they refunded me $1200.00 and I got the "old" intake manifold, we are currently reverse engineering the part, will make it, do the stress tests on it and probably approach MB with a fix and solution, if they don't change it we will proceed with litigation.
I'm sure I don't have to explain the above analogy how it relates to Epson printers?
I agree with what Dean writes:
From any large manufacturer's perspective it's all statistics. They all produce large numbers of printers, and they are complex devices. There is always some "infant mortality" as electronic parts "burn in" and there are always some manufacturing defects.
However, isn't it reasonable to expect a printer not have an engineering defect from the factory (I'm not saying this is the case here) or that a .05 part can cost $2,000.00 to repair? IOW, if Epson (or any or the others) is producing a product they know will have a high rate of failure once out of warranty isn't that conning the buying public? I certainly don't know how widespread the "problem" is regarding Epson printers, however it could be 50% and the paying public wouldn't know, this isn't the auto industry, nobody was ever killed by an inadvertent squirt of ink....lol While I can understand what Clic is saying, how widespread is the "problem"? If it's within industry standards then que sera, sera. If Epson is knowingly selling a "defective" product then something should be done about it. Every industry works the same way, but there are some that play by the rules while others don't. It would be difficult for me to believe Epson would risk their $11 billion revenue corporation by knowingly putting out a defective product, then again, It's difficult for me to believe Mercedes Benz would use a .05 piece of plastic to control a $1200.00 part.... They all do the same thing and that's why it can be frustrating, but they look at the bottom line, how many will fail. Dean is correct, it's all statistics.
I do believe in product karma and fortunately for me I have had 100% good luck with Epson printers and I have used and owned all 3 of them....Epson makes my favorite inkjets and HP my favorite lasers, when I deviate from that I tend to have issues...
Ps, Listen to the dealers, they have more of an individual vested interest in selling you reliable products, they don't want 20% of their customers complaining.
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I've said this before on threads and it bears repeating. We have sold thousands of Epson printers from 17" to 63" and ALWAYS advise our customers to call us first when they have a problem. We get very few calls with ink delivery issues on Epson printers. Our sample is quite large - wink, wink, nudge, nudge - and if I were Epson I'd be happy with the track record.
Randy, what is your basis for assuming your customers call you first (and not Epson) when they have a problem? Do you offer some solution for customers with ink delivery issues?
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One reason is that we ask them to call us first and another is that we try to keep in touch with our customer base. If they don't call us, we assume that all is well OR they chose to call Epson and were happy with the result of the phone call. We advise our customers, either repeat or new, that if they have issues that are unresolved, we will get involved with pursuing a solution.
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Randy, what is your basis for assuming your customers call you first (and not Epson) when they have a problem? Do you offer some solution for customers with ink delivery issues?
Isn't Epson like most manufacturers? When you have a problem they want you to call the dealer first? You don't call Ford when your engine blows up, you take it to the dealer? Granted, I'm making an assumption here that the LF printers are sold by people who are a lot more knowledgeable than the guy selling a $300.00 printer at BB. I'd call a dealer first and then work my way up the ladder, why have a dealer network if you don't "need" them?
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Isn't Epson like most manufacturers? When you have a problem they want you to call the dealer first? You don't call Ford when your engine blows up, you take it to the dealer? Granted, I'm making an assumption here that the LF printers are sold by people who are a lot more knowledgeable than the guy selling a $300.00 printer at BB. I'd call a dealer first and then work my way up the ladder, why have a dealer network if you don't "need" them?
Hi Gemmtech,
I don't see the analogy to cars and I'm wondering if you have an Epson Stylus Pro printer. When I bought my X900 printer I got an "Epson Preferred Limited Warranty Program" booklet that describes an "Epson Preferred Plus Service and Support Plan." It says "[f]or Epson Preferred Technical Support [f]ollow these easy steps to obtain technical support." It then says to have your serial number handy and it gives a toll free number to call. It ends with the statement to "Be prepared to work with the Technical Support Specialist to diagnose the problem." I've called that toll free number many times.
I've purchased a lot of vehicles and never gotten a booklet telling me to anything like that. It seems to me that Epson wants you to call their tech support when you have a problem. Furthermore, unlike my local car dealer, my Epson dealer isn't set up to overhaul my printer. If you know of any Epson dealers in Northern California equipped to repair Epson Pro printers please let me know.
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I believe this is the second issue here: in comparing to cars the average person can go to an auto parts store and order the parts and make the repairs themselves, but as I understand it Epson will not directly sell you a replacement head for an out of warrenty printer for you to make the repairs yourself. Maybe a reasonable solution for out of warrenty head issues would be for Epson to compile a larger parts list LF printer owners could order from -and a knowledge base / forum for users to acces when attempting the repairs themselves?
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Actually Sacredearth, Epson will sell you a replacement printhead directly for $1,200, "if you intend to install the printhead yourself."
That is the line I got when I called them directly. I was investigating my options and wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth. There were rumors written on this very thread about printhead costs being upwards of $1,800. Those rumors are right, but also wrong. As it turns out they do cost you $1,800, when you pay for them through your service call via the markup you get banged for by the guy wearing the toolbelt. But like I said before, "If you intend to install the printhead yourself" Epson themselves will sell the printhead to you directly, for $1,200. But you get no support with it - they make it a point to warn you of this. No software system for synching the head once you put it in. You are on your own there. Sounds scary. Trust me it's not.
I am not a professional printer. I can afford to wait so I am, for the good of this "clog" investigation. But if I wanted I could be printing with our 7900 in 40 minutes. I found my way past the "23 to $2,500 service call scenario $1,800 printhead plus $xxx labor + travel time/expenses. And that's if they replace the printhead directly. Pray to God they don't throw other random new parts at it first...
My repair bill will be $700 for a brand new printhead-install, plus the cost of one power cleaning. Anyone is welcome to contact me if you, like me, are on your own (out of warranty and facing an overpriced printhead replacement repair bill which completely negates the value of fixing your X900 printer) and need help replacing your printhead.
Knowing what I do now I would not buy a used x900 printer. Earlier models are apparently no problem from what I read here. But not an x900. Something is very different about these models, and it aint all good.
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Be aware that in the sign market with piëzohead printers squirting (eco)solvent inks, the maintenance and replacement of parts by third parties is much more common than in the aqueous ink based photo printer market.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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Knowing what I do now I would not buy a used x900 printer.
I wouldn't be buying a new one either.
Earlier models are apparently no problem from what I read here.
Seems so, fingers crossed my 4880 remains problem free. It's out of warranty and I'm miles from a major metro, so if I have problems - inspired by your gungho approach - I'd probably dive in myself.
But not an x900. Something is very different about these models, and it aint all good.
There does seem to be a problem with these machines, with the same fault occurring on a lot of them. If enough of you got together a class action may be worth investigating.
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I'd only stress here that unless you know how many of these print heads have been produced, what their expected life is (not in years, but in some meaningful unit like milliliters of ink they have pumped, number of piezo activations, etc), and the number of these heads that have failed prematurely relative to their design lifetime, no real conclusions can be drawn. For example, if the manufacturer produced 500,000 of these heads and 500 of them have failed prematurely, that's 0.1%. If half, failed outside warranty, that's 0.05%. That's a non-issue for the manufacturer, though it's a big issue for 250 people. I'm making up these numbers, but you get the idea.
We all have expectations of various product brands based on history, but things can and do change. In any product a new design or technology that produces better quality and/or lower cost and/or lighter weight might be more fragile or have a shorter average life. That's a perfectly legitimate compromise if the average life is still "acceptable", and industry spends tons of money to find out what "acceptable" means to most people in every category from color to longevity to smell. In fact, if a company finds its products are lasting far longer than most people expect or require, using cheaper or lighter materials that will knowingly shorten the expected lifetime is a legitimate way to cut costs to hold or decrease consumer prices and/or increase profits if the resulting product remains "acceptable" to most customers. These things are done on a daily basis all around the world in every imaginable product category. Frankly, I want my printer to last for 6 to 10 years, and some printers have done so, but no manufacturer has ever stated or warranted such a thing. I don't expect my printer to last that long because no one capable of backing up the statement has ever said it would, but I'll be happy if it does. In another 2.75 years it'll be 6.
I'm sure many people who frequent these forums are following a passion from which profits have resulted, while not being the primary motivating force. Conversely, large corporations exist primarily, even solely, for the purpose of making profits. That's why only statistically significant issues get attention at high levels, and why decisions on such issues are always made by comparing the cost of doing something with the cost of not doing it. That runs contrary to the strategy used by most print makers, which seemed worth mentioning.
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I discover this thread, which is of major interest to me, and I have to react to Alan’s post:
Alan, why so much skepticism? The situation seems pretty clear to me, on the one hand there is Epson, who is apparently happy to rely on people like you to systematically diffuse any criticism of their behavior, but surely we can all agree that their silence speaks volume. We all know that Epson is monitoring this thread and many others, yet they never say anything. Could it be that they have nothing good to say?
On the other hand, “clic” offers what appear to be very plausible explanations, and my understanding is that the only thing that he is saying is that his credentials as a photographer are such that we should have a tendency to take his opinion for an informed one.
So in a situation when I have on one side a silent party which does not offer any explanation, and whose silence is somewhat telling, and on the other a credible fellow with a three miles long resume who presents a rather good case, my inclination is not to be skeptical of the latter. For me being skeptical of “clic” at this point, is analogous to when the flight attendant arrives next to your seat and says “what would you like for dinner Sir? We have chicken or human excrements” you then reply “how is the chicken cooked?”
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Yes you make a good point DeanChriss. This has been brought up before as well - how forums listing threads talking about clogging issues are typically populated by the victims mainly, while the happy masses are busy printing issue free. I get that. But still I can't help getting the impression, inspired initially by my very first communication with Dan Berg when I contacted him about buying his 7900 used, who said "A lot of people have issues with nozzle clogs on these printers, but I have never had a problem with either of mine." So way back then before this thread even bagan, a happy user of not only an Epson 7900, but also a 9900, knew that there was something very different about these X900 printers, which wasn't all good.
Don't get me wrong DeanChriss, I am not bitching about being screwed over by Epson. I knew I was taking a risk buying this machine used, and I took it. I don't feel Epson owes me anything. I will admit though, a great part of my false confidence in buying this 7900 used from Dan was built up by the misleading marketing put out by Epson which boasts things like clogs being a thing of the past, and wasted ink not being an issue anymore, etc. etc. To this day I have not fell for more convincing, yet misleading marketing claims in my life (based on my experience anyway, and on those who have also reported their nozzle clogging problems here on this forum). Again this is my fault though, for believing something mostly because I wanted to believe it, not because it was true or not. It's my loss and my poor judgement. But you can bet your ass I will never put my faith, or money in Epson's marketing again.
Unless you are like me, and you are willing to dive under the hood of your x900, a fair used price for one of these printers out of warranty is about $500.
Here's a fascinating development: In an attempt to copy and past some of the marketing propaganda Epson generated about these x900 printers, I did a search for one for sale on B&H - just like I have done so many times in the past. Only this time I couldn't find one. Anywhere. Not sure what this means but I challenge anyone here to find a new Epson Stylus Pro 7900, or 9900, listed for sale at B&H or Adorama... :-\
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....Here's a fascinating development: In an attempt to copy and past some of the marketing propaganda Epson generated about these x900 printers, I did a search for one for sale on B&H - just like I have done so many times in the past. Only this time I couldn't find one. Anywhere. Not sure what this means but I challenge anyone here to find a new Epson Stylus Pro 7900, or 9900, listed for sale at B&H or Adorama... :-\
I think B&H may just be revamping their website---but that's my speculation. No worries, you can find wide format Epson printers for sale (hey, there's rebates too) at www.itsupplies.com (hi andy), www.shadesofpaper.com (hi Randy), www.tastarsupply.com (hi tony).... ;D
I really do think these forums are magnets for the "squeeky wheel" ---and that's not to say that complaints are not legitimate; I'm sure the pain is very real. But there are far too many variables to make any concrete conclusions. (I call it hasty generalizations). I'd much rather Eric's thread and experiences here remain a means to share/learn about the Epson 49/79/99** printers "from the inside - out," tips on normal maintenance and repairs, etc. to keep these printers and their owners happy, rather than digress into finger-pointing and Epson conspiracy theory.
ken
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I discover this thread, which is of major interest to me, and I have to react to Alan’s post:
Alan, why so much skepticism? The situation seems pretty clear to me, on the one hand there is Epson, who is apparently happy to rely on people like you to systematically diffuse any criticism of their behavior, but surely we can all agree that their silence speaks volume. We all know that Epson is monitoring this thread and many others, yet they never say anything. Could it be that they have nothing good to say?
On the other hand, “clic” offers what appear to be very plausible explanations, and my understanding is that the only thing that he is saying is that his credentials as a photographer are such that we should have a tendency to take his opinion for an informed one.
So in a situation when I have on one side a silent party which does not offer any explanation, and whose silence is somewhat telling, and on the other a credible fellow with a three miles long resume who presents a rather good case, my inclination is not to be skeptical of the latter. For me being skeptical of “clic” at this point, is analogous to when the flight attendant arrives next to your seat and says “what would you like for dinner Sir? We have chicken or human excrements” you then reply “how is the chicken cooked?”
I wouldn't normally respond to what is likely a troll post but since my name is the one mentioned here it is deserving of comment. We know that Epson monitors this forum (and likely others as well). As I noted, they are the ONLY ones who know the percentage of printers that require a service call when under warranty. No company stays in business for a long time if they market a substandard product. Customers will quickly move on to other manufacturers. Your support of 'clic' is fine for you but I see nothing that would persuade me that he has a sufficient background in engineering or quality control that makes what he says the last word on the subject. I know of two people who have 7900s that have not had any printing problems, you would be a great fool were I to say that this means all 7900 printers are problem free. Anecdotes do not make data.
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I think B&H may just be revamping their website---but that's my speculation..... ;D
ken
I thought the same thing Ken, until I also checked Adorama's site. None there either.. And typically when you do a search, like for say a discontinued Epson 4880, you still get a resulting page where the printer is listed, it's just listed as "Discontinued". Here is an example (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/518784-REG/Epson_SP4880K3_Stylus_Pro_4880_Large_Format.html)
Same is true for Adorama. Interesting I think. Yes I know you can find plenty of places to buy them, it's just these particular sites are typically on the cutting edge when it comes to timing. It's not an accident these printers are vanished
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Yes you make a good point DeanChriss. This has been brought up before as well - how forums listing threads talking about clogging issues are typically populated by the victims mainly, while the happy masses are busy printing issue free. I get that. But still I can't help getting the impression, inspired initially by my very first communication with Dan Berg when I contacted him about buying his 7900 used, who said "A lot of people have issues with nozzle clogs on these printers, but I have never had a problem with either of mine." So way back then before this thread even bagan, a happy user of not only an Epson 7900, but also a 9900, knew that there was something very different about these X900 printers, which wasn't all good.
Don't get me wrong DeanChriss, I am not bitching about being screwed over by Epson. I knew I was taking a risk buying this machine used, and I took it. I don't feel Epson owes me anything. I will admit though, a great part of my false confidence in buying this 7900 used from Dan was built up by the misleading marketing put out by Epson which boasts things like clogs being a thing of the past, and wasted ink not being an issue anymore, etc. etc. To this day I have not fell for more convincing, yet misleading marketing claims in my life (based on my experience anyway, and on those who have also reported their nozzle clogging problems here on this forum). Again this is my fault though, for believing something mostly because I wanted to believe it, not because it was true or not. It's my loss and my poor judgement. But you can bet your ass I will never put my faith, or money in Epson's marketing again.
Unless you are like me, and you are willing to dive under the hood of your x900, a fair used price for one of these printers out of warranty is about $500.
Hi Eric.
The X900 printers do clog more than previous models. Mine does. Sometimes it'll go months without clogs and sometimes it needs a cleaning almost every time I turn it on, but the clogs (or whatever they are) always clear easily. The clogging could be the result of some defect, but it could also be the logical result of the smaller nozzles that produce smaller ink droplets. The head failures you and others have experienced could have some different cause, or there could be a connection. I have no idea what the actual cause is.
One point of my post was to illustrate that designing something to make one feature better (ex; print quality) might make other features (ex; clogging) worse. In most engineering efforts there comes a point where you can have A or you can have B, but you can't have both. It may be due to the release date, project budget, the resulting product cost, or simply the lack of a technology to do both. Another point of my post was to point out that the motivation of all these manufacturers is not to make the best printer on the market, it is to make the best selling printer on the market. There's a strong correlation between those two things, but it is not 100%. It's also important to realize that "best" means different things to different people. Someone who has to have one feature might tolerate inadequacy in other features, for instance.
I have never thought you are "bitching about being screwed over by Epson". In fact you have approached this in a very reasonable way, with far more patience than I'd have had. I've seen Epson marketing for the 7900 (mailed to my home) recently that I'd definitely call misleading. Clogs are definitely not a thing of the past, but I've found them to pose no real issue. I've found ink use, even with the clogging, to be very economical so I can't take issue with those claims.
It's odd how "touchy" internet forums are, which is the reason I post so infrequently. My educational background is in mathematics and physics, and I have some experience developing automated process control systems, implementing statistical quality control, and designing industrial products. I hope I've provided a little info to make some of these issues easier to understand, if not easier to tolerate. I'm not defending Epson nor am I convicting them. Given the large volumes of equipment they produce and the lack of meaningful data it's just impossible to draw any conclusions, or even to say that a serious and pervasive issue exists. The only certainty is that some people, you included, have had serious problems. At the same time there's no product out there that doesn't have its horror stories, and users who would swear it's the worst thing ever made. The bottom line is that nothing I've seen posted here or elsewhere would stop me from buying Epson again, though I'd consider the additional warranty I didn't consider previously just for peace of mind.
Good luck with the printer and all else.
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I agree DeanChriss. And I appreciate your posts. I am not saying I won't buy Epson again either. But I definitely I won't base my judgement to buy or not to buy, on their marketing claims like I did last time. I'll read about them here before I read about them there.
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Not sure what this means but I challenge anyone here to find a new Epson Stylus Pro 7900, or 9900, listed for sale at B&H or Adorama... :-\
The 3880 was also removed from the B&H website just a few days after I ordered one in late February. All of the wide format printers were removed, but the 3880 is back now (it was still missing 3 days ago). The current price of the 3880 is the same as I paid 3 weeks ago.
Wally
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I really do think these forums are magnets for the "squeeky wheel" ---and that's not to say that complaints are not legitimate; I'm sure the pain is very real. But there are far too many variables to make any concrete conclusions. (I call it hasty generalizations).
I've been reading this forum for a long time. Years and years. I've own 7600, 7800, 9880, and now 7900.
I do not remember any thread, related to these other printers that generated anywhere near this amount of almost exact failure conditions -- LLK blocked, and almost nothing makes it break free. And at a time when any 9900 or 7900 is still a relatively new printer, no matter when it was purchased.
No, this is not Science, or Exact Data Collection, but my Smell Test makes me wonder what's going on. Why would ALL these people be having almost the exact same issue....? And yes, I've got a horse in this race, because my LLK is blocked on my 7900, but I'm trying to be level-headed about it. Yes, I'm upset and disappointed that my printer has been sitting idle for weeks now, unable to print anything other than horizontal banding. I just want to see if someone solves this, so that I can know whether I've got to pony up to the bar with Decision One, or just chuck this almost perfectly good, very low volume printer, right into a Dumpster.
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I wouldn't normally respond to what is likely a troll post but since my name is the one mentioned here it is deserving of comment. We know that Epson monitors this forum (and likely others as well). As I noted, they are the ONLY ones who know the percentage of printers that require a service call when under warranty. No company stays in business for a long time if they market a substandard product. Customers will quickly move on to other manufacturers. Your support of 'clic' is fine for you but I see nothing that would persuade me that he has a sufficient background in engineering or quality control that makes what he says the last word on the subject. I know of two people who have 7900s that have not had any printing problems, you would be a great fool were I to say that this means all 7900 printers are problem free. Anecdotes do not make data.
Alan,
I don’t understand your point, or why you keep repeating that the only ones who have data are Epson. That is self evident, but since they are playing dead, the rest of us have to interpret the little bits of information we have. And so far the case has pretty much been made that there is a manufacturing or engineering issue that has resulted in a few cases (maybe not an enormous amount, but enough to be a concern) of head failures, that under any measure is utterly premature.
Sacredearth and Gemmtech made a very good case that most honorable manufacturers in comparable situations, being electronics, cars, you name it, typically would be gracious in such a situation, in order to preserve their customer base.
Your statement “No company stays in business for a long time if they market a substandard product. Customers will quickly move on to other manufacturers.” is seductive, but does not verify here. Canon for instance has the 8300 currently 50% cheaper than the 9900 once you factor in the amount of ink that the printer ships with, yet they sell 1 for every 9 that Epson sells. Add the controversy that we are all talking about here, and it does not seem that your theory holds water. At least if customers are moving away, it is not quickly, which I find mind boggling, but a stubborn fact. And really by dispersing that kind of myth, you participate in the perpetuation of Epson’s isolation from any real competition and incentive to resolve this issue.
Nobody says that Epson x900s are substandard products, they just say that there are some lemons, probably more than usual, but regardless of how many more or less, there are lemons, and Epson should draw the consequences from that, and the victims users should not be the ones who bear the price.
I would like to purchase a 9900 myself, but as long as I do not hear a valid explanation for the situation here, and see a solution, I will stay away, or buy a Canon, which is probably the most sensible choice anyway.
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I've been reading this forum for a long time. Years and years. I've own 7600, 7800, 9880, and now 7900.
I do not remember any thread, related to these other printers that generated anywhere near this amount of almost exact failure conditions -- LLK blocked, and almost nothing makes it break free. And at a time when any 9900 or 7900 is still a relatively new printer, no matter when it was purchased.
No, this is not Science, or Exact Data Collection, but my Smell Test makes me wonder what's going on. Why would ALL these people be having almost the exact same issue....? And yes, I've got a horse in this race, because my LLK is blocked on my 7900, but I'm trying to be level-headed about it. Yes, I'm upset and disappointed that my printer has been sitting idle for weeks now, unable to print anything other than horizontal banding. I just want to see if someone solves this, so that I can know whether I've got to pony up to the bar with Decision One, or just chuck this almost perfectly good, very low volume printer, right into a Dumpster.
There were no real alternatives to Epson up to the the 9800 generation. Then Canon and HP appeared with suitable wide formats and Epson had to speed up its answers to that challenge. With the introductions of new models Epson claimed that new nozzle surface treatments would reduce clog issues, the competition already showed better behaviour on that aspect. Potential buyers must have been attracted by that promise which seems to be kept on the 3800 and 3880 but not so on the x900 and possibly not on the x980 models. For whatever reason. I think both the unfulfilled promise of an improvement and the availability of alternative wide formats without those issues must have created disappointment that caused these threads.
Epson's service policies is not enforcing public relations either. Canon wide formats did have issues too with heads in three generations since 2006, Canon showed more flexibility in replacing those heads in and out of warranty. The costs for that extra service must have been lower for Canon as the heads can be user replaceable, part of the total concept of thermal head printers. For Epson head failure on a printer above the 17" models means sending a service man to whatever location.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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In the Brochure
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Pro/SeriesSureColorS30670/Overview.do?RMID=PI_20120315_S_Series_Signage&RRID=EPSONP300307
on page 30 they make a very strong to point out what might be expected of these heads under variable user conditions, and stress "maintenance" to prolong the head life.
4 - The print head is a maintenance part which the user is responsible to replace when necessary. However, Epson covers head replacement while
the printer is under the Epson Preferred Limited Warranty and under any Preferred Plus Plan (limited or unlimited number of head replacements,
depending on the Preferred Plus Plan purchased). The life of the print head will vary depending on the user's print volume, print patterns and heater
temperature for print settings. Doing proper user maintenance of the print head will help prolong its life.
I'm sure these machines are designed for more use and abuse that the standard WF ones, but it really sounds like Epson almost expects problems, and covers their butts with a choice of extended warrantees with different head replacement options.
I'm catching up on this thread... it's very interesting to see Epson's disclaimer being placed within the S30670 brochure on the warranty programs and head replacement(s).
• Footnote Definition 4: I wonder why this statement is not included in the x900 series literature? Plus, “Doing proper maintenance of the print head will help prolong its life.” What maintenance? I’m not aware of a preventive schedule or recommendation from the manufacture. Are we missing something here Epson???
Jeff
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Be aware that in the sign market with piëzohead printers squirting (eco)solvent inks, the maintenance and replacement of parts by third parties is much more common than in the aqueous ink based photo printer market.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
Ernst - To what degree? Is there something documented on the differences between maintenance and replacement of parts between the (eco)solvent ink and aqueous ink based printers?
Jeff
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I agree DeanChriss. And I appreciate your posts. I am not saying I won't buy Epson again either. But I definitely I won't base my judgement to buy or not to buy, on their marketing claims like I did last time. I'll read about them here before I read about them there.
+1 All the more reasons for us to be diligent on making our printer investments wisely.
Eric - Do you have an ETA on the print head repair?
Jeff
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Ernst - To what degree? Is there something documented on the differences between maintenance and replacement of parts between the (eco)solvent ink and aqueous ink based printers?
Jeff
I am not familiar with Epson's documented policies in both markets. I referred to what is common knowledge in the (eco)solvent printer market so far. DX4 and DX5 heads in that market are advertised and sold by third parties, often Epson 10000 heads that are split and equipped with ecosolvent resistant parts to be used in Roland and Mimaki ecosolvent printers. Check Alibaba for parts like that though Epson seems to make that grey market more difficult. 10 years ago the first Roland based ecosolvent printers were made by third party service companies before Roland itself got involved. An ecosolvent printer needs more care otherwise the heads are blocked in a month and no easy way to get them working again.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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Yes Jeff, Vladimir says by the end of this month he'll have the head done and on it's way back to us. I am losing my mind waiting but finally having an answer will be worth it.
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Ernst - To what degree? Is there something documented on the differences between maintenance and replacement of parts between the (eco)solvent ink and aqueous ink based printers?
Jeff
yes. an ecosolvent printer must be cleaned once a week at last. that means: manual head clean, manual capping station and whiper clean. replace whiper every 6 months. replace capping station once or twice a year. replace dapers once or twice a year. but the inks are more agresive than waterbased inks and can corode and age some parts quicker than waterbase ink.
as the spare parts market. there many online shops that sell original spare parts for roland, mimaki, mutoh. at a far better price than buying directly from original. also there are more users tehnicaly cabale to self repair a big printer, change a head, a whiper, a capping station, even more. also the sign comunity is very helpfull in case of a failure.
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An infrequently used printer appears to be a worst case scenerio for clog problems.
not necesarily. i have clogs on my epson 9700 (same mechanics as 9900 but CMYKCMYK ). and i have clogs while i print large graphics with large areas of solid colors. and i use dye inks not pigment (more fluid and thin inks). yes, you may say i'm not using epson's ink, that it may be the fault of the inks, refillable carts etc. it is possible. BUT. i have a mutoh with the same inks and the clogs are muuuuuch more rare. mutoh is printing on and on and it get cloged mainly if i have a head stike. but not while i'm printing. head clean is more efiicient when clogs occur and it takes way less ink and time
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An infrequently used printer appears to be a worst case scenerio for clog problems.
Please.
This would be akin to me buying a Nikon D3x, and after mostly sitting idle on the shelf for the first year or so, I get it out to shoot something, and roughly 15% of the pixels on the sensor are dead. Just because I used it infrequently?
This reminds me of what my father used to tell me when I was a kid: "Take your mother's car out on the freeway and drive it hard. She only drives it in town. What it needs is a good blowing-out, because she rarely drives it".
An almost new 7900, and right out of warranty, the LLK just locks up solid?
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Here I am about to take the plunge and buy a large format printer so this thread is very interesting to me. I have read all the posts from beginning to end and am quite incredulous at Epson's behaviour over this matter. You would have thought they would care about keeping any of their customers happy if there is a problem...and there clearly is a problem.
I have used Epson printers for years and have had problems but the printers were cheap so I swallowed and bought another. Several of my friends in the market for a large format printer have decided to buy Canon because of Epson's increasing reputation for ignoring their problems and complaints on their smaller domestic printers. This sort of behaviour reminds me of the days when Kodak thought they were untouchable and could do what they wanted despite customer concerns over some of their products. - in my case I was in a constant battle with them over their crap Kodachrome processing in the UK- Look what has happened to them now.
All it would take would be for Epson to help these guys out with their printers and show some generosity. It would go some way to give a prospective buyer a bit of confidence that the printer he is just about to purchase isn't going to clog a few months down the line. Thanks to the internet lack of confidence in a product or a company can spread very quickly these days.
Pete
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I have had a 7900 since September 2011, and had only minor clogging problems (once I turned off the automatic detection bug... I mean "feature"). And of course the print quality and everything else about the machine makes me happy, in fact extremely happy, every time I use it.
However, I can not help wondering why someone doesn't send the URL for this thread to someone high in Epson marketing? If they are deliberately ignoring us, this would make it explicit. If their behavior is due to ignorance of the problems here, then this would help to educate them. This issue, it seems to me, is too important to merely blow off steam here in a user forum. Action is called for if we are to have any peace of mind.
Anybody interested?
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Here I am about to take the plunge and buy a large format printer so this thread is very interesting to me. I have read all the posts from beginning to end and am quite incredulous at Epson's behaviour over this matter. You would have thought they would care about keeping any of their customers happy if there is a problem...and there clearly is a problem.
I have used Epson printers for years and have had problems but the printers were cheap so I swallowed and bought another. Several of my friends in the market for a large format printer have decided to buy Canon because of Epson's increasing reputation for ignoring their problems and complaints on their smaller domestic printers. This sort of behaviour reminds me of the days when Kodak thought they were untouchable and could do what they wanted despite customer concerns over some of their products. - in my case I was in a constant battle with them over their crap Kodachrome processing in the UK- Look what has happened to them now.
All it would take would be for Epson to help these guys out with their printers and show some generosity. It would go some way to give a prospective buyer a bit of confidence that the printer he is just about to purchase isn't going to clog a few months down the line. Thanks to the internet lack of confidence in a product or a company can spread very quickly these days.
Pete
I know for a fact that “clic” has had talks with Epson management about this, so Epson is aware at least since then, a couple of months ago, and there is no telling if they were not already before then. I also know that they have not addressed his arguments. Actually it is even worse than that, but I am not at liberty to say what happened exactly.
From my own information, Epson is known in the photo industry for being a hard ball player, and for killing any bad publicity they could get, at all costs. You guys may deduct from that all the possible conclusions that fit.
As far as I am concerned, I wouldn’t buy an Epson x900 or x890 printer with what’s hanging over those, especially when Canon has printers on the market which are much cheaper and do not require you to get the extended warranty since the head change is much cheaper and does not require a service tech.
I've also approached a law firm on this matter and plan to contact the state attorney general’s office...
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However, I can not help wondering why someone doesn't send the URL for this thread to someone high in Epson marketing? If they are deliberately ignoring us, this would make it explicit. If their behavior is due to ignorance of the problems here, then this would help to educate them. This issue, it seems to me, is too important to merely blow off steam here in a user forum. Action is called for if we are to have any peace of mind.
Anybody interested? Yes!!! Everyone should start by contacting their respective state attorney general's office to file a formal complaint. In addition, we can capitalize and advocate these concerns on Epson’s social media sites. This might raise a few more flags with Epson management.
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We're gone play the hardball now :)
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I do class action litigation on behalf of consumers. I’ve been following this issue for a couple of days now.
If you have purchased an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 (24-inch) or an Epson Stylus Pro 9900, and have had clogging issues with your printer that have not been satisfactorily addressed by Epson, I would be very interested in talking with you further.
Please send a private email to:
Consumerlaw1 at earthlink dot net
Please feel free to google the email address to verify my credentials:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Consumerlaw1%40earthlink.net%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&prmd=imvns&filter=0&biw=1016&bih=624
In compliance with Rule 1-400 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct, I am required to include the following language with this message: This is communication may result in professional employment for pecuniary gain.
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I do class action litigation on behalf of consumers. I’ve been following this issue for a couple of days now.
If you have purchased an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 (24-inch) or an Epson Stylus Pro 9900, and have had clogging issues with your printer that have not been satisfactorily addressed by Epson, I would be very interested in talking with you further.
Please send a private email to:
Consumerlaw1 at earthlink dot net
Please feel free to google the email address to verify my credentials:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Consumerlaw1%40earthlink.net%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&prmd=imvns&filter=0&biw=1016&bih=624
In compliance with Rule 1-400 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct, I am required to include the following language with this message: This is communication may result in professional employment for pecuniary gain.
Ambulance chasing on LuLa? :'(
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Ambulance chasing on LuLa? :'(
The term “ambulance chaser” (at least in my mind) evokes images of unscrupulous attorneys taking advantage of dazed and vulnerable casualties. I don’t see injured people lying on stretchers here.
What I do see is:
• People have invested a lot of money in a product.
• That product isn’t performing as the manufacturer promised.
• The cost of repair is unconscionable, and the manufacturer refuses to step up to the plate to solve the problem to anyone’s satisfaction.
In situations like this, large corporations hold all the cards, and they play them against their customers on a tilted playing field, without thinking twice.
That’s where litigation can be useful. Litigation it does several things simultaneously:
• It levels the playing field;
• It gets their attention;
• It generally gets results.
With almost 600 replies to this thread, there is a lot of consensus on the problem, but . . . Epson doesn’t seem to be listening.
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I haven`t read all this "long and winding" thread... but all I can say about "clogging" issues is that: Buy an HP z Line (mine it`s a z3200ps) or a Canon LFP, and you`ll be happy. NO clogging issues and no need to suit a company.
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The term “ambulance chaser” (at least in my mind) evokes images of unscrupulous attorneys taking advantage of dazed and vulnerable casualties. I don’t see injured people lying on stretchers here.
What I do see is:
• People have invested a lot of money in a product.
• That product isn’t performing as the manufacturer promised.
• The cost of repair is unconscionable, and the manufacturer refuses to step up to the plate to solve the problem to anyone’s satisfaction.
In situations like this, large corporations hold all the cards, and they play them against their customers on a tilted playing field, without thinking twice.
That’s where litigation can be useful. Litigation it does several things simultaneously:
• It levels the playing field;
• It gets their attention;
• It generally gets results.
With almost 600 replies to this thread, there is a lot of consensus on the problem, but . . . Epson doesn’t seem to be listening.
Have you read all 600 posts? I have. I don't think there is a consensus at all. The OP is not even sure of the nature of the problem, clog or an electrical issue. He has stated that the ink was expired and that the printer took a cross country trip in a truck. Not sure of the packing for that trip, and I don't won't to look back and see if it was mentioned. It is a bit premature to pin the blame for this problem on Epson. I would also say that no post in this thread has stated the number of known "problems" with these printers compared to the number of units that have been sold. Now if you want to start researching the number of people experiencing problems compared to the number of units sold and post some statistically significant information, let's have it.
Meanwhile, you have a total of two posts on this forum as a new member, and they are both solicitations. Call it what you want.
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This goes way beyond the OP... And for those of us who are in this predicament it's time for action – enough speculation.
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I should perhaps clarify my invitation to action:
I believe we should assume the best intentions on Epson's part, unless and until proven otherwise publicly. No anger, no talk of legal action. Not at this time anyway. Epson has been a good friend to many of us for many years, with marvelous printers that have let us do things that we could not otherwise have done.
However, we should not acquiesce when even a good friend does bad things; we should not accept an unjust situation. And I believe the way forward here is to make public what is currently largely secret. Calmly, without anger, without threat. I hear several of us say that people have been in private, unsatisfactory talks with senior Epson management. Yet I do not see these talks made public, I do not know what was said, nor to whom. So I do not really know what to believe, if I am honest with myself and quell my growing sense of unease and incipient anger.
My suggestion is that those of us who understand Epson's management structure formulate and then send a public e-mail with the URL for this thread and a summary of its concerns to someone as high up as possible in the marketing executive, with copies perhaps to other senior Epson sales executives. Send a friendly but firm e-mail expressing our concern and belief that Epson will really want to do the right thing here. Send it in a way that should Epson not respond, or not respond properly, there can be no doubts as to their intentions by even 3rd party individuals who do not want to get into a "he-says-she-says" fight. Then if it comes to it, we have something we can fight with to win the marketing campaign with the broad mass of people who won't have the time or inclination to understand all the subtleties here.
The first step is for the knowledgeable members to identify who should be contacted...
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This goes way beyond the OP... And for those of us who are in this predicament it's time for action – enough speculation.
Take this threat of litigation somewhere else. The OP was raising a valid issue and sharing a lot of good information with fellow forumites (the posted pictures were excellent). If you don't like the way you have allegedly been treated by Epson you can pursue other options but I don't think that LuLa is the place to troll for parties to a "class action" suit which is probably doomed to failure. I will repeat once more, "anecdote does not equal data." Your constant complaining is getting to be quite tiresome. If you don't like Epson, buy a Canon or HP printer; this is what the free market is all about.
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Take this threat of litigation somewhere else. The OP was raising a valid issue and sharing a lot of good information with fellow forumites (the posted pictures were excellent). If you don't like the way you have allegedly been treated by Epson you can pursue other options but I don't think that LuLa is the place to troll for parties to a "class action" suit which is probably doomed to failure. I will repeat once more, "anecdote does not equal data." Your constant complaining is getting to be quite tiresome. If you don't like Epson, buy a Canon or HP printer; this is what the free market is all about.
I agree with all of this.
Furthermore, no one should assume any of this has gone unnoticed where it matters. It would be most incredible if it did.
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Take this threat of litigation somewhere else. The OP was raising a valid issue and sharing a lot of good information with fellow forumites (the posted pictures were excellent). If you don't like the way you have allegedly been treated by Epson you can pursue other options but I don't think that LuLa is the place to troll for parties to a "class action" suit which is probably doomed to failure. I will repeat once more, "anecdote does not equal data." Your constant complaining is getting to be quite tiresome. If you don't like Epson, buy a Canon or HP printer; this is what the free market is all about.
+1. Thank you.
I'd much rather Eric's thread continue along the lines that he started it: sharing/divulging the inner workings of the Epson 79/99** printers from the inside - out. Not pointing fingers. There are just too many different user and environmental variables, which isn't to say that those that have suffered or continue to suffer from out of warranty repairs/clogs do not have a legitimate complaint. But I'd much rather see this thread follow along its original path, lightly humored tongue-in-cheek, while offering good tips on the workings and maintenance of Epson 79/99** printers as well as workflow/environmental tips.
Sure it sucks to see others have difficulties with their equipment (regardless of how small a minority that may be of total users), but I would rather learn from the pain of others (like Eric) who are willing to share, so that perhaps happy 79/99** owners like me can make educated efforts to maintain their printers and avoid similar fates, regardless of whether those potential head/resistant clog issues are statistically significant or not. Epson doesn't have a recommended maintenance or user tips booklet (wish they did), but I've certainly collected a lot of valuable user tips and information along the way going years back to my old 9800. Eric's given a lot of great tips/knowledge in this thread, and I'd like to see it continue in that same vein.
ken
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+1. Thank you.
I'd much rather Eric's thread continue along the lines that he started it: sharing/divulging the inner workings of the Epson 79/99** printers from the inside - out. Not pointing fingers. There are just too many different user and environmental variables, which isn't to say that those that have suffered or continue to suffer from out of warranty repairs/clogs do not have a legitimate complaint. But I'd much rather see this thread follow along its original path, lightly humored tongue-in-cheek, while offering good tips on the workings and maintenance of Epson 79/99** printers as well as workflow/environmental tips.
Sure it sucks to see others have difficulties with their equipment (regardless of how small a minority that may be of total users), but I would rather learn from the pain of others (like Eric) who are willing to share, so that perhaps happy 79/99** owners like me can make educated efforts to maintain their printers and avoid similar fates, regardless of whether those potential head/resistant clog issues are statistically significant or not. Epson doesn't have a recommended maintenance or user tips booklet (wish they did), but I've certainly collected a lot of valuable user tips and information along the way going years back to my old 9800. Eric's given a lot of great tips/knowledge in this thread, and I'd like to see it continue in that same vein.
ken
+1 to that, and Mark's and Alan's comments. Eric started one of the most informative, useful, and entertaining threads I've seen. It'd be a shame for it to degenerate [into] a nonproductive blame game. If my printer died with one of these problems today the options I'd consider would be repair or replacement, and Eric's thread might make the decision easier. Litigation wouldn't be among my potential choices. Life is just too short, and I'd rather lick my wounds and get on with things.
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I refused Dan Berg's very generous offer of a partial refund for buying his clogged (ever since I got it) 7900. Chances are I wouldn't fight to hold anyone else responsible either. This is my (and my genius buddy's) problem, we bought this printer used, I created this thread to share what we have learned. I never expected to learn so much in return. I am an enthusiast only here. This is not my business. I have very little printing experience. So thank you for that added learning bonus everyone.
I have little grasp on corporate strategies or perspectives, so maybe this thought is unreasonable but I'll tell you what I would love - how about someone who knows the answers to our problems step up and share EXACTLY what we're up against and WHY. Then perhaps they could suggest a more appropriate preventive maintenance strategy than our guess-work can produce, or we could formulate one on our own based on real facts rather than imagined ones. It seems right now at least a few of us are printing with a lump in our throats, just waiting for the mysterious phantom menace of concrete clogs to turn from around a random corner and haunt our X900 heads until their death. If anyone of you printers, who have NOT experienced concrete clogs on your X900 printer yet, feels this way you should be hoping for (asking for?) the same.
IF "Epson" is following along, and IF they know what causes these "clogs", it would sure be great if they chimed in to help.
Who says they have to identify themselves?
They could even use some random name to save us all, like maybe "Dorothy"
.(http://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/22281ozthe-wizard-of-oz-posters2.jpg)
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Folks, I hope that the following will put the most irrational skeptic out there at peace. Jon Cone--whose expertise and integrity cannot be questioned, unless there is someone out there willing to question anything that is faulting Epson’s party line—just published a blog article that settles the matter.
http://www.inkjetmall.com/wordpress/product-use/epson-79009900-considerations/
We now have another source that confirms what has been said for a while, except that Cone has a source of data on a much larger scale. I do not see how it is possible to doubt anymore that there is a problem with the x900, and even the x890, which prompts Cone to recommend purchasing the additional warranty.
I encourage everybody here who has had any problem with an x900 or x890 printer to contact the lawyer who has posted here, and file papers with him. His course of action sounds brilliant and pertinent to me. And Eric, you qualify for joining the non-complaisant party, you too are a victim of Epson bad engineering and management of all this, you did nothing wrong, you bought this equipment based on their propaganda, they fooled us all.
I only really wish Epson would cooperate, they have known about this since at least January 4, 2012. The least that they could do under the circumstances if they wanted to avoid litigation would be to communicate with us.
I will just add that I am incredulous at those who talk of ambulance chasing in this situation. Valliant rescue of the wounded is more what comes to mind. I am personally thankful that a gentleman is willing to step up to the plate, especially when Epson does not. That those who have no stake in this (assuming that there is no one in that group) are so self-righteous about somebody sent by the providence, shows at best a lack of sensitivity and respect for those in need that makes me very suspicious of their real motives.
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I normally might agree with the "squeaky wheel"/invalid sample argument. In this case though, the thing that convinces me this a serious and hidden issue is the way epson and dealer techs respond. They are stunningly unsurprised when you report the problem, and at least in my case, unwilling to give me anything at all on a machine that was 1 month out of warranty, moderately low total count, and had been developing the problem over a few months prior. I offered to buy the 3 year, no dice. I offered to pay the parts if they threw in service, no dice. The tech at the dealer very much had the "ah, another one..." attitude and suggested it happened from too little use.
I bought a new head, changed it myself, and went along happily for several months, confident that the dealer tech's advice that it really NEEDED to be used frequently would keep me in action--I used it at least every 3 days. Then the exact same thing on a different channel. My best guess is that it is something systemic in the cleaning system that is damaging the head. But who knows. What I do know is that no one who deals with these machines at this point finds this experience at all surprising. Buyer beware.
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Wow it took some time to read the entire thread. First of all I want to thank Eric and all you great guys here for sharing so much stuff about Epson x900 series. Erics pursuit for knowledge and working printer is really inspiring:)
So now it's time to add my little piece to the jigsaw. We are running two epson 9900 for more than two years now and have been generally happy with them. Before that we used 9880 on MIS inks and in the end it was a nightmare.
Our printers are moody... if they are happy they print for 8 hours straight without clogging but on a bad day you have to be ready for a few cleanings. Our rule of the thumb is: "nozzle check before printing" and "don't leave the printer unattended". Even if they have been printing fine for a long time, the minute you walk out of the room the banding will start. However annoying we assumed it's the nature of this fragile createrus. Every device has it's "dark side".
Now about clogs I would say they fall into few different categories:
- "weekend clogs" or "hangover clogs" - you come to work on Monday, run nozzle check and find few nozzles missing. 99% of the time 1 channel cleaning is enough. Very, very rarely half or entire color gets block but still one cleaning is enough. On the scale of annoyance 1/5
- "middle of the print clogs" - you begin to print and it's fine but halfway through some nozzles get clogged. Usually on only one channel. 3/5 on the scale of annoyance cause they are easy to spot.
- "between the prints clogs" - you print one big image and it's perfect so you go to make some tea. When you come back you see that the moment one imaged finished printing, printer cut off the paper and the next one started printing a dozen of your nozzles decided to have a break to. Sometimes half a channel, sometimes entire one... I find it really odd that in a matter of a few seconds, during a common procedure an entire color can be dropped... The funny things is that still one channel cleaning is usually enough. This is the moment when I start to wonder if they are really clogs.
- "wandering clogs" - I haven't seen them on 9900 but have been a huuuuuge problem on our 9880. It looks like this - you have few blocked nozzles on let's say C and PK (different channels so you have to initate full cleaning). You let the printer do it's job, print the nozzle check and... C and PK are good but Y and LK are screwed. And usually with every cleaning it got worse. The thing that helped was leaving the printer turned off for 1-2 hours.
There is one more thing we have noticed and haven't seend mentioned here. Sometimes (though rather rarely) when the nozzles get clogged you can see black "splatters" on the print. They are the size of a pinhead and in constant distance from each other. Our assumption was that when a nozzle is clogged and there is enough ink "in the back" it splatters. But then the nozzle should unclog right?
Just some food for thought.
Hope you like our "clog glossary"... But like I said in the beginning - we are happy with our 9900. Clients love the prints, clogged nozzles are an issue but they are easy to calculate to the costs. There are some other things which are annoying but in the end we are satisfied.
And once again - in the Old Continent, we're keeping our fingers crossed for Eric's head:)
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Folks, I hope that the following will put the most irrational skeptic out there at peace. Jon Cone--whose expertise and integrity cannot be questioned, unless there is someone out there willing to question anything that is faulting Epson’s party line—just published a blog article that settles the matter.
http://www.inkjetmall.com/wordpress/product-use/epson-79009900-considerations/
We now have another source that confirms what has been said for a while, except that Cone has a source of data on a much larger scale. I do not see how it is possible to doubt anymore that there is a problem with the x900, and even the x890, which prompts Cone to recommend purchasing the additional warranty.
Wrong, there is no more data presented in the article than has been presented on this thread. BTW, did you read the whole article? The key thing is the following: "My opinion is that an extended warranty is an excellent (if not necessary) investment. You need to purchase one before your printer is one year old – so pay attention!" Why on earth anyone would make such a capital expenditure and not by an extended warranty/service contract is beyond me.
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I would like to purchase a 9900 myself, but as long as I do not hear a valid explanation for the situation here, and see a solution, I will stay away, or buy a Canon, which is probably the most sensible choice anyway.
I agree with the whole post Anton, but especially the last part. As a fellow that's been through 2 heads in 1.5 years of moderate use (something Epson does not blink an eye about when I've called) I will not trust any more Epson models until the track record is in (2-3 years down the line). The Canon's are an unbelievable deal now, I could have bought 3 of them for what I spent on this machine total and the print quality is finally equivalent now in the 8300.
I'll happily join a class action too, more to try and recoup all the time I spent in total stone wall conversations with Epson than anything else. If they would just subsidize replacement printheads, everything would be cool. I know that part isn't costing them anything like $1200 to produce, and they completely lost a ink-guzzling fanatic.
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Why on earth anyone would make such a capital expenditure and not by an extended warranty/service contract is beyond me.
The reason is because given the track record of other Epson models occupying this space, extended warranties have been no more necessary than their competitors. IMO, the x900 are proving not to have Epson's usual quality, and are also surprisingly expensive to repair. You live and learn, but I'm not sure it's 100% correct to throw the blame on trusting consumers like myself. From 7600 to 3800 I thought I had learned what to expect with this company. I now have no idea what to expect, and so yes, the $1400 warranty is not really as optional as you would think and has to be included as part of the real cost of this machine if you plan to use it more than 365 days. I'm assuming you have the extended warranty and I congratulate you on your foresight.
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somebody sent by the providence
Really? A lawyer trolling a forum looking to sue someone is sent by the providence? If he was a long time contributing member that had finally reached the limit of his patience on a subject that drove him to want to pursue legal recourse, maybe I could accept that. You think he read all 600 posts on this thread? You think he searched this forum for other threads related to the subject? Other forums? If he did, let him state his case based on facts. Providence?
You want to rush to action and slay the might corporate monster? Start a new thread, please.
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Normally, I do not buy extended warranties because when you think of it, the general case should be that the odds are against you, otherwise the sellers would not come out whole - one must assume they have no intention of losing money on that business. This is a classic insurance conundrum - a "game" of probabilities of occurrence and impact cost versus cost of the insurance. To make a rational decision about the value of buying such insurance, we need information that isn't being made available to us. We have partial knowledge of impact costs, but no reliable data on probability of occurrence, as web forums are not a reliable basis for making such determinations and the company isn't saying. So buying this insurance cannot be a well-informed decision and I have a penchant for well-informed decisions. Buying the insurance is a 100% deadweight loss unless/until I need to call on it; not buying it gives me a substantial - but unknown - probability of coming out ahead, because despite the unfortunate and regrettable negative experiences we are reading about, I think there are probably far more satisfied than dissatisfied users of these machines all over the world. So I held back. Time will tell.
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Normally, I do not buy extended warranties because when you think of it, the general case should be that the odds are against you, otherwise the sellers would not come out whole - one must assume they have no intention of losing money on that business. This is a classic insurance conundrum - a "game" of probabilities of occurrence and impact cost versus cost of the insurance. To make a rational decision about the value of buying such insurance, we need information that isn't being made available to us. We have partial knowledge of impact costs, but no reliable data on probability of occurrence, as web forums are not a reliable basis for making such determinations and the company isn't saying. So buying this insurance cannot be a well-informed decision and I have a penchant for well-informed decisions. Buying the insurance is a 100% deadweight loss unless/until I need to call on it; not buying it gives me a substantial - but unknown - probability of coming out ahead, because despite the unfortunate and regrettable negative experiences we are reading about, I think there are probably far more satisfied than dissatisfied users of these machines all over the world. So I held back. Time will tell.
I have never bought an extended warranty on household appliances and have spent significant amount over the years on various upgrades (including a kitchen remodelling). In these cases, I think your assessment is correct. However with the case of the large format Epson printers, I suspect that most purchasers are either making or trying to make a living printing photographs and other graphics. Since this is a business and down time is a critical factor as opposed to having a refrigerator go down, purchasing an extended warranty makes sense to me. The costs can be amortized into the business and built into the costs of goods and services. Maybe I'm wrong and a lot of these folks just like to print big for their own personal use (maybe they have lots of wall space that needs to be decorated) but if I'm not build the cost into the business plan.
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The reason is because given the track record of other Epson models occupying this space, extended warranties have been no more necessary than their competitors. IMO, the x900 are proving not to have Epson's usual quality, and are also surprisingly expensive to repair. You live and learn, but I'm not sure it's 100% correct to throw the blame on trusting consumers like myself. From 7600 to 3800 I thought I had learned what to expect with this company. I now have no idea what to expect, and so yes, the $1400 warranty is not really as optional as you would think and has to be included as part of the real cost of this machine if you plan to use it more than 365 days. I'm assuming you have the extended warranty and I congratulate you on your foresight.
My 9900 is rapidly approaching the expiry of its first extended warranty and I will be purchasing the second extension very soon. By the end of the first year it became blatantly obvious to me that I had little choice but to buy the extended warranty. Before I took possession of the printer I had already set up a '9900 Issue Log' based on posts here and on another forum. That log now contains 97 entries, and when I call Epson I simply give them my phone number and they can than access the service history of this machine. That's less time consuming than going through the whole routine every time I place a call, which is rather frequent. My last call was about a week ago and as soon as the Tech Rep at Epson checked the history she said "Whoa"! I caught that and commented on her response. We both had a chuckle. That call was not service related, but instead to verify the actual warranty extension date. I then asked her to check with her supervisor and find out if it would be possible to get the third year for the same price it would have been had I initially purchased a two year extension. The answer was no, since it is indeed a 'part' and 'part' price are fixed. I thought that sounded like some sort of 'legal shmeegal', but didn't pursue it any further. Reason being that perhaps with my 9900 service record Epson could possibly chose not to offer an extension this time round, so better to let it lie. Although it is a lot of money to lay out for an insurance policy, I'm not sure where the $1400 figure comes into play. In CDN dollars it is $930 + HST = $1050.90. YES, a lot of $$$!!! After this extension I'll be on my own, as are a lot of you folks, but thanks to this thread I have learned a few valuable lessons concerning some rather simple maintenance practices. Most of these are of course procedures that I've been using for years on other printers, but somehow the 9900 seemed to be more prohibitive. Thank you Eric.
Gary
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Since this is a business and down time is a critical factor as opposed to having a refrigerator go down, purchasing an extended warranty makes sense to me. The costs can be amortized into the business and built into the costs of goods and services. Maybe I'm wrong and a lot of these folks just like to print big for their own personal use (maybe they have lots of wall space that needs to be decorated) but if I'm not build the cost into the business plan.
Alan, you assume that people who are in business make money, which is a line that I have heard before from people in the upper echelons at Epson ... The fact is that anybody who is a photographer (and others with any ability to see and empathize) knows that way more photographers struggle than live on easy street. Add to this that this printer has more interest for fine art than for commercial photography, and then we are really talking of people who do not make any money, struggle to make ends meet, and cannot afford whatever makes sense on a corporate business plan.
The bottom line is as Bupalos and others have mentioned: those x900 printers need an extended warranty (which is only becoming a know fact now) and consequently over the minimal expected life of such an equipment, the Epson model will cost about 4 times as much as the equivalent Canon one. I wish Epson had told me that when I purchased my 9900.
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Alan, you assume that people who are in business make money, which is a line that I have heard before from people in the upper echelons at Epson ... The fact is that anybody who is a photographer (and others with any ability to see and empathize) knows that way more photographers struggle than live on easy street. Add to this that this printer has more interest for fine art than for commercial photography, and then we are really talking of people who do not make any money, struggle to make ends meet, and cannot afford whatever makes sense on a corporate business plan.
I spent 90% of my working career in the corporate sector. The companies I worked for had extended service contracts on every piece of office equipment. My point stands. I you are printing for commercial purposes make sure you have the necessary coverage on your equipment (you do have insurance on your cameras and lenses don't you?). It's just good business sense. If you are in my position and photograph as an avocation and sell a little bit every year, it's less of an imperative. I also don't see any need to print beyond 17 inches wide.
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Alan,
How can you say that your argument stands when I just explained why it did not? I have only been in the business of fine art photography for 40 years, most of them as a professional adult, so please... I have made my meager living all my life from photography and nothing else, so please take me at my word: most photographers don't make money, especially these days, and can barely afford the equipment they need. This is why many of them have switched career and work for the photo equipment industry or outside of photography altogether.
Now because one does not make enough money, does not mean that one does not have ambition. I specialize for instance in large format prints from photo-journalistic style photographs, and given that my other characteristic is to deliver prints that are supposed to be among the best ones in the world, I do need to perform them myself on my own printer, until now a 9900. Now none of that means that I make much money at it. Given the marketing complexity of fine art it is very easy to loose money on a show, and it is not as easy as you think to include insurances of all sorts on equipment. We are happy to just be able to purchase the very needed equipment in the first place. The same goes for camera equipment, especially when like me, one uses film equipment whose value is hard to prove to an insurance company, not to mention that the insurance cost is prohibitive for that as well, unless again you are working for National Geographic on a regular basis, and that then becomes just part of your costs.
And actually, it is a good thing for Epson, that many photographers, professional and not, have been lured into believing that they could own their own printer because in the end that just boosts the sale of ink. If that were not the case, if only the big guys could own an L.F. printer, that Epson division would not be half as profitable.
Now the problem is that people have not been told the full story about these x900 printers, and clearly, the fact that the extended warranty de facto necessity was not made clear, is a big problem. We bought printers as "Bugalos" mentioned, based on the the track record of the previous generations, and everything from Epson's marketing lead us to believe that the x900 was a quintessential achievement topping the previous ones. So please don't try to fault us ( I don't even understand why you even try or want to), as the responsibility here can only come from the manufacturer.
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They could even use some random name to save us all, like maybe "Dorothy"
.(http://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/22281ozthe-wizard-of-oz-posters2.jpg)
Well, I had really hoped that this thread would/could continue along the same educational vein it started with---divulging the innner workings of our 79/99** printers and sharing some helpful maintenance/repair tips along the way. I wish Dorothy could just *click* her red heels together and those that seem so entrenched in being litigious or some sort of Epson conspiracy start their own thread or go elsewhere. Again, I'm not saying that out of warranty Epson printer issues are without merit. I'm outta here.
Eric, if you could drop me a note when something substantive comes up. It's become too time consuming trying to wean through the thread separating the wheat from the chaff...
ken
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Start. A. New. Thread.
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the $1400 warranty is not really as optional as you would think and has to be included as part of the real cost of this machine if you plan to use it more than 365 days.
keep an eye out for deals.. they were available for crazily cheap price - I can't find the deal I got, but I think it was close to 50 bucks! here's one for free http://www.photowholesalers.com.au/forum/topics/bonus-2-year-extended-warranty and another one.. http://blog.creativefolks.sitemaker.com.au/epson-extended-warranty-offer/
I got mine from myepsonprinter.eu
James
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I spent 90% of my working career in the corporate sector. The companies I worked for had extended service contracts on every piece of office equipment. My point stands. I you are printing for commercial purposes make sure you have the necessary coverage on your equipment (you do have insurance on your cameras and lenses don't you?). It's just good business sense. If you are in my position and photograph as an avocation and sell a little bit every year, it's less of an imperative. I also don't see any need to print beyond 17 inches wide.
Alan if I may politely say this is probably why you have a hard time understanding this problem and the average Epson user. Your 90% working career in a large corporate sector has blinded your understanding of who actually owns many of these printers. I would be willing to bet more then 50% of these large format printers are owner by very small one or two person companies, many fine art photographers that help pay for their printers by printing for other photographers. They do not run them 12 hours a day every day and Epson surely was not discouraging these people from buying the printers. If these printers were only owned by large corporate businesses that can afford all kinds of service contracts as you infer Epson would probably go out of the printer business by losing probably more the 50% of their sales.
Myself any really all the other Epson large format printer owners that I am friends with flat out struggle to stay alive.....but we do it because we love the art and are passionate and dedicated to it. Shelling out another 1400 for a extended service contract is not something to be taken lightly. All the Epsons I have had prior to this were work horses that with a little care just ran and ran and ran. When I stepped up to the new 900 series as many others did Epson did not say anything about getting a extended service contract with these new models because you are really going to need it.
I don`t know where this is all going to go....and I really doubt Epson is going to acknowledgewledge any problems. Where I am sure they will see it is in loss of future sales. I and many other people I know will be taking a lot closer look at Canon when the next printer is purchased...
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I have never bought an extended warranty on household appliances and have spent significant amount over the years on various upgrades (including a kitchen remodelling). In these cases, I think your assessment is correct. However with the case of the large format Epson printers, I suspect that most purchasers are either making or trying to make a living printing photographs and other graphics. Since this is a business and down time is a critical factor as opposed to having a refrigerator go down, purchasing an extended warranty makes sense to me. The costs can be amortized into the business and built into the costs of goods and services. Maybe I'm wrong and a lot of these folks just like to print big for their own personal use (maybe they have lots of wall space that needs to be decorated) but if I'm not build the cost into the business plan.
Alan, Speed of service doesn't necessarily depend on whether or not one has an extended warranty. As for building the cost into business overhead, MAYBE this reduced the tax-adjusted cost of the warranty thereby somewhat reducing the insurance premium, but in the final analysis, the cost of it comes out of the bottom line unless it can be fully passed-through to customers. Some owners don't have customers, and for others who do, that may or may not be possible depending. Markets have constraints, especially for small players and even for large ones. You need to be a price-maker and not a price-taker to do this.
Bringing this tangent back to the main theme of this extensive thread, based on previous experience, the probability of needing to draw on these warranties was probably low, why many people haven't bought them. If it's really true that "on average" these new printers are much more exposed to maintenance issues because of design differences relative to their predecessors, then perhaps the risk factor changes and the economics of buying this protection points towards getting it. That means potential customers for a large format printer would need to factor this variable into their shopping alternatives between manufacturers producing machinery that all delivers very high quality results. But as I said, reliable data is still an issue.
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I would be willing to bet more then 50% of these large format printers are owner by very small one or two person companies, many fine art photographers that help pay for their printers by printing for other photographers. They do not run them 12 hours a day every day and Epson surely was not discouraging these people from buying the printers. If these printers were only owned by large corporate businesses that can afford all kinds of service contracts as you infer Epson would probably go out of the printer business by losing probably more the 50% of their sales.
Myself any really all the other Epson large format printer owners that I am friends with flat out struggle to stay alive.....but we do it because we love the art and are passionate and dedicated to it. Shelling out another 1400 for a extended service contract is not something to be taken lightly. All the Epsons I have had prior to this were work horses that with a little care just ran and ran and ran. When I stepped up to the new 900 series as many others did Epson did not say anything about getting a extended service contract with these new models because you are really going to need it.
I don`t know where this is all going to go....and I really doubt Epson is going to acknowledgewledge any problems. Where I am sure they will see it is in loss of future sales. I and many other people I know will be taking a lot closer look at Canon when the next printer is purchased...
+1 I also echo this POV... As a fine art photographer and printing enthusiast, I did not have the luxury to purchase an extended warranty. I also did not want to outsource printing – which permitted greater output control.
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keep an eye out for deals.. they were available for crazily cheap price - I can't find the deal I got, but I think it was close to 50 bucks! here's one for free http://www.photowholesalers.com.au/forum/topics/bonus-2-year-extended-warranty
Wow. Thanks Designpartners. I think that's quite remarkable.
In Australia you can buy a 7900 with the Epson two year extended warranty for only $2,090. In U.S. dollars that's only $2186.
If you buy a 7900 in the U.S. (B&H - with current $1,000 rebate) it's $3,000 just for the printer plus $1,375 for the two year warranty for a total of $4,375.
Why is Epson charging U.S. customers nearly $2,000 more for a 7900 printer? That's twice the price in Australia. Why doesn't Epson offer the same deal in America?
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Alan is very correct in his statements about building these costs into overhead. If you cannot afford the costs of ownership you shouldn't be purchasing these printers in the first place.... I don't buy all this starving artist crap. I'd be willing to bet a good many of the complainers (not all), don't even have a business license and are doing this thinking they can make a few bucks on the side. Set up a website online, and bingo your a professional photographer, taking business away from legitimate businesses and pros.
I don't know that there is any data or evidence to show that all or most of the people that are having clog problems here are in the printing business. Many, if not most, are hobbyists or "enthusiasts" who like to photograph and want to do their own printing and want to print wide format. People like Eric. They read the Epson X900 brochure that says clogs are a thing of the past. Now that they own these printers they are finding that clogs aren't a thing of the past. If anything, they are more common than ever. I don't know why, but maybe it's because these printers have double the number of channels of previous Epson printers and they create droplets smaller than before (2.5 picoliter versus 3.5 picoliter).
The way things are going it seems to me that when you get to the 10th or 11th month you should definitely buy the extended warranty (1 or 2 year), expensive as it is, or sell the printer if there is one out there then that you think is better (maybe the next one will actually prove to clog less). If you have an X900 printer and you don't have a warranty you're pushing your luck, especially if you don't print regularly.
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...Alan is very correct in his statements about building these costs into overhead. If you cannot afford the costs of ownership you shouldn't be purchasing these printers in the first place...
...I don't buy all this starving artist crap. I'd be willing to bet a good many of the complainers (not all), don't even have a business license and are doing this thinking they can make a few bucks on the side. Set up a website online, and bingo your a professional photographer, taking business away from legitimate businesses and pros.
David
I am an enthusiast. An amateur photographer. A starving artist if you will. This past October I finally decided to get some of my photos printed. I went to the greatest lab I could find here in the Bay Area. Amazing place, incredible samples. It was there that I fell in love with the idea of printing every dam photo I have ever taken. In the end I could only afford to print twenty. It cost me fifteen hundred dollars.
I loved the idea of hanging my photos on my walls. I loved the look of them as well. But the closer and more frequently I looked at them, I noticed more and more that they just weren't what I created. "A little too dark, they clipped the whites, maybe not canvas for that one, I wish I made this one bigger" etc. etc. But the cost I faced for printing more, larger, and on different mediums was quite a daunting expense for something I was simply passionate about. Something NOT for business. So I started reading here, on Luminous Landscape, in the printers papers and inks section. That's how I learned about printing. That's how I learned about Epson's great Stylus Pro 7900. And that's how I found Dan Berg, selling his 7900 for $1,700, which he raved about - stating among other things that it had very little use, which it did.
So this "starving artist" read and read and read about the Epson Stylus Pro 7900. And the more I read the better it sounded. No more clogs, no more heaps of wasted ink, easily change from matte black to photo black, incredible resolution, depth and color in prints seeming almost to lift your images off the paper, etc. etc. etc...
I looked at what I paid to get much smaller versions of my photos printed - $1,500 - and I wasn't entirely happy with the results. I imagined possessing the freedom myself to experiment with tonal changes, color shifts, different mediums, larger sizes, and so on. I read, I learned, and I decided to buy Dan's 7900 for $1,700. I figured one year's worth of printing alone would pay for this printer easily - compared to what I would be paying Bay Photo Lab to print my photos for me.
To me it seemed like a no-brainer. So I made a mistake I guess, I decided to become a photographer taking business away from legitimate businesses and pros, by printing my own photos myself. And that's where things went nuclear on me and my genius buddy Steve. But it's not as bad as you might think..
You see I didn't really pay $1,700 for this 7900. Steve and I split it. In fact we have split every expense related to this 7900 so far. So neither of us are quite a bad off as it seems here. Plus our Epson clog-spending spree is over now. If the printheaddoctor (Vladimir) comes through, and our original head prints clog-free, great. We will all know that our clogs are actually clogs, and maybe I'll buy Vladimir's machine and start a small business offering X900 printhead-saving-solutions for other Epson owners who get cornered by concrete clogs on one end, and ridiculous repair bills on the other - which render their great X900 printers useless piles of junk. Then also Steve and I can finally start printing like the starving artists we will forever strive to be, but never afford to be.
But if Vladimir's ultrasonic head cleaning work proves the alternate point - that our clogs are not clogs at all, and our problems are actually piezoelectical, then we will lick our wounds and install this new printhead which we have waiting in the background. And if this new head installation gets this 7900 printing again, great, we will begin again our endless pursuit of chasing our dreams.
...However if this printer STILL does not work? Come on I know you want to know our alternate, alternate plan.. That's right, we're going hollywood. I'm gonna buy three sticks of dynamite, fire up a video camera, and we're gonna launch this exploding fireball of an Epson 7900 off the tallest cliff we can find. End of hopeless starving artist printing career.
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That's right, we're going hollywood. I'm gonna buy three sticks of dynamite, fire up a video camera, and we're gonna launch this exploding fireball of an Epson 7900 off the tallest cliff we can find. End of hopeless starving artist printing career.
Now the thread gets interesting. Here's where it can go Viral, and here is where we might get Epson's attention.
I have a big cargo van; I'll load up my LLK-jammed 7900 and drive it to meet your 7900, and we'll built a giant sculpture of ruined 7900's, and set them on fire, a la Burning Man. We'll video the whole thing, and send it round the world.
Yes, this is where it gets interesting.
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Eric, do you why it is taking so long to get the print head back?
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From what I have been told by Vladimir, they were not tooled up to service X900 heads. In fact in all the head cleaning service websites that I called over the past months, who advertised all sorts of head cleaning promises and history, NOT ONE was prepared to service X900 heads. Lines always went dark when this head was mentioned. Vladimir is not in the business, necessarily, of cleaning heads. He sells the ultra sonic cleaning machines. He manufactures the brackets needed to mount different heads to his machines. But he does not clean heads.
When I called Vladimir I offered him a deal - if his machine cleared our head of it's clogs, I would buy one. My thinking was I would then service everyone's X900 head on this forum, who couldn't clear their clogs. Vladimir agreed, then went to work on designing and fabricating brackets to mount our X900 heads to his machine. As I understand it all of these processes will be completed by the end of this month.
That's why it has taken this long. Makes sense I think.
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Yeah, I guess it makes sense. You have more patience then me. At least it's almost the end of the month.
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Wow. Thanks Designpartners. I think that's quite remarkable.
In Australia you can buy a 7900 with the Epson two year extended warranty for only $2,090. In U.S. dollars that's only $2186.
If you buy a 7900 in the U.S. (B&H - with current $1,000 rebate) it's $3,000 just for the printer plus $1,375 for the two year warranty for a total of $4,375.
Why is Epson charging U.S. customers nearly $2,000 more for a 7900 printer? That's twice the price in Australia. Why doesn't Epson offer the same deal in America?
Nope, unfortunately the prices in Australia are actually much higher - the link you followed shows the normal price of the warranty only - i.e. the bit they are giving away for free as a 2 month promo. Indicitive pricing for the printers in Australia are: 3880 - $1,808.00; 4900 - $2,987.00; 7900 - $6450.00; 9900 - $10999.
Still sound cheaper in Australia?
Also the Aussie dollar is currently worth a few cents MORE that the US dollar so in AU the printer should cost even less! :)
Kevin
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Eric,
I am rooting for you and for Vladimir's process to work. If it does, it could offer hope to those with clogs.
I do a lot of trouble shooting of equipment at my job, and I really think you are approaching this in a sound manner. Have you given any thought to what it will mean if by chance the ultra sonic cleaning doesn't work? If this is the case, are you thinking about autopsying the head to see if you can physically see a clog or somehow else try to determine if there is nothing physically blocking the head which might indicate an electrical / piezo problem?
Again, I hope this isn't the case, but something tells me you might have considered it.
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People have been complaining about clogging and wasted ink on mostly all inkjet printers from day 1, whether it be cheap desktops to expensive WFs, and Canon and HP are no exception!
Some models appear to be more prone to clogging and other issues than others!
Alan is very correct in his statements about building these costs into overhead. If you cannot afford the costs of ownership you shouldn't be purchasing these printers in the first place. All equipment has a given life expectancy and gets depeciated each year untill it's useful life is over and needs to be serviced or replaced. It is some of these very factors that too many small business people never take into account that is the reason why a very large percentage of them fail to succeed in their businesse endeavor within the first year.
DONT blame Epson for wanting to sell product.
If you can afford to, and wish to purchase a Buggati Veyron, you'd better be prepared to mainain it and cover the costs of ownership.
Don't tell your dealer that you cannot afford a repair or maintainance when it becomes necessary and then blame it on Bugatti.
I don't buy all this starving artist crap. I'd be willing to bet a good many of the complainers (not all), don't even have a business license and are doing this thinking they can make a few bucks on the side. Set up a website online, and bingo your a professional photographer, taking business away from legitimate businesses and pros.
David
WOW......that is some outlook on life........I can say this.....if I bought a Bugatti and they gave me no schedule of maintenance and the engine blow up after one year......I,you and most people would be a little mad I would think.....
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Nope, unfortunately the prices in Australia are actually much higher - the link you followed shows the normal price of the warranty only - i.e. the bit they are giving away for free as a 2 month promo. Indicitive pricing for the printers in Australia are: 3880 - $1,808.00; 4900 - $2,987.00; 7900 - $6450.00; 9900 - $10999.
Still sound cheaper in Australia?
Kevin
Ah, no, not cheaper in Australia. So the price in Australia for a 7900 is twice what we pay, not half as much. My condolences. Same question though in my mind. Why such a gigantic price difference?
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People have been complaining about clogging and wasted ink on mostly all inkjet printers from day 1, whether it be cheap desktops to expensive WFs, and Canon and HP are no exception!
My HP Zs do not have that kind of problems, a total of 8 years of use. No clogging, no high head replacement costs, no ink waste worth mentioning. Reliably starting up after two idle weeks, reliable in two weeks running 16 hours a day, consistent output quality at different dpi resolutions. They have some issues mainly in software, ask for some maintenance, a belt should be replaced soon. Both are without an extended maintenance contract and did not need a service man in the first year either. If a formatter goes belly up it will cost me real money, has not happened so far. All together nothing worth a thread like this one and we do not see threads like this one on HP Z's or Canon iPFs, the last must have a market share comparable to the recent Epson wide format printers (360 nozzles per channel models).
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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Two years use with a Design Jet followed by three years intensive use of a Canon 6100 and never a hold-up with either. Still on original heads in the Canon. If you study forums here and elsewhere you find that topics about Epson/clogging is a big issue that hardly features for any other brand. Some will say that is because more Epsons are out there, but the difference is too big for that.
I do understand that brand loyalty can blind one, and big purchases have to be justified in the face of logic, so I understand those who might just wish the whole thing would go away. I don't understand an attitude that says a small start-up is "taking business away from legitimate businesses and pros." As a retail professional I can say that competition is your friend, not your enemy, for the obvious reasons that serious retailers understand.
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Nope, unfortunately the prices in Australia are actually much higher - the link you followed shows the normal price of the warranty only - i.e. the bit they are giving away for free as a 2 month promo. Indicitive pricing for the printers in Australia are: 3880 - $1,808.00; 4900 - $2,987.00; 7900 - $6450.00; 9900 - $10999.
Still sound cheaper in Australia?
Also the Aussie dollar is currently worth a few cents MORE that the US dollar so in AU the printer should cost even less! :)
Kevin
Woops... should read my searches a little better. but here is the original offer I got through myepsonprinter..
(http://i42.tinypic.com/28lf79e.jpg)
my reseller (Sheldon Photo in Dublin) (http://www.sheldonphoto.com/) actually went out of his way to let me know about it.
James
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So with a 9900 purchase you will pay $50 and get 2 additional years of warranty.
Just remember you no longer are eligible for the 9900 $1,000 rebate.(If still offered in your country.)
Which makes your total cost come to $1050.00 for a 2 year extended warranty. (1 year comes with the purchase.)
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I got a epson loyalty discount (I think €800 or something like that) when I bought it and then picked up the extended warranty 10 months later for €50..
James
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Eric, and fellow forum members,
I sincerely apologize to all of you who I may have offended with my uncalled for remarks pertaining to costs of ownership and taking business away from legitimate businesses.
I was reacting to a personal situation that arose in my business causing me a very bad day,which should not have carried over to this thread.
I have removed my uncalled for post,and ask that you forgive me for my poorly thought out comments.
David
No problem here........it is something I all to often do myself.........Peter
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Speaking of BAD DAYS, I'm having one of those myself with my 9890....
First observation, don't turn your printer off if you are low on ink as this seemingly fudges something up in the printer. Well, it did for me.
Never mind that I had a perfectly fine nozzle check before hand (and for several weeks). But after powering down the printer I suddenly have 4 channels drop completely out! WTF??? Oh, and not channels that were even low! A simple pairs clean would not bring them back either, I had to do several before deciding to do a "powerful" pairs clean. Still not a clean nozzle check either.
And then to really kick me in the nutz, I have TWO bad brand now 700ml cartridges. The LLK won't recognize for shatz, and the LC must have an air leak because when I put it in, one of the pressurizing pumps runs constantly!
A whole freaking Sunday afternoon lost! BAH!
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Ah, no, not cheaper in Australia. So the price in Australia for a 7900 is twice what we pay, not half as much. My condolences. Same question though in my mind. Why such a gigantic price difference?
I assume it would be pinned on being a smaller market (there are only about 22 mega people here rather than 313 in USA), therefore higher per sale overheads, etc, etc.
But of course if the printers cost less then more people (like me) would buy one!
(Instead, I get my prints done by a company with 7900 and 9900 and provide ICCs for a number of papers.)
Kevin
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A bit off topic, (but there are now "topics-within-topics" on this thread), but the Aussie market is moving towards US pricing in many ways as a reaction to on-line buying. For example, buying a Canon SLR as little more money here than in the US as Aussie wholesalers and retailers bring their prices down to keep their market share. It's a huge topic here these days and many outlets here are rushing to get their on-line presence up-to-date.
I've been in retailing for many years at research level for big companies and a buyer for small sport goods businesses. It was always the case that where buyers met wholesalers and importers at trade shows, the buyers drove economy type cars, the importers and wholesalers drove Mercs and BMWs. So there's a bit of fat still left to extract from the importers etc. A Canon 6300 is $5,600 in Oz and often in the high $2,000s in the US. I can freight one here for about $500. I'm sure Canon freights for less from Japan. Expect prices in Oz to go down. I get my inks from the US at about $85 incl postage, they cost up to $145 here. etc etc. (Have I reached 100 postings yet?)
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Yea I felt that David. Thanks for the apology.
It's all good, we all have our days.
rmeyers; sorry I didn't answer you earlier. Yes, if Vladimir's ultrasonic cleaning does not prove successful we do have more delusion planned for this head. First Steve wants to soak the head for a solid week, followed by a gentle internal pressure rinse injecting fluid through the head via our syringe method. Steve still feels confident that these clogs are actually clogs.
Then, if this printhead STILL shows these concrete clogs, we are planning on sacrificing this head to the mighty printing Gods above. My genius buddy Steve is actually an engineer. He's got access to some pretty high tech lab technology where he works. So yes we WILL be performing an autopsy, we will be taking photos, and we will be sharing our results here on Luminous Landscape. Our poor 7900 may be one of the worst purchases I have ever made in my life, which pretty well blows, but at the same time due to all that has come to life here in this thread, I don't know, somehow it's alright. And if we can ALL finally know exactly what's the weak link in this X900 chain, well then it'll be far better than just alright.
I have made so many phone calls to people so much smarter than I am. So many emails. I can't seem to inspire anyone to solve this mystery for us. So we'll do it ourselves.
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Eric said:
I am an enthusiast. An amateur photographer. A starving artist if you will. This past October I finally decided to get some of my photos printed. I went to the greatest lab I could find here in the Bay Area. Amazing place, incredible samples. It was there that I fell in love with the idea of printing every dam photo I have ever taken. In the end I could only afford to print twenty. It cost me fifteen hundred dollars.
I loved the idea of hanging my photos on my walls. I loved the look of them as well. But the closer and more frequently I looked at them, I noticed more and more that they just weren't what I created. "A little too dark, they clipped the whites, maybe not canvas for that one, I wish I made this one bigger" etc. etc. But the cost I faced for printing more, larger, and on different mediums was quite a daunting expense for something I was simply passionate about. Something NOT for business. So I started reading here, on Luminous Landscape, in the printers papers and inks section. That's how I learned about printing. That's how I learned about Epson's great Stylus Pro 7900.
I too bought a 7900 for many of the same reasons.
Just prior to Christmas I paid a local Print shop $180- to print an image on Canvas 24 x 36 that I had printed 16 x 24 on my Epson 4800. My own version (albeit smaller) blew the commercial print out of the water. It was at that point that I decided that I would get my own 7900 so that I would not have to argue with someone else as to the qualities (or lack thereof) of any particular print and satisfy myself that I was getting the best quality according to my own definition & interpretation of the image.
So far I have not printed as much as I would like but the 7900 I have has been performing well enough. Any clogs have been pretty easily cleared. I don't know how long that will last though...
I appreciate this thread & the video on changing the wiper blade was quite excellent.
Thank you Eric.
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So far I have not printed as much as I would like but the 7900 I have has been performing well enough. Any clogs have been pretty easily cleared. I don't know how long that will last though...
Including myself, I know 4 people who own 7900s. All are working fine and have never required service. Two are over 3 years old, one is just over 2 years old, and one is less than one year old. This is anecdotal "data" and does not mean there are no problems out there, but it's a pretty safe bet that the vast majority of these machines are doing what they're supposed to do.
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Dean,
If you are trying to reassure yourself or dispense some feelgood therapy, what you write is perfect. It is otherwise perfectly useless. Nobody has ever suggested that there was a pandemic, just that there was a problem affecting a number of users, too many for anybody to feel safe. I had found that much, and it has been by now corroborated by Jon Cone.
So if I were you, in order to keep feeling good, I would pray and burn candles all day or abandon myself to whatever voodoo is your karma, because what has happened to many users, could happen to you tomorrow, and that really would be terrible, wouldn't it?
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Sorry to hear that chaddro, been there a couple of times now! It does sound like air in the lines,and or a pressurization problem as you say due to a bad cart.
I've experienced the same with low carts and bubble sprays also. First of all do not do any more cleaning cycles, let the printer sit for a day.I have had better luck doing a regular complete cleaning, than pairs when this has happened to me. Even Epson says repeated cleaning will introduce more problems ! Call Epson or whoever you purchased them from, and politely insist on replacement carts if you just installed them.This is not an unheard of issue. If air has been introduced into the lines it may take some printing before the ink flows through the nozzles again.Just print some office paper don't waste good stuff.
Check your wiper!
Check your carts and see where they were produced. I am just curious.
Prior to recently, all the carts I received were from Japan, all the new ones are made in Indonesia.
Good luck
I didn't look at country of origin on the carts, but they are new, dec 2012 and july 2013 expiry dates in the NEW packaging, and I do have the new firmware that was supposed to address this issue. I have not had this bad of an issue with the machine before, so I don't know why it freaked out on me. Waiting over night may help, but not good when you have production to get out.
I guess I'll have to try out new carts when I get down to, oh ... 5%?? ... so I don't get stuck on a weekend.
I'll give Epson a call after work for the new carts. I, so far, have not had any issue with getting replacements. You'd think they would have this fixed by now. TWO bad 700ml cartridges (and I have 4 more unopened waiting for those channels to get low) in one day really is infuriating.
Had to chill out to some Tom Baker era Doctor Who :p
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Chadro, generally epson gives 90 days guarantee for all cartridges bought at any shop (but new ones only not ebay). From my experience, just contact epson, they will give you address and you send them with proof of purchase, few days later brand new ones in the post :)
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what you write is perfect. It is otherwise perfectly useless. Nobody has ever suggested that there was a pandemic, just that there was a problem affecting a number of users, too many for anybody to feel safe.
Clic, you found 12... 12 clogs.. granted 12 is a number, but I really feel that you are massively skewing your results and misleading others on the forum. I'm really not arguing that clogs don't happen on the 9900, they do, and that some of them are probably head failures for whatever reason.. BUT.. it's not too many for anybody to feel safe - this is simply scaremongering..
and before you go and rebut any of this statement with your photographic creds - which I'll admit are stunning! and truly, I wish that I will someday come close to your skill, but I fear I never will. It would have been more relevant to say you had a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and Masters degree in Product development, which others on this forum also have.
I put products into production for a living - it's something that I have many years experience with (and have my fair share of awards to back it up, including Red Dot, iF, Good Design and MoMa to name but a few), and the simple reality is that products are manufactured to a tolerance, they are tested, companies, (and by companies I mean people, because people make product) try very hard to make the best product they can, BUT... mistakes happen, which inevitably leads to product failures. This is why you get a warranty, and this is why you get an extended warranty, and it's not cost prohibitive to do so and I've already demonstrated..
the reason I love this thread, is because I'm intrigued by it - I too want to know what happened to Eric's head, and I LOVE what he's doing showing us what it's like from the inside out! it's exactly what I would do if I personally was faced with a potentially HUGE repair bill, it's not what I would recommend for my company however.
I would however pose a question, is it the head, or the ink? Clic I applaud your ramekin test, because it show you are looking at this from more than one way, but perhaps something more scientific/diagnostic would be more prudent - I'm not sure if it's technical possible, but I would like to push the LLK ink to a different set of nozzles and see if that clogs - it would obviously cost an amount of ink to test that however. Maybe there is a way to just print an LLK print only? on cheap paper it should only cost a little over €100.. just a thought..
Eric, we are coming close to the end of the month - here's hoping your guy sorts you out! :)
James
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Designpartners,
Thank you for your comments on my work, but I only mentioned my photographic relative expertise because the prior response to my post was questioning my credibility. My photographic relative accomplishments would also tend to suggest that my experience is rich and long, and can hardly come without some understanding of the technical aspect of the process. All proportions aside, for instance, you probably would not question very long Ansel Adams' ability to judge an enlarger. But some here question not only mine, but Jon Cone's judgement on this, which I can't help but qualifying as utter denial.
There is no fear mongering in what I write here. I have no idea why in the world I would have any interest to steer fear, I certainly have other things to do. On another hand, there is a problem, and it is left unaddressed at the moment.
One of the reasons why this issue is so stubborn, is that fixing their printer would not only cost an unfair amount to users touched by the problem, but in absence of Epson solving the mystery, there is no telling that the issue would not re-occur on people. That has happened already. I know that one could spend $2500-3000. to fix the printer, and then $1500. for a two year extended warranty, then another $1400 two years later and so on, but if anybody here find that fair, let alone affordable or cost effective, then be my guest, because that is not what we signed on when purchasing our printers, which so far amounts to falling into a trap.
You and others are certainly free to try to solve this problem on your own, which I really don't think is realistic, that is Epson's job. Now if you go read the statement on this page
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.epson.jp/&ei=1WFwT8LxE8Lg0QGcv5zjBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CEIQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Depson%2Bjapan%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3D0Yp%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Dimvnsz
I am pretty sure that what the photographic community has experienced recently with those printers, is not in line with the statement of purpose expressed there. Please feel free you all, to write to Mr. Seiichi Hirano CEO of Epson (Global) because I am not sure that he would approve of how the L.F. Printers part of the U.S. branch behaves.
Chaddro, since you have not much to do lately (ˆ_ˆ) can you blind us once more with your internet skills and fetch that gentleman's email?
Love to all.
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Well, new cartridges are on the way. BTW, they were manufactured in Japan. The Epson rep said that there were still some issues with cartridges right after the move to the new packaging... my 12/2012 LLK may have fallen into that category.
Thinking about this issue in general, I'll pose this supposition:
The 9900 series printers use a pressurized ink system. The cartridges have a void which is charged, and I assume the dampers are also under pressure. When the printer is turned off, or you open the doors to replace cartridge (and possibly when you lift the door on the printer), pressure is released. All sounds good...
The crux: What if a SUCTION is being created somehow in the ink supply when pressure is released in turn pulling ink away from the nozzles and the mini reservoir???
I can almost think this is what happened with my Cyan and Light Cyan. After power cycling the machine, both channels were completely gone. No way they can be clogged, they were fine for several solid weeks (printer never off in that time). Same with Yellow and LLK - completely gone. Now, I expected to maybe have to do a paired cleaning, but one by itself would not work. I had to use the "powerful" one to get ink to the nozzles.
Just food for thought.
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Designpartners,
Thank you for your comments on my work, but I only mentioned my photographic relative expertise because the prior response to my post was questioning my credibility.
Love to all.
In fairness, I said your statement lacks credibility, or if you were to expand more it would lend more credibility.. I really wasn't questioning your work..
but lets leave it at that... as you said Love to all! ;D
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clic, which statement btw? there are a few of them from the last few days on that link but none that I see are relevant? but it's late, maybe I'm missing something
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I am pretty sure that what the photographic community has experienced recently with those printers, is not in line with the statement of purpose expressed there. Please feel free you all, to write to Mr. Seiichi Hirano CEO of Epson (Global) because I am not sure that he would approve of how the L.F. Printers part of the U.S. branch behaves.
Chaddro, since you have not much to do lately (ˆ_ˆ) can you blind us once more with your internet skills and fetch that gentleman's email?
What! And get whacked by the Ninkyō Dantai? NOT ME!
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Dean,
If you are trying to reassure yourself or dispense some feelgood therapy, what you write is perfect. It is otherwise perfectly useless. Nobody has ever suggested that there was a pandemic, just that there was a problem affecting a number of users, too many for anybody to feel safe. I had found that much, and it has been by now corroborated by Jon Cone.
So if I were you, in order to keep feeling good, I would pray and burn candles all day or abandon myself to whatever voodoo is your karma, because what has happened to many users, could happen to you tomorrow, and that really would be terrible, wouldn't it?
Most of us read this forum to learn and share. Can I ask you to please not assault other contributors?
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Dean,
If you are trying to reassure yourself or dispense some feelgood therapy, what you write is perfect. It is otherwise perfectly useless. Nobody has ever suggested that there was a pandemic, just that there was a problem affecting a number of users, too many for anybody to feel safe. I had found that much, and it has been by now corroborated by Jon Cone.
So if I were you, in order to keep feeling good, I would pray and burn candles all day or abandon myself to whatever voodoo is your karma, because what has happened to many users, could happen to you tomorrow, and that really would be terrible, wouldn't it?
Dearest Clic,
I was responding to a post by eheffa that implied some trepidation regarding how long his 7900 would last. You would say I was dispensing "some feel good therapy", I would say I was providing some realistic perspective. Both are the same, so I am guilty as charged. I wanted to reassure this user that there is a far greater chance of making wonderful prints for a number of years than of experiencing any premature catastrophic failure. As you said, it's not a pandemic, and that fact is easy to lose when reading these threads. The premature failure rate may be abnormally large relative to the fraction of a percent that's usual for such things, but it's certainly nothing like 50%, 25%, or even 10%. It serves no useful purpose to make people who have invested in these printers, and have units that are working well, feel "unsafe" or bad about their decision. Their worrying helps no one, and there's a very good chance they will never be affected.
None of this means I have no sympathy for those who have had these failures. The situation is quite the opposite, and I believe I said in an earlier post that I'd be as upset as anyone if my printer failed in this way. But being realistic about it (after some swearing) I'd simply have to decide whether to repair or replace it. Given its age replacement would probably be the best option, unless I could repair it for a reasonable price. Perhaps Eric will have some breakthrough and I could send my print head to him for unclogging at a reasonable price. ;-) Regardless, it's a just a matter of fact business decision that has little to do with religion or voodoo.
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David, yes, it's good to remind people of this. I have mentioned it before in other threads - Epson tech support had recommended to me some years ago (in the days of the 4000 model) to run a print through the printer between each cleaning cycle in order to minimize the risk of this condition developing, and for sure not to do more than one power cleaning at a time without first printing.
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Hi David & Mark!
Hey, nice find! I should read the manual more, LOL! But it IS good info to share and to make aware to everyone that may be unaware of this.
BTW, I do print an 8x10 color swatch between cleanings. Sorry I left that out. I was also told that eons ago by an epson tech when I first had my 4000. However, letting the printer relax over night also seemed to help as it did with the older printers.
Oh, and don't go lifting the lid in mid-print ... it seems to make the printer spazz. Better to hit the pause button first.
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I am a newer owner of a 7900 and I had to call Epson tech on another printing issue that I used to have happen with my trusty 7800. After solving the problem (had to do with paper feed adjustment on a large print) I asked him about problems with the 900 series. I told him of my friend buying a used one and posting his problem here on LL and others who had similar issues. He pointed out that ... like alot of new things on the market .... he used the Mercedes example .... you get some of the products that may have issues. He said they have sold a big number of these 900 series printers and they still think it's a "cadillac" and the problems are few. Mine has printed (I bought it used with 70 prints printed on it) wonderfully for months and I feel a little better now. I think sometimes, just like our local forum/bulletin board where you think "everyone" is having the same issues" but realize there are only a small number expressing their issues AND a big majority are doing just dandy. I saw that in a recent election .... where if you read the bulletin board you thought it was a pushover win but it wasn't ... got smeared. I am just saying there are probably tons of 900 series owners who don't read this and will not have any 900 series printer issues. Just my 2 1/2 cents on the issue. I appreciate the wonderful feedback on solving the problems and will stay connected .... just in case ..... I have the dreadful clogging event or my friend offers me his clogged 9900 for a song.
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I'd agree, and for some more "feel good therapy", I'd add that after a 1 1/2 years with my 7900, I have enough faith in Epson that I purchased a 9890 a few weeks ago to keep my 7900 company, despite some of the negativity being presented on the forums. ;) Today I got a job in from a client that just about totally paid for it already ;D These machines are fabulous, it is truly unfortunate that some are having serious difficulties!
David
If one does contract printing the payback on a printer is quite fast. Congratulations! But even if you just sell your own work or only print for yourself, a printer saves more than it costs in terms of outside printing expenses, not to mention the experimentation and creative options they provide. As printers go WF printers are expensive, but in the grand scheme of things you can lose $3k just upgrading a top of the line 35mm camera body to the latest model, which generally can't be justified in terms of return on investment.
He said they have sold a big number of these 900 series printers.... I think sometimes, just like our local forum/bulletin board where you think "everyone" is having the same issues" but realize there are only a small number expressing their issues AND a big majority are doing just dandy.
I don't know how many of these Epson print heads exist, but I'm sure it's a very "big number". If there are only 100,000 of them a 1% premature failure rate would mean 1000 very unhappy people, but it also means there's a 99% chance your particular printer will be fine. I'd think a normal failure rate would be a fraction of 1%, and significantly more than 1% would have production stopped at most high tech companies. The whole point in my earlier post was that if you already own the printer and it's working well, you may as well enjoy it because worrying doesn't change the odds of having a problem develop. ;-)
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we'll built a giant sculpture of ruined 7900's
I'd drive a long way to throw mine on the pile too. I still can't believe Epson won't give any love to the supposedly "few" failures if they are so few as supposed by the apologists. I've had two failures on the same machine within 1.7 years of ownership, both out of warranty.
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I had to reply - the count was 666! :)
even a 1% failure rate would be unacceptable in my opinion - it should be a fraction of that, and judging my Epson's market share, it probably is..
James
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Maybe it's less than 1%. I don't claim to know. All I know is that I've been through 2 heads out of warranty in 1.8 years in 2 different channels, PK and M. My first call was within a couple weeks of warranty expiration, and Epson slammed the door shut hard on me. I bought a new head for $1250, changed it myself, printed fine for about 6 months, and the exact same problem came in on the M channel, the exact same way.
Personally, I think something develops in the cleaning cycle that damages the head or jams stuff up in there or something, and it either happens to you or not. From my conversations with epson and vendors they are not at all surprised to hear about "uncleanable clogs." So I really don't think it's a 1% thing, but of course we don't have access to their information.
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if you already own the printer and it's working well, you may as well enjoy it because worrying doesn't change the odds of having a problem develop. ;-)
I'd say if you already have it and it's currently working well, get the extended warranty now. If you are out of warranty, ask to extend anyway. They will probably let you IF you pay to have decision one come certify it. I should have done that after I replaced the first head.
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Did you keep your bad heads? Eric should have some news for us very soon on the success of his ultrasonic cleaning adventure.
Perhaps one of your bad heads can be recovered in the same way if his recovers???
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Did you keep your bad heads? Eric should have some news for us very soon on the success of his ultrasonic cleaning adventure.
Perhaps one of your bad heads can be recovered in the same way if his recovers???
I do have them. One is still in the printer cranking out fine B&W, the other is snug and sound in a plastic baggie praying for a trip to see Eric.
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The various points being made by the users of these printers are valid so far as they go - we don't know the failure rate, we don't know the reasons for failure, at least in a true analytic way. What we can observe though, is a trend developing amongst contributors here that the only way to get acceptable confidence is to purchase extra warranties. A 7900 is about US$2,500 at the moment from Itsupplies and three years of warranty will cost US$1,286, which actually makes the Total Cost of Ownership, (Purchase) about US$3,786.
That's the actual result of this thread that's important to Epson. If a lot of buyers are led to believe that they have to spend the extra then sales will definitely be affected. That must be a result that would disturb Epson.
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Those printers do not ship with the field repair guide, which means that for all practical matter, what it states is rather irrelevant as to implicate the end user responsibility. Wasn't Farmer even stating that that was Epson's copyrighted property not to be distributed to bozos like us?
The study of known cases does not show a pattern of users with more than 6 months old opened cartridges. As a matter of fact, my LLK cartridge was installed in September, and the issue occurred in December.
Enduser you are right on, except that it is even worse than that, if nothing else because at that price you only get three years of relative peace, and that does not factor the costof disruption in case of failure, which is enormous.
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Hey all. Fedex just dropped off my replacement carts. The NEW packaging is more heavy duty. More like a corrugated box, and much more heavy duty than the old. These carts are dated to 11-2013. My old one in a plain box were 7-2013 so they made the change here pretty recently.
I hope my other 5 are problem free as they are in the old packaging (crosses finger). I won't be waiting until the last minute to check them this time.
-chadd
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These costs (and maintenance) can easily surmount the costs of outsourcing printing and many don't take that into account. Unless you sell and print a lot of your photos, the costs of expendables can easily overtake your profit if you do not figure your operating costs correctly and price your product at a high enough margin. (This is what Alan was getting at a couple of pages ago). In that case it is just not feasible to own one of these machines, despite the understandable desire to DIY...
One of these important variables is that Epson repeatedly stresses in many places in the user manual, the need to be using fresh ink not over 6 months old once opened!
David,
I agree. There's a lot more expense in printing than just buying a wide format printer. Buying one starts a chain reaction of expenditures that overshadows the cost of the printer itself. Justifying it as a photographer depends on volume and that in turn depends on sales, which in turn requires some marketing and a host of other expenses like matting equipment and related supplies, display equipment, and inventory. Overall it’s not really something one can just dabble in unless you’re willing to “eat” a substantial and continuing investment. There’s also the fact that all this stuff takes up a large amount of space that needs decent lighting, and may need things like humidity control. Another issue is that these printers need to be kept “alive”, so you can’t just let them sit all summer while you’re busy with other things. You need to be making prints on a somewhat regular basis for as long as you own the thing. Over the years that’s a lot of prints.
I think many get into this without quite realizing all of the ramifications, mostly because it’s extremely difficult to find a high quality personalized printing service. I’m talking about one where you can develop a working relationship with the person who does the printing in order to get exactly what you want. I know there’s a demand for that. I even tried doing it briefly, but found I didn’t have enough time available to do it justice.
The only outside work we take now involves digital restoration and reproduction of photographs, usually antique, from two local gallery and framing businesses. The owners of these have become friends over the course of long standing business relationships. This started as a favor to one of them when they came to us with a customer who was “in a bind”. They asked if we could help them out, we gave it a try, and things went from there. We only take problem jobs, usually involving fragile and damaged pieces. Often the client has been unable to find someone willing to do the job, or they had the job done but were unsatisfied with the results. We recommend other resources to clients who want straight forward reproduction of photographs. Deliberately being a last resort means that, within reason, schedule is not an issue. That allows me to have a life and do my own work without always being under the gun. My wife and I both do the digital restoration work and I do the printing. That helps keep the ink flowing without being overwhelming. These clients are without exception overjoyed with their new “old prints”, and our friends get the framing business from these jobs, so there’s quite a bit of satisfaction involved.
Outdated ink: I once had a rather long telephone conversation with an Epson service person who said he had been with Epson for over 20 years. He was able to answer any questions I had with no hesitation at all, and one of them was about using 6-month old ink. I was concerned I'd have to throw ink away when it became too old. He said if it was his printer he certainly wouldn't, because he had never seen a single problem in a wide format printer that was related to using old ink, even if it was years too old. I hesitate to write this in case it's bad information. It certainly goes against what's in the manual, but it is definitely what I was told. I have had some ink colors (orange, and green for instance) in the printer for well over a year and never experienced a problem. In fact those colors never clog while others do! I remove the ink cartridges and gently agitate them every few months. I don't know if that's necessary, but with rumors of pigment settling it couldn't hurt. I've never experienced any noticeable color shifts.
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The various points being made by the users of these printers are valid so far as they go - we don't know the failure rate, we don't know the reasons for failure, at least in a true analytic way. What we can observe though, is a trend developing amongst contributors here that the only way to get acceptable confidence is to purchase extra warranties. A 7900 is about US$2,500 at the moment from Itsupplies and three years of warranty will cost US$1,286, which actually makes the Total Cost of Ownership, (Purchase) about US$3,786.
That's the actual result of this thread that's important to Epson. If a lot of buyers are led to believe that they have to spend the extra then sales will definitely be affected. That must be a result that would disturb Epson.
good point, but don't forget the benefits of rebates, loyalty deals and warranty deals.. I got €800 off original price and the 2 extra years warranty for €50 - it doesn't have to cost a lot... but I agree that one should't feel obliged to buy the warranty, but admittedly I feel better knowing I have it..
to put it in perspective, I use a number of tools for my line of work, from high end 3d optical scanning technology, to 5 axis CNC machines, to the very latest in software, we generally pay between 20-30% of the original cost per year on "maintenance". sometimes this means a software upgrade... sometimes it's simply if something breaks it gets fixed..
just a thought.. I recently lost my iPhone and trawled some forums looking to see if my phone insurance plan would cover a new one, and people kept on recommending that you don't get the phone plan, but instead, put it on your house insurance under "all risks".. so if your 4 year old spills grape juice over it, you get a new one (minus excess) .. I wonder would the same apply with LFP's at home? worth investigating anyway.. I just renewed my plan but I'll call them to ask anyway..
James
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Hey Designerparts!
Hmmm... an inland marine policy (same as all risk?) for my epson 9890! Might be worth it if you move. Carrying that sucker down the stairs is not something I look forward to!
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My experience with older printers (x600, x800) is that no matter how bad a clog is, it can be cleared with some work and patience. The worst case I have encountered is nozzle deflection with banding showing at resolutions below 1440dpi. It was probably caused by head strikes and could not be fixed. Recently I cleaned a 9600 which had about 120 printed pages. It had been stored clogged for several years. It is printing fine now with a very crisp nozzle check pattern.
What is different about the new and older printer heads? The only significant difference I can see is the ink repelling coating.
When I first read about the new "Ink Repelling Coating" my first question was, what if it "de-coats", "delaminates", wears off, peels off, or whatever you want to call it? Then I said to myself, after a while we will see some printers where this will be a problem.
If you look for the word "fluid" in the service manual of the x880 and earlier printer you will find references to cleaning fluid used to clean the head. There is no mention about cleaning fluid in the x900 service manual. My guess is that at the time the x900 printers were released Epson knew that the old cleaning formula was bad for the ink repelling coating and they did not have a new formula, safe for the coating.
If this coating is the problem it's very likely that the more you try to clean the head, the worst the problem gets. It's also possible that ultrasonic cleaning could make the problem even worst. Or perhaps it could remove the "bad" coating with a slight increase in the amount of ink delivered by the nozzle.
I do not recall reading that the OP’s printer was sent with the head shipping bracket installed. It is clear to me that if the printer was printing fine before shipping the printer head was damaged during shipping and the cause could have been excessive vibration because the head was not secured with the bracket. I don’t think it was a normal clog because they are not that difficult to clean.
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Bracket to secure the head.. Yes Dan and I did communicate about that very thing. I asked about securing the head with the bracket before shipping, but Dan told me he hadn't kept the bracket when he unpacked his 7900. He secured the head with a styrofoam block and tape instead. I don't think the head moved much during shipping. Vibration however, we can only guess at this point.
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I guess I won't be the first to ask you, TMPHOTO, how you cleaned and or kept clean, all those Epson heads when you say "no matter how bad a clog is, it can be cleared with some work and patience"
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> how you cleaned and or kept clean
For mild clogs there is plenty of information around, for example:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/inkjet_cleaning.html
http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/symphonic_inkjet_cleaning_fluid.html
For severe clogs I had to first manually clean the ink bay, ink lines, pump and capping station. After that running the printer with household cleaning fluid and giving it time for the clog to dissolve. And, of course, the paper towel method.
If you are a heavy user or a very light user, periodically removing the cleaning unit and manually cleaning it will keep your printer running clog free. How often, when you notice that your money is increasingly going to the waste tank instead of your prints.
If the wiper blade looks bad, replace it.
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>> No, I doubt it is the coating itself or Epson would not be continuing to market
>> all the new models with the same technology. The risks of widespread failures
>> would quickly put Epson out of the Printer business!
Not really. Take for example professional camera shutters rated to last hundreds of thousands shots. Some of them fail just after a few thousand and some last longer than they are supposed to. The fact that a few customers have experienced premature shutter failure after the warranty has expired has not put any camera maker out of business.
In a manufacturing process with good quality assurance most defective units are caught before they are sent for distribution to customers. In this case, out of the many thousands of units sold, a relative small number of units have failed and probably most of them failed within the warranty period.
The ink repelling coating is just another point of failure. But I would say that in this respect the older heads are more robust and less likely to be damaged by user actions such as cleaning them with household fluids.
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Not really. Take for example professional camera shutters rated to last hundreds of thousands shots. Some of them fail just after a few thousand and some last longer than they are supposed to. The fact that a few customers have experienced premature shutter failure after the warranty has expired has not put any camera maker out of business.
A number of years ago, the shutter on my 1 1/2 year old 1DsIII failed at about the 40,000 actuation mark. I bought the camera used so I was out of warranty but Canon Canada replaced the entire mechanism for the price of the basic service fee & no charge for parts. They didn't have to do that as I technically had no more warranty; but, they won some very valuable loyalty & gratitude from me. I continue to purchase their lenses & system parts with the belief that they will back their products up with good after sales support. How much is that worth to them? I would say that in the final balance, it has paid off very well for them.
Happy customers = long term brand loyalty = good business.
-evan
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A number of years ago, the shutter on my 1 1/2 year old 1DsIII failed at about the 40,000 actuation mark. I bought the camera used so I was out of warranty but Canon Canada replaced the entire mechanism for the price of the basic service fee & no charge for parts. ... Happy customers = long term brand loyalty = good business.
I also had an out of warranty 1DsIII in which I noticed an odd focusing problem. In poking around on the Internet I found Canon issued a service bulletin for this problem long ago. I contacted them and was told they'd fix it for free. I sent the camera in and had it back in days with a new mirror box and a list of other parts that were replaced. The camera worked great and I was happy.
Should Epson be responsabe for repairs out of warantee?....
No. By definition a warranty defines when the manufacturer is responsible for repairs and what kinds of repairs they are responsible for. It's nice when they go beyond the warranty, but nothing obligates them. Canon used to be strict with their warranty policies but they had what I'd call huge quality issues in successive generations their flagship camera models. The service bulletin list was extensive and included mirrors falling out of 5D bodies and a host of focusing problems on their 1-series. They were so unhelpful with their original LF inkjet printers that users had to form their own self-help Internet Wiki. It's my guess (and it's only a guess) that they saw a huge public relations tsunami coming and that caused them to do a U-turn. They started being extremely helpful, and also started repairing cameras out of warranty and replacing printer heads out of warranty. My guess (again, a guess) is that this was done for survival, not as a gesture of kindness. I doubt Epson is facing such massive problems in multiple product lines, all of which are purchased by many of the same users. In short, they don't have the same incentive.
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Precisely!
Should Epson be responsible for repairs out of warantee?....
David
It depends. If the cause of the failure is a generic product defect, then I would say they should repair gratis out of warranty. This happens all the time with motor vehicles, where the manufacturers sponsor recalls. If it is not a generic defect, it then becomes the company's judgment as to whether flexibility with out-of-warranty issues would be in their interest. They aren't obligated in this instance.
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There have been a number of good responses here and I'm glad to see the thread is out of it's rut. Hopefully folks can understand the point of view of the folks who have been stuck with lemons (if that's what we're talking about) and realize that trying to rationalize the problem away or minimize it by the 'drop in the bucket' defense only makes lemon owners feel worse. Conversely, we lemon owners ought to realize that we may come off as attacking a brand and company and printer that other folks believe in and/or want and/or need to believe in.
If this problem really were as restricted as some think, Epson would be insane not to take care of us squeaky wheels, it would be the best advertising bang for the buck they could get. Mine was out of warranty a few weeks when the first one went. I went in with a very mild attitude, assuming a company I believed in and patronized over 8 years would take care of me. Not only did they steadfastly refuse to fix it as it stood, they refused to let me pay to extend the warranty unless I paid an unknown amount (likely around $2000) to have decision one do the repair and then recertify it. That attitude says to me they feel they have to take a hard line on this, which says to me they feel it's not a tiny QC issue. Also I have to add that none of the tech people I talked to at Epson or the vendor were the least bit surprised I've had two heads failures in less than 2 years. You'd have to hear how unsurprised to get what I'm talking about.
I'm still hopeful for Eric's cleaning attempt, but my six year honeymoon with Epson is over regardless. Canon Lucia EX has caught up to them by all technical measures, and after rebates from both sides I can get a 42" printer with a thousand dollars of ink in it and a nice printing utility for the same price as Epson's 24" with $250 of ink, most of which will be wasted on cleanings over it's first year anyway. So it's time to get real. I'm frankly glad to be over my "belief" in Epson, even as I hope current happy patrons continue to have no reason to lose theirs.
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It depends. If the cause of the failure is a generic product defect, then I would say they should repair gratis out of warranty. This happens all the time with motor vehicles, where the manufacturers sponsor recalls. If it is not a generic defect, it then becomes the company's judgment as to whether flexibility with out-of-warranty issues would be in their interest. They aren't obligated in this instance.
I think this is much easier to do with a company that does their own repairs, like Canon. I had an OLD Infrant ReadyNas NV+ I bought off ebay for my bro (I had one myself). It turned out it had a bad power supply. But Netgear honored Infrant's "recall" with no questions asked. They sent me a replacement for cost of shipping only.
I wonder how many ink cartridges Epson has had to replace because of all the bad ones. There must have been literately thousands of bad cartridges. They redesigned the packaging twice and issued new firmware to help address it. On the PLUS side, Epson customer service has been great to replace any bad (non-expired) cartridge you have at no cost to you (and also paying for return shipping). Obviously Epson is capable of stepping up to fix a bad situation when it arises.
None of us know for CERTAIN that there is a specific defect in either the design of the new heads, or the (IMHO) overly designed capping station. Yes, there are "lemons" it seems. And this is a great concern for any stuck with one.
Just remember, this thread was started with the intent of trying to learn to fix these things ourselves should we find ourselves in just this predicament.
I don't think that Epson ever admitted any kind of fault for the 4000's constant clogging issues (which was most certainly a result of the capping stations design that also let air draw back into the lines). How did they fix it? They didn't... they came out with a replacement model.
We may never get any admission from Epson the 9900 series printers, but we may eventually get a new printer. For myself, I was of the belief that we had the ultra super sweet printer of all time .... and that my 9890 would have any updates/fixes found wanting in the 9900 release years earlier.
Hopefully all the time, effort and money that Eric has spent will come to fruition, and there will be an answer to these "clogged" nozzles.
BTW: After reading my warranty, I find it unpleasant that should Epson come out to replace your head under warranty, that THEY get to keep all the old parts.
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What I find puzzling is that Epson have for some time produced a virtually clog and trouble free photo printer - the 3800 and 3880 series. You would have thought that the basic design principles which seem to work so well on the 3800 could simply be applied to the larger models too.
John
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What I find puzzling is that Epson have for some time produced a virtually clog and trouble free photo printer - the 3800 and 3880 series. You would have thought that the basic design principles which seem to work so well on the 3800 could simply be applied to the larger models too.
I believe the Epson wide format printer using the same technology as the 3800 is the 7800. Both were introduced sometime around 2006. Typically the new technologies originate on the larger models and migrate toward the smaller ones. AFAIK in this case modified technology from the 11880 appeared in the 7900 and 9900, and has since migrated to other printers including 9890, 7890, 4900, etc. Someone please correct me if I've screwed up some facts, but that's my recollection.
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We may never get any admission from Epson the 9900 series printers, but we may eventually get a new printer.
Off topic but they already due for new printers. I bet they are working on a 12-line printer with a dedicated line for the MK and PK.
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I believe the Epson wide format printer using the same technology as the 3800 is the 7800. Both were introduced sometime around 2006. Typically the new technologies originate on the larger models and migrate toward the smaller ones. AFAIK in this case modified technology from the 11880 appeared in the 7900 and 9900, and has since migrated to other printers including 9890, 7890, 4900, etc. Someone please correct me if I've screwed up some facts, but that's my recollection.
Hi Dean,
The 3800/3880 both use the "new" pressurized ink system. The 7800 did not. The heads of the 3800 are different than the 9900, and the capping station is also very different. Eric can explain better with his Hands ON experience, but the capping station on the 9900 has a rubber seal for each color pair, while the 3800 uses a single seal for all nozzles (not 100% positive on this- it may be a pair of seals). In the 9900 the capping station MOVES out of the way and the wiper assembly takes it's place during cleaning and printing. However, the 3880 uses a single wide rubber squeegee unlike the little rubber "flap" of the 9900.
-chaddro
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chaddro,
Thanks for the clarification. I guess I was thinking about how the head technology migrated through and from the X900 series while forgetting there's a lot more to a printer than the head! Thanks again.
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I believe the Epson wide format printer using the same technology as the 3800 is the 7800. Both were introduced sometime around 2006. Typically the new technologies originate on the larger models and migrate toward the smaller ones. AFAIK in this case modified technology from the 11880 appeared in the 7900 and 9900, and has since migrated to other printers including 9890, 7890, 4900, etc. Someone please correct me if I've screwed up some facts, but that's my recollection.
The big 180 to 360 nozzles per channel step in the development from the 7880 > 7900. It took them 8 years from the Epson 10000 to the 11880 to double the nozzle quantity. The 11880 has 9 of the 10 channels with 360 nozzles in function, one channel is just not opened up in that head, the x900 generation have all the ten active. For the 7890 generation two channels have been removed. That step from 180 to 360 nozzles per channel was possibly still made too fast but competition from thermal head models with way more nozzles per channel and so more speed did not offer more time. This thread is more directed to failing nozzles but there is also a group of users that can not create the promised speed on the x900 and 11880 printers because banding at lower print resolutions force them to use higher print resolutions.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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UPDATE:
The end of March came. The end of March went.
No ultrasonic cleaning, no printhead in the mailbox.
Today I got a response from my Monday's grumbling email to Vladimir the Printhead Doctor - "The 7900 adapter is expected to arrive on April 16th from our machine shop. Please be patient, it always takes time."
April 16th will be two months that our 7900 printhead has been in Canada. Pardon my impatience, in my world this is two month's time
(http://gotagteam.com/construction/Lowell_Bathroom/IMG_7446.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/construction/Lowell_Bathroom/D70_0117-Panorama.jpg)
...not this
(http://gotagteam.com/construction/Lowell_Bathroom/Printheaddoctor.jpg)
Again, printing is not my business. I will give Vladimir the patience he requests, once more, to build his X900 printhead adapter for his ultrasonic cleaning machine. Not everyone wields their own saw - I get that. But this is the last stretch for me and Steve. If the story remains the same after the 16th of this month I am resorting to plan....
well, let's see, how many alternate printhead cleaning plans has it been by now?
Five?
Could we be on the verge of plan 6???
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Oh, man this cliff hanger is almost unbearable! A friend of mine who is a master in color management said I could probably purchase a good rip and bypass the clogged green ink and never miss it. (using the cyan and yellow mixture) interesting idea, but isn't a good rip almost the same price as a head replacement? Did i mention he is also in the business of selling hi-end rips? I guess my patience is wearing thin as well.... I am on the verge of reposting my 9900 as-is on eBay again.
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Oh, man this cliff hanger is almost unbearable!
...I guess my patience is wearing thin as well.... I am on the verge of reposting my 9900 as-is on eBay again.
Think of the nice drive through our nation's countryside I will get to enjoy if your patience runs out and you sell me your 9900. You do realize my stretch of stupidity is not nearly tapped out by now, right? I've got loads more left. Why end my insatiable dream of printing dropouts at 24"? I could double that easily with your machine!
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Funny! It all depends on how good of a April I have! Eric, you will be the first to know if I have some jobs fall through and I get desperate to sell! But my faith is still resting in Vladimir's hands.
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Eric! That's Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bela and Vampira have your head hostage! LOL! ;D
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UPDATE:
The end of March came. The end of March went.
No ultrasonic cleaning, no printhead in the mailbox.
Today I got a response from my Monday's grumbling email to Vladimir the Printhead Doctor - "The 7900 adapter is expected to arrive on April 16th from our machine shop. Please be patient, it always takes time."
April 16th will be two months that our 7900 printhead has been in Canada. Pardon my impatience, in my world this is two month's time
Vladimir is beginning to remind me of the customer service guy in the Discover Card ads ("Hello, my name is Peggy.") If you haven't seen the ads, just google "My name is Peggy."
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Eric! That's Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bela and Vampira have your head hostage! LOL! ;D
I fear I've lost my head..
(http://gotagteam.com/construction/Lowell_Bathroom/Vampira.jpg)
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A friend of mine who is a master in color management said I could probably purchase a good rip and bypass the clogged green ink and never miss it. (using the cyan and yellow mixture) interesting idea, but isn't a good rip almost the same price as a head replacement?
I wonder if a RIP like ColorBurst could bypass the LLK?
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Think of the nice drive through our nation's countryside I will get to enjoy if your patience runs out and you sell me your 9900. You do realize my stretch of stupidity is not nearly tapped out by now, right? I've got loads more left. Why end my insatiable dream of printing dropouts at 24"? I could double that easily with your machine!
Thinking about a short drive to your place if you then sell me your 7900.
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Thinking about a short drive to your place if you then sell me your 7900.
So many things hang in the balance of Vladimir's results. If his machine successfully clear's our clogs, meaning then that these clogs which haunt "select" X900 printers actually ARE clogs, then I expect SacredEarth will not be selling his 9900. Actually I suspect no one will be selling their X900 printers, rather they will be fixing them. This of course would mean I'd be forced to hire the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models I promised to about nineteen pages ago, to host another Epson X900 tutorial video - this one on how to safely remove your printhead.
But if Vladimir's machine is not successful, suggesting then that this is after all a piezoelectrical failure and not a clogging issue at all - well then things will be very different. Of course we'll perform an autopsy to confirm the actual cause of printhead death, but then yes tmphoto, the game of musical printers may actually commence.
...What a cliff hanger
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Let me know if you decide to sell your pro 9900.
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But if Vladimir's machine is not successful, suggesting then that this is after all a piezoelectrical failure and not a clogging issue at all - well then things will be very different. Of course we'll perform an autopsy to confirm the actual cause of printhead death, but then yes tmphoto, the game of musical printers may actually commence.
...What a cliff hanger
With a bit of luck April showers will bring us all some May flowers with a resolution on the 7900 print head...
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With a bit of luck April showers will bring us all some May flowers with a resolution on the 7900 print head...
If you have some rain, send it to the Wasington DC area; it's been bone dry here for about a month now!
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Who else find's it fascinating that in all this time, in all these responses with all these questions, no one from the other side of the great Epson dividing wall has chimed in to help?
For sure some people want to. I'm thinking there have to be employees, techs, customer service people, engineers... somebody. There's got to be somebody who feels compelled to put their job in jeopardy, to put themselves on the unemployment line - all for the good of this X900 clog clearing mystery that so many of our Epson printers struggle with.
Doesn't that sound like a lead-in..?
Well it finally happened. One single rebel soldier has made it over the wall, and offered us some new perspective and knowledge. I am to have a telephone conversation with this rebel soon. I am told the call will come from an untraceable number, and the voice will be computer generated. The soldier's name; "HAL 9000"
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/HAL_9000.gif)
Also simultaneously I have heard from Vladimir. He says the machine shop has indeed finished his X900 bracket system for mounting our heads to his Ultrasonic Cleaning Machine, and that the brackets have been shipped. They are in transit to Vladimir now.
So yes boys and girls, the next chapter of our great saga is about to begin!
.
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I am to have a telephone conversation with this rebel soon.
Thank you for your efforts, Eric. My 7900 sits now, the same for months, as the world's largest Door Stop. The pendulum swings back and forth from: Dumpster or Wait It Out. Your humor about it all also makes this a bit more tolerable. Thank you.
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The soldier's name; "HAL 9000"
I was expecting HAL 9900, or his little brother HAL 7900.
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I was expecting HAL 9900, or his little brother HAL 7900.
can't believe I missed that...
Dammit!!!
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A word on Auto Cleaning
So I do a nozzle check and have 3 gaps in LLK. Thinking I could solve this with a simple 8x10 of 240/240/240 RGB I opened up PS and did just that (my usual response to a minor clog on either my 3800/7800/4000 which always did the trick).
Well, I had the AUTO CLEANING turned ON ... you know, supposed to fix those pesky gaps for you. I thought I'd give it a try after all since I was printing out 22 18x24's for a client and didn't want to worry about clogs (yeah, right... I'll get back to that). Machine does it's cleaning thing and then prints out the 8x10 of light gray.
Curious, I print out the Job Information to see if the printer ONLY used ink in the clogged head, or at least the pair. NOT SO! The printer used .4 ml of every color and 1.2 ml for the Y/LLK pair! 4.8 ml if ink for 3 gaps in LLK. Amazing! The 8x10 swatch used only .23 ml (total for all colors) and probably would have done the job.
So AUTO CLEANING if OFF now. I'm sure I won't have to wait long for the next clog to try out 8x10 swatch :p
Now back to my print job... 21 of the 22 prints were fine, but 1 had some light banding from what must have been a clog that the printer didn't detect or correct. And NO, I didn't get a "Clog Detected" warning from the printer.
It seems that printer will only do an auto clean if the clog is detected at the START of a print. If the clog happens mid-print, it just keeps going. It also seems the printer will not properly detect deflected nozzles either even though it is supposed to do this from what I've read.
Anyone else have similar experiences? Oh, and nearly full 700ml cartridges in the machines, so no excuse of ink starvation.
And just to rant a bit more... Neither of my 3800/7800/4000 would develop a clog in mid print once I had a clean nozzle check. But this 9890 seems to "clog" just about any time regardless of how many prints you are doing at once. This is a serious blow to one's confidence in the machine! I have printed jobs of 80-100 tabloid swap proofs for catalog work on my 4000 and thought nothing of cuing up the job and hitting the sack for the night.
Am I exaggerating? I don't know. I've heard people talk about their machines "settling down" after a while. Maybe these things need a break in period?
-chadd
PS: On the positive side my Client was very happy with the prints (well, except the banded one that I'll reprint this weekend). New print job coming Monday too!
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Maybe the Apple Siri meets Siri is more appropriate for this 21st century x900 series dilemma ???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBRXA8zmJr8&feature=fvwrel
I too also appreciate the humor as we patiently wait the final word.
Jeff
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I've been following this thread religiously--having similar issues with my 9900 right now (and some major ones from the beginning)...it's not even 3 years old and in the first year had to have Epson out numerous times; replaced main board, aid board, pump cap, wiper, sub board and eventually the print head. It was fine for a while. I've had great luck with my geriatric 7600s and 4800s and 9600s in the past and was optimistic that this was a fluke since Epson makes some high quality products and it was behaving pretty well. Long story short, we let the warranty expire. Stupid. And almost immediately it started acting up, getting progressively worse until last week the LC and Y channels are almost completely clogged. I've become obsessed. So, fingers are crossed that you'll get to the bottom of this Eric!
Cheers,
Lis Russell
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I saw a comedian start a skit once by saying, "Listen, you've got to believe what I'm about to tell you is true or this joke just doesn't work."
There's a lesson in that I've always thought...
In the spirit of past lessons learned I am starting my skit here just the same; you've got to believe what I'm about to tell you or this just won't work. Since the inception of this thread I have been on a journey for knowledge that will reveal the actual answers to our nozzle clogging issues, not just the speculative ones. I want to know what they are, where they come from, and how to avoid them. This journey of course evolved over time, eventually branching into various new realms of potential technical mysteries that would easily give Einstein a migrane headache lasting more consecutive days than it took God to create our entire world.
By the way I'm not sure any of you know this but Ernst Dinkla actually IS God.
Curiously, what's become the most fascinating element in all this to me is not actually technically based at all. It's the barrier. The wall if you will. The great Epson divide between those that know (Epson side of the wall), and those that need to know (users side of the wall). For sure I am not the only one who finds it a painfully daunting reality that of the many thousands of times this thread has been read, pondered, argued and responded to, not one person from the other side of this great divide has chimed in to shed a proper light on the subject. The more we read, the more we right, the higher up this ladder of knowledge we seem to get - the farther into mystery this ladder seems to lead us. The more we learn, the less we realize we actually know. This great wall, for those of you without extended warranties (like myself), might too leave you feeling a little...
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/epson_connundrum.jpg)
I don't know about you but I do OK in the rain. This quest for knowledge has been a quiet one for weeks now, but that's about to end. Ladies and gentlemen please fasten your seat-belts and kindly keep your arms in the vehicle at all times.
It's been a bitch aligning time zones but today it finally happened - I got the call from (http://gotagteam.com/epson/HAL_9000-100.gif). His real name is not HAL 9000. It's been changed here, by me, to protect him from the mother ship. HAL is, after all, from the other side of the great divide. And HAL has shared with me information which is usually left sealed behind the man-made walls that Epson built, and rather aggressively maintains.
First, there is no Epson X900 LLK printhead channel problem. There is however a problem - it's just not specific to color, ink, or channels. The problem, or challenge, is quite simply the fact that X900 heads have smaller nozzles. Period. Initially there was indeed a color specific nozzle clogging problem, but it was GREEN not LLK. Apparently green ink is used the least, which leaves it far more vulnerable to the very same challenges that all of our X900 nozzles face. This color specific problem was successfully addressed years ago by Epson via changes in ink only. Lastly, and I can think of one person right off the bat who is likely going to shoot flaming darts at me for sharing this, straight from the largest horse in the Epson Technical corral's mouth - the current X900 printhead clog reporting average aims specifically toward no specific color at all.
Second, who here remembers our first prognosis of the X900 printhead clear-nozzle-maintaining dilemma? Does the name "Wiper Blade" ring a bell? How bout Flushing Box, is that doing anything for you? ...Still nothing? OK try this, and properly enunciate for me - it'll help you remember. "Dried up, funky, tar-like, nasty riddled splooge left on your printhead's face from multiple repeated-a-hundred-times-too-many power cleanings ended with a cockeyed wiper blade from hell doing more harm than good to your ever so precious printhead, which just so happens to be DYING to get clogged." ...That did it didn't it. You remember now. The general consensus from the professional world of Epson service and repair states that there is a direct connection between user neglect, and X900 nozzle clogs.
Turns out we were on the right track with the whole wiper blade changing thing. But there is more to this than just the wiper blade. Apparently we need to stay on top of something else too - which is more involved but just as important. The Flushing Box. You saw this in the wiper changing video I made. It's the colorful screen & foam "dumping station" with all the rectangular rubber seals that keep your head from drying while docked. Apparently this screen has a tendency to clog as well. Once clogged the ink being forced through your printhead's face during power cleanings does not properly/entirely get drained through the screen and to your maintenance tank - away from your printhead face during docking periods, or more importantly in the case of clogging - during power cleanings. Effectively what is happening is simple; during cleanings WE ARE IN FACT FORCING tar-like half dried ink left on our Wiper Blades and splashed back up from mucky puddles in our dirty neglected Flushing Boxes BACK THROUGH THE TINY NOZZLE OPENINGS IN OUR PRINTHEADS!
Is anyone else horrified right now? Suddenly it all makes sense, doesn't it - how sometimes cleanings leave you with more clogs than you had to begin with. Well now we know why.
Third, no one you ask at Epson will admit to this but Epson has their own cleaning solutions for cleaning these printheads. You can't buy it because it is yet another Epson thing that does not exist, but it does, you just can't have it, but you can, you just can't tell anybody that you have it, or where you got it from. Sorry for saying this, I usually have such a nice attitude, but WTF.
I can tell you that this cleaning solution is so powerful it comes colored RED, and it comes in two parts. One part, the cleaning part, is RED. The second part is the neutralizer. The idea is to run neutralizer through your head until no RED traces exist. The use of this solution is suggested by Epson, to Epson, to be used only as a last resort. Apparently this RED cleaning solution has a bit of an attitude, and can do damage if used improperly. Or even when it's used properly, sometimes..
Fourth, the reason Epson service techs replacing printheads under warranty (be they Decision One or anyone else certified by Epson to do warranty work) take your original head back with them instead of leaving it with you is simple: They have to return them to Epson. In fact every part being replaced by Epson under warranty, no matter how trivial, gets returned to Epson at Epson's expense - which think about it, sometimes shipping alone makes that a loss if the part is tiny enough. Doesn't matter - Epson police this policy with great diligence. They do not want service guys selling used Epson parts on ebay or anywhere else.
Fifth,
Sixth,
Seventh,
Eighth,
I could go on for hours but I don't want to wake up with a horse head on my pillow. Suffice to say we all know a little more than we did five minutes ago. The general consensus of those in the know is that our head, which is being cleaned by Vladimir in Canada right now, has a 50/50 chance of coming back operational. Apparently there are very delicate barrier walls made of thin almuninum-foil-type material which separate ink channels from one another. If these barriers are compromised by too much pressure being forced through the head, you can imagine what will happen - Ezmorelda's red lipstick will come out looking like some torrid mix of red/black muck. The other consensus, from those in the know, is that our particular clogging problem is most likely ink related, not piezoelectical.
This post took me hours to write, which is disgusting.
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So, are you saying my initial gut feeling about the head when it comes back from V is going to come true? I hope not. Is the 7900 never going to see a print come out in your presence?
That would just be too sad. Thanks for posting, even if it did take you an hour to write. At least I'm glad you still have your sense of humor about you. I probably wouldn't be so inclined.
I want to know the minute that head comes back or after testing from the big V.
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This makes sense. Thank you, Eric.
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Great info Eric!
One question: How do we clean the flush box?
This was easy on the 4000/7800 printers. But how to GET TO IT on the 9900's??
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Second, who here remembers our first prognosis of the X900 printhead clear-nozzle-maintaining dilemma? Does the name "Wiper Blade" ring a bell? How bout Flushing Box, is that doing anything for you? ...Still nothing? OK try this, and properly enunciate for me - it'll help you remember. "Dried up, funky, tar-like, nasty riddled splooge left on your printhead's face from multiple repeated-a-hundred-times-too-many power cleanings ended with a cockeyed wiper blade from hell doing more harm than good to your ever so precious printhead, which just so happens to be DYING to get clogged." ...That did it didn't it. You remember now. The general consensus from the professional world of Epson service and repair states that there is a direct connection between user neglect, and X900 nozzle clogs.
What you were told is not new information specific to the x900 printers.
A x600, x800, x880 Epson printer may clog because a) you don't use it often and fix clog problems with cleaning cycles (including power cleanings), b) The printer has not being used for long time and needs manual head cleaning and c) the printer has been in use continuously for several years.
If you service the cleaning unit the problem will go away (except for printers that have not been in use for a long time which require cleaning of the ink lines and head as well)
Third, no one you ask at Epson will admit to this but Epson has their own cleaning solutions for cleaning these printheads. You can't buy it because it is yet another Epson thing that does not exist, but it does, you just can't have it, but you can, you just can't tell anybody that you have it, or where you got it from.
My opinion is that the x900 nozzles are so delicate that there is no approved cleaning solution. Older printers had cleaning solutions available to service technicians and documented in the service manual but not the x900 printers.
I am looking for a cheap a x900 printer with nozzle problems to do controlled testing on the effect of different cleaning methods and cleaning solutions (using the ones still printing fine).
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Ok, eric, all you say it is true. It confirms that a proper cleaning of the whiper and the captop has to be done on a regular basis. But how your inside source explain the clogs during printing? Especialy when i print large areas with solid block of color.
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Remember I am not the creator of this information, just the delivery boy.
Chaddro, cleaning the Flushing box is way more involved than cleaning/changing the wiper blade assembly. I regret having to report that. Best way is to remove your pump and cap assembly, then remove the Flushing box from the pump and cap assembly once it's out of the machine and on your work bench/kitchen table - which of course would be protected from ink spilling on it by an orderly distribution of your wife's most recent copies of Vogue magazine. Then once you have the Flushing box in hand, simply clean it with water.
iladi, very good question. I will ask HAL next time I have him on the line. In the mean time I offer you this little tid-bit of information which may or may not be directly related to your specific problem; HAL told me today that the reason Epson is so generous these days about replacing faulty ink carts is the result of what I imagine are their bean counters. The faulty carts are having a tendency, due to poorly maintained manufacturing tolerances I imagine, of allowing air into the lines through bad seals. These random pockets of air in the lines cause "clogs", or in this case more appropriately "drop-outs". Once an air pocket reaches the head you have no ink to fire through your nozzles. Power cleanings remedy this well, but waste ink, and your solution is only temporary. That's why these days when you call to complain about a faulty ink cart, nobody breaks your ovaries - they just mail you replacements.
This might also help you iladi; One of my initial printhead clearing exercises included flushing our lines free of all ink, filling the lines with cleaning solution, and then re-charging the lines again with new ink. I basically stared at our lines through the entire process. Much to my surprise the lines do not change their appearance as much as you might expect they would, as new fluid enters or leaves them. IE; when our lines were clear of ink, and firing clear cleaning fluid through our head and onto paper in nozzle checks - the lines still showed color. I share this experience with you to suggest that random air pockets in your lines might not be visible viewing the lines externally. Perhaps this helps you, perhaps it only adds to your frustration. Either way, I was told today by HAL himself that mid-print "clogs" are typically not clogs at all, but instead air in the lines. So if cleanings always remedy these "clogs" for you, but they come back - leaving you to go through the process once again at yet another random time - my bet is you have air entering your lines.
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What is going on, pages are disappearing. Somebody is deleting posts.
Mine are still there and gain value in time.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
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very interesting update.. makes a lot of sense..
so..I think this raises a few questions..
1. what maintenance SHOULD a USER perform and when?
2. what maintenance SHOULD a user OUTSOURCE and when?
Or if you have a warranty,
3. if you have a warranty, does this affect Q's 1&2?
James
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Thanx, eric for the tips. I allready think about ink starvation, bad design dampers, bad sealing ink lines and that my clogs are not realy clogs.
As far as user maintenance i have experience with 3kind of printers pigment and dye aqua, ecosolvent and aqua-resin DTS ones. They all require regular whiper cleaning, captop cleaning AND , if it is visualy required (solid ink, debris, lint) a manual head clean, not the bottom (forbiden if you have no experience) but just the edges. A clean whiper better cleans the head, a clean captop and clean head edges helps a better sealing when the head parcs. Maybe not every day, but is strictly related to dust in the room, humidity and what kind of media you usualy print.
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very interesting update.. makes a lot of sense..
so..I think this raises a few questions..
1. what maintenance SHOULD a USER perform and when?
2. what maintenance SHOULD a user OUTSOURCE and when?
Or if you have a warranty,
3. if you have a warranty, does this affect Q's 1&2?
James
1 & 2 - I think this depends on your comfort level about tinkering with your own machine. If you've got hammer thumbs you most likely are well aware of it, so I suggest you outsource everything but changing the wiper blade assembly. The wiper blade assembly is easy to see without taking anything apart. It's need for cleaning/replacement therefore should be easy to monitor. It's need for attention will be different for everyone. HAL mentioned cleaning your flushing box once a year in our conversation yesterday, but I imagine this too will be different for everyone. The flushing box is also easy to monitor without taking anything apart. However I will have to ask HAL what signs to look for that would indicate a clogged flushing box (besides the obvious).
3 - I don't have a warranty so I don't know the details of it. I would imagine scheduled maintenance is not covered under warranty, but I don't know that. If you are under warranty you need not be concerned with cleaning fluids - they will not clean anything. Warranty work is parts replacement. They would replace an unclear-able head, not clean it with solution.
*side note; There is a very real possibility that you yourself could help create a significant savings impact on repairs & maintenance costs involving your machine, if you are willing to move it. If a service tech has to drive to you, then twiddle his thumbs every time your machine goes through cleaning cycles, waiting periods, etc., you will have to pay him for every minute he stands there doing nothing. However, and I do realize this is impossible for some, if you brought your machine to his shop you would most likely be charged a lower flat-rate, pre agreed price for the service because there would be no thumb twiddling - he'd be off working on another machine (making money somewhere else).
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Thanx, eric for the tips. I allready think about ink starvation, bad design dampers, bad sealing ink lines and that my clogs are not realy clogs.
As far as user maintenance i have experience with 3kind of printers pigment and dye aqua, ecosolvent and aqua-resin DTS ones. They all require regular whiper cleaning, captop cleaning AND , if it is visualy required (solid ink, debris, lint) a manual head clean, not the bottom (forbiden if you have no experience) but just the edges. A clean whiper better cleans the head, a clean captop and clean head edges helps a better sealing when the head parcs. Maybe not every day, but is strictly related to dust in the room, humidity and what kind of media you usualy print.
I'm interested in your comment about dust in the room. Have you seen much impact, and if so where are the soft spots from your perspective?
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FYI; According to my conversation with (http://gotagteam.com/epson/HAL_9000-100.gif) yesterday, the general consensus on the cause of clogs on my particular Epson 7900 is misuse, not shipping the machine across the country. Considering the state of the wiper blade assembly (three years old, completely covered in muck, torn and cocked sideways), and the state of the flushing box when I got it (also three years old, therefore likely dried and clogged), combined with the fact that in three years of use this particular printer had only @900 prints on it (indicating this machine was used infrequently - which apparently violates of the cardinal rule of happy X900 use), this particular Epson 7900 printer failed due to what HAL calls "neglect."
This is something to keep in mind if you are considering buying a used X900 printer. DO NOT assume that a printer with very little use is in better shape than one used regularly. Big, ......BIG mistake
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little use is misuse.. funny one for sure..
so.. how would one define "little use"? once a month? once a week? once a day? once an hour?
I think I have maybe 400 prints on my 9900.. most of which are A1 and above... I would think this is very little use. .
I'm heading to an Expo tomorrow in Dublin where Epson UK and my local distributer are there and I'll ask them about it too.. see what's covered in warranty, what not and see if I can get a handle on costs..
I'd be happy stripping the 9900 right to the bone, but it's not mine, the company I work for owns it and we took out an extended warranty to cover repairs and minimize downtime. BUT... maybe having a warranty and waiting for a failure is not the best way to minimize downtime?
James
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This is me talking here, not (http://gotagteam.com/epson/HAL_9000-100.gif)...
I think I will stay on top of my flushing box by cleaning it while still inside/hooked up. In serviceman mode, when you release the head it moves far off to the left of it's operating range. The flushing box moves forward into plain view/access. Again this has not been suggested to me, it's just my feel, but the flushing box is a pretty simple unit. It's a screen with a foam pad behind it that ink gets shot through. Hoses connect to the back of it which take the blown ink and drains it into the maintenance tank. To me this is a no-brainer - gut an old maintenance tank, install it, then shoot water or cleaning solution into the face of the flushing box. it's easily accessible and viewable. I'd be sure to rinse the rubber seals of any solution before wrapping up your home brewed service call.
I know this is a high tech printer and all but let's be real, the flushing box is not a high tech part. it's a screen with a sponge behind it.
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Dust is a very big issue in my oppinion. I have a small shop, about 30 square meters with direct acces from the street. Just one room and one door. The door is frequently open (often by mistake, not that i'm sooooo bussy :D), and i from time to time i have to open a small window due to ecosolvent smell. There is A LOT of dust. The dust settels on the material rolls, inside the printer, nomatter if they are packed inside bags or not, more or less due to statics. So, when the head travels back and forth above a dusty area, lint and dust and ink attach to the edges of the printhead. If you add a accidental hair, there is is a good posibility that one of this can sit bethween the head and the captop when the head is parked, so it is a bad sealing, air comes to the head, you don't use the printer for 2 weeks, and, voila, the clogs. So, if you environment is dusty and you are not going to use the printer for a long period it might be a good ideea to clean the whiper, clean the edges of the head if it is dirty (use a swab and some cleaning solution, i know it is not easy due to head possition, but it is doable), clean the captop with the swab and drop some cleaning solution on the captop, it helps clean the pump and the tubing to thevwaste tank. Then do a normal clean and turn the printer off.
Edit: flush is used for spitting ink during printing. It may be some prints that not require to use all the ink. For that, during printing, head moves to the flushpad spit ink from all the nozzels to enshure all the colors are used and prevent ink dry in the head. Is is a simple pad and some tubing to the waste tank. You can even remove it and clean with water.
PS sorry for my bad english, but i' m shure you will understand
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Thanks - that's insightful.
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My experience with the older printers:
FYI; According to my conversation with (http://gotagteam.com/epson/HAL_9000-100.gif) yesterday, the general consensus on the cause of clogs on my particular Epson 7900 is misuse, not shipping the machine across the country.
If the cause of a clog is as explained above I am able to clear the clog.
This is something to keep in mind if you are considering buying a used X900 printer. DO NOT assume that a printer with very little use is in better shape than one used regularly. Big, ......BIG mistake
A printer with little use is in better shape that one with lot's of use. The cleaning unit may need cleaning fluid treatment but not a big deal.
Between a printer that was used to print only 30 pages and left for 1 year without any use and a printer that has been used to print 30 prints every day for a year I take the one that has not been used for a year.
Why is the above not true for the x900 printers?
In my opinion you did all that was needed to fix the clog. Why was it not cleared?
Why Epson needs to hide behind an anonymous caller to blame customers for the problems?
I can assure you that problems caused by little use can be fixed.
User neglect, take a look at this:
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6403.htm
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6455.htm
Got the above printer for $100 with empty cartridges because it was badly clogged.
Serviced the cleaning unit and cleaned the head externally. After that I was able to print a clean nozzle check just using the inks that were left in the lines.
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6463.htm
The wiper blade above did not need replacement, it was in great shape after cleaning. Same with the other parts.
After that I cleaned all the printer parts, ran some cleaning fluid trough the head and lubricated - It's working like new.
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6450.htm
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6410.htm
The above printer was used continuously until the owner bought a new 7900 then set aside for several months.
So, lots of wet ink accumulated over a 3-4 years that the dried off (used a lot and then "neglected", really bad but fixable).
In the attached pic a 9800, similar experience. Behind a 9600 printer, under cover. This printer was stored away in like new condition for several years. It has been cleaned and printing fine now.
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It's been my experience, tmphoto, that the "less used" Epson 7900 that I bought is worthless so far. I would much rather have purchased a 7900 with more miles on it, that actually printed, than have purchased this nearly virgin one that has yet to work since I bought it six months ago. You talk about clearing clogs like this is a 4800. I too am confident that I could clear a clogged, parked for three years, neglected printhead from an older model machine. In fact like you, I have also done this successfully multiple times. But when it comes to X900 clogs, these printheads so far have beaten me into submission. Not so much confidence anymore. At least not for clearing the stubborn clogs. And once you can't clear the printhead on an X900 printer, and you're out of warranty, the numbers (replacing the printhead through traditional means) just don't make sense. $2k minimum to replace the printhead when you can buy a brand new Epson 7900, with a brand new warranty, with free delivery anywhere in the US for $495 more? That's right, check B&H, $2,495 - free delivery.
So in my case, buying the "lightly used" (clogged) 7900 that I did, for $1,700, turns out to be the worst purchase I have ever made in my life.
I would have been much better off buying one brand new, or buying one that was used more regularly.
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Also a big deal in the price comparison between new and used is how much ink you get with the former versus the latter.
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Whew...
I have just spent what seems like days (it was days!) reading everything I can about the Epson 7900 and this thread has left me filled with awe and respect for the contributors and hopefully wiser and more knowledgeable. It must be the longest thread that I have ever followed in detail (on any topic) reading step by step technical discoveries and personal views of a surprising variety of people, some of whom I am sure I would find very petty and irritating in real life. Maybe it is me that is becoming a disfunctional human being.
Eric - your wiper blade replacement video is wonderful - my kind of dry humour. All that and bikes as well.... what a man.
Epsons have always been my photo printers of choice and I still run a 4000 for odd jobs but my trusty old 4880 is the current workhorse sometimes running day and night non stop.
Before the new print run of the day I always print a quick nozzle check and it is a bit hit and miss whether or not a head clean is required. Unfortunately the 4880 cleans all heads in one go and it is frustrating to see 7 inks being depleted because of an imperfection with just one colour. If the day begins with clear nozzles I have never known it to clog during a print run, utterly reliable.
I will sometimes find an entire channel (yellow or magenta more often than not) "blocked" with hardly ant ink coming through. My gut feeling is that this is not so much blocked nozzles but ink starvation. Several cleaning cycles, and maybe a cartridge swap, will fix it. Probably air leaking in somewhere, it would not take much. Maybe when the new 7900 arrives I will have the courage to take the 4880 apart as it is a few years old now and must need a clean out.
Regular usage is definitely important and having been idle for the last month it took me 6 cleaning cycles to get fully operational once more, unusually bad this time.
Nozzle checks at the start of the day are essential but whether or not this has to be followed up with a head clean is just something that I am used to and accept as the norm when owning an ink jet printer.
In the next few days I expect to purchase a new 7900. My "busy" period is June - September and although I have a feeling that a new model will be released quite soon I just cannot wait, something I may regret but such is life.
I have looked at HP and Canon but having used Epson for so many years I naturally migrate towards a familiar make.
Reading about the problems people have with their 7900's is quite scary but I am pretty good at keeping things in perspective and I am very grateful to Eric for his efforts. As something of a techie, I too tend to try and fix things myself and despite the traumas that he and others have been through it does give me confidence that fixes are possible and forwarned is forarmed so I shall enter the world of the 7900 with my eyes wide open (and an extended warranty).
Incidentally (I am in UK) the price quoted to me for the printer is (all inclusive of VAT - real money):
Basic photo printer plus an additional (free) set of 11 x 110ml cartridges £2395
Delivery £78
Warranty extended to 3 years £810
Technically I shall write it off over three years so loosely speaking it will cost me about £1000 per annum (£20 / week) in capital.
There is no financial advantage to using 700ml cartridges over the 350ml as both (street price) come out at about 29p/ml, the 150ml cartridges 34p/ml.
Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that all goes well.
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High use Vs Low use..
so I'm wondering if the printer is being left on? if it's on, it goes through a clean every now and again and also parks the head and I'm told that seals it from dust and minimises clogs.
I'm sure Eric mentioned how his printer was stored, powered on or off?
Spoke to Epson today also at an Expo - apparently there are 2 types of warranty- and if you have the more expensive one, it includes a yearly call out for a once over, otherwise, he says leave well enough alone.
no idea which one I have, I'm sure it's the lower one but I'll check tomorrow.
James
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Incidentally (I am in UK) the price quoted to me for the printer is (all inclusive of VAT - real money):
Basic photo printer plus an additional (free) set of 11 x 110ml cartridges £2395
Delivery £78
Warranty extended to 3 years £810
Technically I shall write it off over three years so loosely speaking it will cost me about £1000 per annum (£20 / week) in capital.
There is no financial advantage to using 700ml cartridges over the 350ml as both (street price) come out at about 29p/ml, the 150ml cartridges 34p/ml.
just remember that the carts that come with the printer will be used to prime the printer and while you basically get to use all the ink, it will read that the carts are half empty as soon as you are finished setting up
so you will have to get new refills sooner than you think.
Enjoy the printer!
James
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could someone state the post number describing how to clean the wiper and service the flush box. maybe make it a sticky?
thanks
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Page 15 post 292 is the video for changing the wiper blade......
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Jason, I never talked about how I stored the printer while not in use because I never got to store it, or use it. It's been clogged since I got it.
I was thinking, however, about just this topic in the shower this morning. I think I might just store it in there..
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eric:
am sending some $ to your site, keep up the good work
by the way, my shop is in the brooklyn navy yard, pretty close to bed-stuy.
jm
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Soft spot in my heart for machinists, John. Our swingarm, our triple clamps - both designed by the monkey behind the bars. In fact half our bike was turned on a lathe.
...and you're from NY. I'll tell my brother to look out for you. Long line of firefighters - grandfather was Captain of Rescue 4.
Thanks brother
(http://gotagteam.com/KTM_Days/images/racing_2010/Laguna_Seca_2010/NM1U6381.jpg)
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Vladimir called, our printhead has been thoroughly cleaned by his ultrasonic cleaning machine. He sounds pretty confident that the clogs are clear. Apparently he can see an obvious difference between his last visual nozzle check, pictured below, and his first visual nozzle check. That sounds encouraging. If this procedure works, we just breathed life back into quite a few machines otherwise headed for the scrap pile. He's mailing our head back today, we should get it installed this weekend.
YEY VLADIMIR!!!!
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/7900_printhead_cleaned.jpg)
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A veritable waterfall of 'ink'. Looks promising.
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I have my fingers crossed Eric. I hope the "cure" did do any damage to that fragile head!
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I am prepared both literally and figuratively for this printhead to be terminal. Anything other than that will be a welcome surprise for us all :-)
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I am prepared both literally and figuratively for this printhead to be terminal. Anything other than that will be a welcome surprise for us all :-)
The right attitude I think. You made notes of the serial numbers etc of it before you posted it?
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
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Yes I did..
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Hey that's pretty exciting. I've got not 1 but 2 heads to try next...Can't wait to see if it worked for you. How will this work? Are you actually going to take delivery of the machine and offer the service, or will he do the cleanings...
Unbelievably enough, I ordered a canon 8300 on March 31 as the rebates were expiring, and had to go ahead and pay for it YESTERDAY in order to get the rebate filed by the 30 day from purchase deadline. I strung it out to the last possible second hoping for news, and of course it comes the very day after. Not so sad though. I'll have a brand new 44" with a bunch of ink in it for a grand total of $2300.
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Where did you find such a bargain, the cheapest I had seen was $3,400. with delivery. And I thought that was pretty cheap already.
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Where did you find such a bargain, the cheapest I had seen was $3,400. with delivery. And I thought that was pretty cheap already.
Sale is over now but this was the thread a few months back. If I were not limited in space by my current living arrangement I surely would have gotten one. It was a shade under $2300 with the rebate.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=62848.0 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=62848.0)
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Thanks. That was on a different thread, so I did not see it, but Pro Marketing has typically the best prices I know, and that is where I thought I had seen the 8300 at $3400, with indeed 0% financing.
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Vladimir called, our printhead has been thoroughly cleaned by his ultrasonic cleaning machine... If this procedure works, we just breathed life back into quite a few machines otherwise headed for the scrap pile. He's mailing our head back today, we should get it installed this weekend.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/7900_printhead_cleaned.jpg)
Eagerly awaiting the final verdict Eric! I also would like to add my head to the repair doctor's list of clients 8)
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Vladimir's ultrasonically cleaned head is here, arrived last night. We will install it tomorrow and see what she produces.
On a different but related note, I now have more information on how to keep tabs on the next most important element in the clog avoiding chain - the flushing box. Some have asked how to know when your flushing box needs cleaning. Here's how you tell:
1 - Serviceman mode/release the head/flushing box drops down into view/open the printer's front door.
2 - Visual check; Is it clean/free of muck/dried ink caked on/does it look different on the bottom than it does on the top?
3 - Spray water into the face of the flushing box. If it quickly gets absorbed and drains itself away from the face of the flushing box and toward the maintenance tank, you're all good. If it's slow to drain, you need to clean it.
4 - Clean it once a year
FYI - this flushing box needed cleaning
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/7900_flushbox.jpg)
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Another great maintenance tip! And less than 24 hours before we know the final word...
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Vladimir's ultrasonically cleaned head is here, arrived last night. We will install it tomorrow and see what she produces.
Eric, you're killing me.. I must have checked 10 different times to see if there was an update.. can't wait any more to see if it works :)
(I had to unsubscribe due to the number of posts)
look forward to the results, hope they are good and you get to make some wonderful prints!
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My guess is Eric is so busy making great prints on his newly restored printer he doesn't have time to post. Or... He got the printer working, sold it, and is now in Tahiti enjoying his freedom from a burdened printer, or installed the repaired head with ill results and headed straight to the bar and is now passed out cold on the bar floor. Or... In the back yard digging a 30"x20"x 6' deep hole....
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Ha! I think Eric took it out to Salt Flats, strapped a rocket engine on it and is now doing land speed records for the fastest printer on earth!
Take that Epson!
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He is most likely taking a nap waiting for a call from deep throat.
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Gaahh the excitement is killing me... Hope Eric wasn't kidnapped by DecisionONe/Epson? Course he seems pretty McGyver-ish, he'll probably whittle his way out the holding cell using spare change and shoe laces....
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"...as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things.”
Today we celebrate what would have been Howard Carter's 138th birthday!
Is this the day Eric gives us all a ray of light and hope? Tic Tic Tic the seconds, minutes and hours are slipping away. Where in the world is Eric?
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doesn't seem like it would be good news.... :'(
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Maybe some company has given him a new printer so long as he never posts here again?
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Sorry everybody I have been sick(er) than a dog. First time I've sat at the computer in days, never mind been productive. I will update the head project soon. Sorry.
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That's a relief. I was starting to think we all needed to look into witness protection programs. Hope you're feeling better!
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Sorry everybody I have been sick(er) than a dog. First time I've sat at the computer in days, never mind been productive. I will update the head project soon. Sorry.
Whew! We've been on pins and needles here. Glad you rejoined the living. I was afraid the package with the head in it detonated in your hands.
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Hope you are better soon Eric and glad you are still with us......was worried Epson bought you off or even worse put a hit out on you ;D
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Just checking in, I sure hope you're feeling better.
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Sorry I have been so quiet. We were geared up to install this ultrasonically cleaned printhead, then all of the sudden I got sick so I couldn't ask my genius buddy over to work on big bertha. Then the day I finally became a human being again, I had to leave for my first race of this season. Got back late last night.
...so this is where you'd expect me to say "We will get to working on the printer tonight." Your expectations would be wrong then. The printer is up and running as of late last night. My genius buddy Steve grabbed the bull by the horns this weekend and brought our never-ending Epson 7900 printhead clog-clearing project home. A text message found me tucked away inside our race transporter on route 5 last night stating "Congratulations, we have a working 7900 again. But..."
I won't be able to share the details with you until Steve and I get together for dinner and go over all that he experienced this weekend, but I CAN tell you this. Our ultrasonically cleaned printhead, is dead. Once installed in the machine the only thing it produced were fatal error messages. Steve assumes the ultrasonic cleaning procedure was too much for it. Or too wet for it. Either way we will be performing an autopsy on it with lots of detailed photos to share here.
I'm sorry about this bad news. I have been hoping for a very long time now that this ultrasonic cleaning would be a savior to us all. Unfortunately it is not.
The next time I face an un-clearable clogged x900 printhead I intend to clean it the way we originally cleaned ours - only this time using the special top-secret Epson two stage cleaner which does not exist and you can't get it or buy it but I am staring at both bottles here on my desk.
More, later.
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Bummer. I wonder what Hal's impressions are.
Ya know, when I was reading about the whole ultrasonic cleaning stuff, one of the sites I was on specifically said you CANNOT verify the Epson heads by seeing the nozzles spray streams as in the photo that was sent to you, that much pressure would damage the head, and after cleaning you'd have to install to check to see if the nozzle were cleared. I think I posted that info some time way back in the beginning. You'd think someone that "specializes" in this would know that.
I crossed my fingers and hoped all would be well, but I think the guy over did it!
I also read that the head must be completely dry before installation.
Did you pickup that head that was on ebay a couple months ago? Well, interested in hearing your buddies install experience.
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ohh.. that is a bummer..
Eric, all that I can say is a heartfelt thank you for all your effort and I hope the 7900 with the new head gives you years of great printing.
I think we leave this topic a little bit wiser all be it more frustrated! Hopefully, the knowledge we have gleamed over the past 35 pages will allow us to maintain and minimize any issues.
James
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Yea chaddro, I remember your post. I also had reservations about the ultrasonic process. Not so much the ultra sonic part, but the letting someone else work on your head part. HAL says the membranes between channels are critically fragile. Too much pressure in either direction will blow them out and end you up mixing colors when you don't want to be. He also warns to only get the face wet. In that same shower image it looks like more than the printhead face got wet.
Yes, the new head I purchased was the one off ebay that you gave me the heads-up on some months ago, from "Mo". That's the one we are using now. It works as if brand new - which it should because it is. The resulting perfectly clear nozzle check-print looks unfamiliarly amazing. Suddenly this 7900 has lost all it's character. All the dynamite I've been stock-piling is now way too much to blow up just one dead head. I've been secretly planning on blowing up the whole machine. Dam.
In a pretty huge way I wish HAL had jumped the Epson wall two and a half months before he did. I likely never would have shipped our head out. Instead I did, and as a result I am left here today staring at a flirtatious, unused, tiny red bottle on my desk reflecting the afternoon sunlight through it's iridescent inners in a painfully suggestive way. If plastic could speak I'm pretty sure this bottle would whisper, "You do know I am the answer to all your problems, don't you?"
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Bummer, yes, although the part of me that is staring at a new Canon 8300 delivered here in the lot today is almost relieved. But then the other part that is staring at a 7900 and two bad heads slaps me back to reality. Also the part that has to figure out how to carry this beast down into the studio.
If you want to continue your experimentation with one of my heads, I'd be happy to send it to you, and if it fixes, send it back to me and I'll send you the other one to keep.
The info you've come upon about the cleaning process and flushing box should be invaluable to those continuing on the Epsons. It strikes me as the most likely culprit, and maintenance in this area might just keep those "permanent" printheads permanent.
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way back when, when i was in instrument making, the test for ultrasonic cleaning horsepower was how long it took to dissolve holes in aluminum foil...probably with an alikaline cleaner;)
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Hey Eric,
Is this the same place you sent your print head to? In this video, they specifically state that that you cannot blast cleaner through the head like some machines:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poEDY4f5_4Y
Was this the place you sent you head to?
BTW, glad the other head is working out. Man, you know more about the machine now than most repair techs from Decision One!
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Yes Chaddro, that is the place. Printheaddoctor.com. Vladimir is the head honcho. To his credit, he promised me nothing more than that he would try, which he did. I sincerely appreciate their efforts.
John, HAL warns about similar "dissolving holes in aluminum" characteristics of this glorious red iridescent cleaning fluid I now have here. It comes with no guarantees either.
I will say this now in utter confidence - if I had this to do over again from the start I first would have cleaned the flush box, then changed the wiper blade, then done a serviceman mode cleaning procedure. If the clogs remained, I would then remove the head and try cleaning it manually. I'd start by gently drawing this Epson cleaning fluid up through the face of the head with a syringe, then let it sit over night. Next morning I'd gently draw the Epson neutralizing fluid up through the face until all traces of red iridescence were gone. Then I'd re-install the head and do one power cleaning before the next nozzle check. If it printed clear I'd jump for joy. If it printed clogs I'd go straight for the dynamite.
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Eric,
A valiant effort to give us all a ray of hope… Thank you for your time, sharing the experience and lessons learned along this journey.
On a side note, after installing the new print head – What calibrations and procedures were necessary?
Jeff
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Eric how again did you acquire the Epson cleaning fluid that does not exist? Now that I've got the Canon in here and rolling I'm going to use my 7900 as a guinea pig. I'm thinking I'll slurp up some of that magic antimatter into the head, let it soak a bit, strap it to a sonicare toothbrush, and see if I can either clear the clog or create a new life form.
I've got two of these cloggy heads, so the possibilities are endless!
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If you want to continue your experimentation with one of my heads, I'd be happy to send it to you, and if it fixes, send it back to me and I'll send you the other one to keep.
I'm game. PM me and we can get the ball rolling. I so want to revive a "dead" X900 head.
Jeff, Steve and I met last night to talk about the head install. The process went simply, and by the book. He installed the head, he register the head (log id numbers into serviceman program), he did a series of head alignments via the serviceman mode, he started printing. Great to hear how well it all went.
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Well, I guess that this may be the end of this excellent stream of 7900 data. I do have a question for Eric, however. I bought a 7900 about a week before I saw this thread. So far so good with my 7900, but I was wondering, Eric, if you feel the head can be removed when the heads are moved into the service mode (looking into possible future problems). There seems to be enough room to get at the heads through the front door, but there may be something that I can't see that could get in the way.
Thanks, Dennis
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I had a similar conversation at the race track last weekend - about wasting time while trying to save time. It's always tempting to eliminate steps, trust me I do it all the time, but in this case you'd be shooting yourself in the foot. Far easier to remove the left side of the machine. It's just plastic, a few screws, nothing big at all. There's a wiring harness you need to move up and out of the way, that would be tough if not impossible with just the front open as well.
FYI, this is not the end of the endless stream of valuable X900 information being added to this thread. I am totally still working on things in the background.
For instance, here may be one of the most sensible X900 maintenance tips ever: If you are not a print-shop you may not run your printer every day. Maybe not even every week. If this is you too, try this in order to avoid ink drying in the face of your printhead -
Download this image, then print it on a plain sheet of paper once every few days. HAL says three is a good number. Takes minimal ink to print, saves gallons of ink by avoiding power cleans. Yes I love you too :-)
http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_routine_print.jpg (http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_routine_print.jpg)
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Is anybody going to list all these things Epson owners are recommended to do in this thread? Hopefully such a list will be in all future user manuals for new models of printer. There also needs to be a new "Point-of-Sale" information sheet warning off low use buyers and saying why.
I suspect though, that the thread will go to the usual thread graveyard, and just the current readers will be in the know.
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The thread will end up in the yard but the points will not. I will organize them and keep them easily accessible. They will always be one google away. First, though, more to come
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Hi Eric et Al
I have been following the thread with interest does anyone know the specific RGB values for Epson inks It occurs to me that if you have a problem with say the yellow channel why not just print a block of that colour.
You could have a jepeg patch/wedge/patten for that specific colour and then if there is a problem just print that specific file over and over .
This may or may not save ink, you know how your mind wanders while waiting for a print to emerge.
Just my 2 cents
regards
Jon
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My mind wandered there many times already Jon. It's a good idea, it makes sense, it would save ink. But in my experience it doesn't work. I printed soled pages and pages and pages of yellow. Unfortunately it didn't change a thing for us.
What HAL told me is this is a very simple problem. The holes (nozzles) in the X900 printhead are just very tiny. It is therefore so much more difficult to clear a clog because you face an elementary challenge - forcing something big (your hunk of dried ink) through something small (your nozzle). This is why HAL insists the only way to clear an "unclogable" clog is to draw it up through the printhead in reverse - out the back of the head, not through the face.
You can very easily see now, after all this discussion, how critical it is to have a clean wiper. Imagine the half dried ink on a dirty wiper blade being forced into the face of your head with each "cleaning" pass it makes after a cleaning cycle. This really is why sometimes X900 users suffer more clogs AFTER cleanings than they had before them!
The print I attached here helps do something very simple; it flushes that tiny bit of ink just in the face of the printhead that is most susceptible to drying & causing future clogs.
OH, and I know this has been debated back and forth a bunch of times - for what it's worth HAL suggests turning auto cleaning OFF, and leaving your printer ON while not in use.
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Hi Eric et Al
I have been following the thread with interest does anyone know the specific RGB values for Epson inks It occurs to me that if you have a problem with say the yellow channel why not just print a block of that colour.
You could have a jepeg patch/wedge/patten for that specific colour and then if there is a problem just print that specific file over and over .
This may or may not save ink, you know how your mind wanders while waiting for a print to emerge.
Although a good idea, this does not work when printing through the Epson driver. Your RGB values are interpreted and the printer prints what it thinks you want. The best you can do is get close.
You would need a RIP to send CMYK data to the printer without the epson driver getting in the way. There may be another way. If there is a feature in either the Serviceman mode, or service software to linearize the printer, you should be able to get per nozzle swatches. I saw this in my epson 3800, but will have to look to see if available in the 9900.
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I want to post a very sincere 'thank you' to Eric for starting this thread and documenting your finds. My 9900's Y and LC went missing a few weeks ago and I've had numerous issues with the thing from the beginning... I didn't know where to start, my warranty was expired, a repair wasn't in the budget, and I do not know the first thing about electrical repair. (Seriously, I googled how to remove a ribbon cables and wired cables during this project) I'd gotten the Field Repair Guide about 6 months ago but I didn't have the confidence to dive in until I started reading this thread.
After lots of practice runs to get comfortable with taking the machine apart, this week I replaced the damper assembly and the wiper blade and I also pulled the Pump and Cap Ass'y and cleaned it. (Also caused myself more problems by bumping a rubber hose on the backside of it which resulted in massive air suckage and terrifying nozzle checks, but finally got that solved too w/ gaffers tape for now.)
Bottom line--my printer is now printing LC and Y again! :D :D :D ! Thank you so much Eric and Steve--I'm so sorry that your head wasn't repairable and I empathize about the obsession aspect of printer repair--I've been dreaming of the Field Repair Guide for the last few weeks :-\---but I'm so very grateful that you shared your experience. You've probably saved a lot of printers from ending up with a similar fate. I'm off to make a donation which I hope will be used on some beverages for you and Steve.
Many, many, thanks. Lis
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Although a good idea, this does not work when printing through the Epson driver. Your RGB values are interpreted and the printer prints what it thinks you want. The best you can do is get close.
You would need a RIP to send CMYK data to the printer without the epson driver getting in the way. There may be another way. If there is a feature in either the Serviceman mode, or service software to linearize the printer, you should be able to get per nozzle swatches. I saw this in my epson 3800, but will have to look to see if available in the 9900.
What is the procedure to get to serviceman mode on the 3800?
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WOW Lis, you just made my week. I would say you made my month but last weekend's 180mph victory just edged you out.
Don't feel bad about having to google the wiring removal/reinstall. I actually make Steve do that part :-)
Happy printing again Lis!
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Although a good idea, this does not work when printing through the Epson driver. Your RGB values are interpreted and the printer prints what it thinks you want. The best you can do is get close.
You would need a RIP to send CMYK data to the printer without the epson driver getting in the way. There may be another way. If there is a feature in either the Serviceman mode, or service software to linearize the printer, you should be able to get per nozzle swatches. I saw this in my epson 3800, but will have to look to see if available in the 9900.
You can use QTR to do this by creating a curve for each channel. I use this method on my 7880. QTR used to be obtainable for a $50 donation. Presumably this is still the case.
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Using Windows 7 and the print program "Qimage", I printed the solid color patterns on my 7900. I set the driver for "no color adjustment" and sent the file to the printer without using a profile and leaving the image in it's original color space. Using a 10X loop, to examine the printed result, I found the the colors appeared to be using only one ink as no other colored dots were present. There was a slight exception with the "LK" patch as it did show a few cyan dots but they were very sparse. From this I feel that occasionaly printing the color patches should do the job of keeping the heads cleaner, as suggested, if the chart is printed with no profile and the drivers color adjustment is turned off.
Dennis
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This is HAL. Eric have done an excellent job to educate and entertain you guys for the past few months. I am setting up a new thread to answer Epson printer question. Check out the thread "Epson 7900/9900 or Epson printer repair questions? Other brands? May be."
PM me for any question with your phone # (US only). I'll answer your question either by email or phone. Then, You post the question and answer in your words to the thread. Please keep the thread with question and answer for Epson printer REPAIR only.
Disclosure:
I am trained technician by Epson with about 20 repairs on 7900/9900. I am certified and trained for all Epson products - scanner, printers, projectors...
Our company does not perform in-warranty repair on Epson 7000, 9000, 10000 pro series printers. We can do in-warranty and out-of-waranty repair for all products including Pro 3000 and 4000 series. We can do out-of-warranty repair on 7000, 9000 and 10000 series only. For warranty works, Decision One is the exclusive repair facility. Call them.
When I answer your question, all info are my personal opinion and has nothing to do with Epson. You use my advice at your own risk. If I don't know the answer, I can find the answer from my sources.
If I sell parts to you, I am making a profit. I'll give 10% discount if you mention you are from LULA. We have to follow very strict guidelines for selling print head to my customers.
I am going to repack the print head cleaning solution and sell to my customers. If any one interested, please PM me. No guarrantee and use it at your own risk.
I have to protect the interest for other repair facilities which have invested a lot of money on training their employees, equipemnt, tools and training materials. Don't ask me for manuals, parts list, adjustment and testing programs. My answer is always NO. Besides Decision One, there are many qualifed repair facilities in US. Locate them at Epson Web Site.
If you need ink and paper, I can get you very good price. I worked with a couple small authorized dealers who can sell you Epson ink and paper almost at cost. PM me if you want to knowwho they are. If you live outside CA, you are lucky, there is no sales tax and shipping time and cost is about the same as where you are buying from now. The reason I recommend them beacause if I have questions about printer, ink, paper, rip, software or other related questions, I go to them.
On the other hand, if your dealers give you good support and are very knowledgeable, please support them by giving them more business.
If anyone who want to dispose or give away the DEAD 7900/9900 (I prefer 9900), please let me know. I am trying to do a project on modifying and repairing method on these printers with a friend. I can't afford to pay a lot but willing to pay for all shipping cost within US. If modification works, I will let you guys know.
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Using Windows 7 and the print program "Qimage", I printed the solid color patterns on my 7900. I set the driver for "no color adjustment" and sent the file to the printer without using a profile and leaving the image in it's original color space. Using a 10X loop, to examine the printed result, I found the the colors appeared to be using only one ink as no other colored dots were present. There was a slight exception with the "LK" patch as it did show a few cyan dots but they were very sparse. From this I feel that occasionaly printing the color patches should do the job of keeping the heads cleaner, as suggested, if the chart is printed with no profile and the drivers color adjustment is turned off.
Dennis
Thanks for checking that out Dennis. Great to know!
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Eric,
I also bought a used 7900. As we all know, you are rolling the dice when you buy used w/no warranty. I stumbled on your thread and am amazed at the detail, effort and tenacity exhibited as you fearlessly attempted to bring it back to life. Also I commend the exceptionally strong character traits exhibited by yourself and Dan Berg. I'd like to say a big "THANK YOU" from all of us lurkers that gained insight and confidence that we can do the simple maintenance on our _900 Epsons. I'm sure now that you have it up and running, you are standing in awe as the phenomenal masterpieces roll out!
Thanks again
Mike Brewington
http://www.brewsphoto.com
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I think this thread has and will be very helpful for anyone running a Epson printer.... and now with the inclusion of LFPTECH I think it will be even more helpful. For these things Eric....I and I'm sure anyone venturing in here with a Epson problem want to thank you very much for getting this thread started. I think this thread should be tacked to the top of this forum. NOW if we could only get some input from EPSON !! After all they are the ones getting our money !! I think they would want us to keep them running....they make a mint selling ink I'm sure. As for staying quiet so we just buy a new printer from them.....I think this is very poor reasoning. It seems to me every relatively new large format Epson that becomes a large paper weight before it's time is really just a sale for Canon...not Epson. So where are you Epson.....Speak up
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Such a wonderful gesture to us Epson 900 series owners. I can't find the PM button to ask you where I can find the great prices on ink as you suggested. Please email me at randal21@gmail.com with their names. Appreciate all your help. Randal21
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Such a wonderful gesture to us Epson 900 series owners. I can't find the PM button to ask you where I can find the great prices on ink as you suggested. Please email me at randal21@gmail.com with their names. Appreciate all your help. Randal21
Just hit the user's name, which will bring you to their profile. Near the bottom of their profile under "additional information" hit "send this member a personal message". That should get er done!
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Need an advice, please.
The ink pump (I think that is the name) is leaking ink.
It does pump, I can here the motor and I do see the ink moves in the tube.
When I have disconnected the output pipe (tested and I couldn't blow through) I got the error code 1537.
When I switch the printer off ink leaks badly.
(http://)
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Little background will help. Did you take it apart, and now it leaks - or did it just start leaking? Not sure what you mean by ink pump - is the leak coming from the unit that houses the head?
Total guesswork here - if you took the damper assembly out you disconnected the ink lines. If you did this you came in contact with an O-ring which is critical for sealing the ink lines. These O-rings are black, all connected to one another in a series of figure-8s, and they are rather delicate. It sounds like this is the source of your leak(s).
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No Eric. I didn't take it apart yet. I am not sure what is the proper word for this pump. This is probably not an ink pump. This pump is NOT next to the head assembly and styes behind the circuit boards. Please have a look at the photos.
It is next to the power plug.
I had to take away the printer back panel, or two to be correct to see what is going on and where from the leak coming.
I can be wrong, but a few month ago, before I read your webpages and switched off the auto-cleaning function, I had some clogged issues, and had to use the power cleaning with one of the cartridges at 10%. I can be wrong, but I think the leak started at that time. And the ink in the system (whatever it is) is still from that time.
The pump has one in-line, coming somewhere from the front of the printer and the other one goes out to the maintenance tank area. Hard to say where...
When I connected to the pump output some piece of a tiny pipe and held my finger over the end of it pressing hard, the pump stoped working. When I opened it, the pumps started to work again. Is it controlled by pressure valve?
The ink color is green-blue. I checked the ink cartridges. Some on the left (looking from the front) have at the plug-in end the same ink on a bottom. I use 750 transparent cartridges and can see, that the cartridge has two sections. One is the main one for the printer ink and the second small one for the ??? ink.
Is it a part of a printer dumping system?
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You need to contact our good friend "HAL". His screen name is LFPTECH. Look him up on this thread and PM him, he will take good care of you. I have never taken this pump apart (or even seen it for that matter). http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=67241.0 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=67241.0)
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It's ironic I came home last night to a post on this thread. Kind of stole my wind, ironically I actually had plans to post here last night and update the state of all things "X900" in my life. I'll do that now.
My AAA insurance claim is still dragging along at the pace of a senile Tree Sloth. I have not been reimbursed a dime yet, so I still have no real gear to shoot with. If I did I would already have taken our head apart and taken some cool macro shots. I will do this in time, I promise.
Our 7900 is up and running like the good ole boy it was designed to be. Of course I challenge it regularly due to the fact that not only am I simply an enthusiast, but now I am actually an enthusiast with no camera. So what have we all realized an X900 hates more than anything? That's right, sitting still. WTF, I am a challenge.
So I've been quietly thinking about this moisture situation. I do not have a humidifier, but I bet I should. And considering some of the stories I read in this thread about dust, this has me thinking even more. When I get back from my drive to Colorado and back I am going to design a special cover for this machine. Not just a dust cover though, my idea is to make it be somewhat of a moisture barrier as well. I intend to weight the edges of the cover so it stretches tight to the floor, and make the cover out of something water resistant - this way it holds moisture in/keeps dry air out. Then perhaps, and of course I intend to test this properly, I will place a pale of water inside the cover under the machine. Might be this cover/pale combination could help maintain an X900 friendly micro-climate. We will see, right now it's just a fantasy.
So why am I driving to Colorado and back? Oh this is the best part of this post. I am driving 1,200 miles west to Colorado, and my friend Edward the juggler, from this very forum, is driving east to Colorado. We plan to meet Friday night, where I will ask him to teach me how to juggle and I will buy his not-functioning 9900. When I get back, the second chapter of this thread will come to life - "How to juggle a dead 9900"
See you in a week!
Eric
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Eric.......I am working on what humidity these printers really like ( to much might be as bad as to little) and what has brought me to this possible idea I will explain.......I have a 7890 for all practical purpose it is really a 7900 without green and orange(even has the lines and ink cartridge slots but they are just empty). This printer ran perfectly for about 9 months......many times a week went by with out printing......always did least a nozzle check once a week. But it even went a month with only a nozzle check once a week....but no other prints went through it. Never a clog that a quick pairs clean didn't clear. This whole time it was between 44% and 57% humidity. This March the weather here was cool and kind of humid....ranging anywhere from 55% to 80%. Outside temp was high 50's to low 60's at night and 60's to low 70's during the day. Wonderfull weather so windows opened up day and night enjoying the weather. Not realizing it at 1st but this is when my printer problems began.....dropped the complete cyan channel.......tring to clear it lost the complete magentas channel. Call to Epson brought out the completely inept Decision One tech who couldn't even figure out how to open it up.....then proceeded to acid sweat all over my circuit boards(we will stop there....this is not about them). Any way a power clean, some new parts and wiper blade and it was kind of working. But it was clogging almost continuously. Then it was getting to warm out for open windows and the AC was turned on.......now watching the humidity level it was back to 47% to 57% and to my amazement the clogging stopped instantly. I am not positive and I am afraid to let the humidity level get high again to be sure....but this seems to point to a high humidity level being as bad as to low. I would be careful of putting a pale of water under your cover unless you are in a very very dry climate. Get a humidity and temperature meter from Radio Shack...they are around 16 bucks and work well. See if you can keep it between 45% and 60% and see if it sits well. It would sure be nice if Epson would supply us with info like this so we could save ourselves the stress of figuring this stuff out. Peter
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Bed, Bath & (way) Beyond also carries hygrometers. It's a good investment to monitor humidity levels near your printer, as well as where you store media. A range between 40% to 60% is a good level to maintain humidity.
Eric---I've got a new humidifier for you. Hate to see you get a clog now after all your hard work... ;D
ken
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Epson Stylus Pro 7900/7910/9900/9910-->1.2.4 General Specifications->
Temperature Operating: 10 to 35 °C
Humidity Operating: 20 to 80% (no condensation)
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Humidity: In the room where my 7900 lives it's around 30% RH in winter and humidity is regulated with a dehumidifier to 58% in summer. I've had the printer since December 2008, and each winter without fail I have essentially no clogging issues at all. When summer comes the humidity rises and occasional clogging issues return. I don't claim to have any answers but this is what happens. I can't quite believe the printer likes being in 30% humidity, but maybe it does like being cooler. In winter the room is sometimes as cool as 63 or 64 Fahrenheit. Right now it's 70 and the mild occasional clogging has returned. The temperature usually gets to 75 in the heat of August and I guarantee the clogging will be worse then. It always is. The humidity is already as high as it will ever get (58%) but the clogging will get worse when the temps are hotter. Of course this does not prove any cause and effect relationship, but it's gone through the exact same cycle 3.5 times now. FYI, there's a digital temperature and humidity meter near the printer and it's been checked for accuracy.
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Epson Stylus Pro 7900/7910/9900/9910-->1.2.4 General Specifications->
Temperature Operating: 10 to 35 °C
Humidity Operating: 20 to 80% (no condensation)
Everyone that has been around these printers is quite familiar with what Epson claims. But most everyone also knows you will probably be in a lot of trouble if you keep your print room at 20%. What I am finding out it seems is you can get in as much trouble or more at high humidity levels. I was never above 80% this spring......really mostly high 60's and low 70's % humidity. This should be fine according to Epson and your thinking. But it was not.....it was a mess clogging all the time. When the AC came on and the humidity dropped to low 50,s......high of 57%......the clogs were instantly gone. This doesn't make a lot of sense if you think of ink drying on the head. But it seems to create the same problem as to low humidity.
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This doesn't make a lot of sense if you think of ink drying on the head.
A few days ago I visited some other websites and one guy claimed that after he has put a jar with water not far away from the printer the clogged situations were gone. He say that some moisture in the air helps to keep the head from drying out. I am not sure who do I have to believe.
I have to wait for some really hot/humid weather in Australia to know for sure what is going on. (I bought 7900 in November 2011 and didn't pay a lot of attention to the level of humidity).
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Humidity: In the room where my 7900 lives it's around 30% RH in winter and humidity is regulated with a dehumidifier to 58% in summer. I've had the printer since December 2008, and each winter without fail I have essentially no clogging issues at all. When summer comes the humidity rises and occasional clogging issues return. I don't claim to have any answers but this is what happens. I can't quite believe the printer likes being in 30% humidity, but maybe it does like being cooler. In winter the room is sometimes as cool as 63 or 64 Fahrenheit. Right now it's 70 and the mild occasional clogging has returned. The temperature usually gets to 75 in the heat of August and I guarantee the clogging will be worse then. It always is. The humidity is already as high as it will ever get (58%) but the clogging will get worse when the temps are hotter. Of course this does not prove any cause and effect relationship, but it's gone through the exact same cycle 3.5 times now. FYI, there's a digital temperature and humidity meter near the printer and it's been checked for accuracy.
Like Dean, I have had my 7900 since December 2008 and have also noticed in the past 3.5 years that in the higher humidity months it seems the chance of clogging is a bit higher. I've kept detailed records on this from the day I installed the printer. Overall, I've had very few clogging problems with my printer. In the months of Oct-June, I can go several months without a single clogged nozzle. (For some operational context, I do at least several large prints a week regardless of whether I need to or not, and I also agitate my ink cartridges every 30 days). During the summer months, where my humidity ranges between 55-65%, I might have the occasional clog, usually on Light Cyan but not always.
Based on my experience so far, I have two observations on the overall theme of "humidity" and how it relates to clogging in these printers:
1) Inexpensive hygrometers are notoriously inaccurate for Relative Humidity (RH) readings, even if based on their specs it would seem they are doing the job. I discovered this after I purchased an Abbeon Hygrometer (for example: http://www.omnicontrols.com/detail.aspx?ID=830 (http://www.omnicontrols.com/detail.aspx?ID=830)). It's similar to what museums use and is a bit expensive, but it revealed that all my other so-called hygrometers in the house were typically off by over 10 points of RH. So you have to be careful about how you interpret the RH numbers you see in forums like this. I suspect that the values people are reporting are not very accurate and you need to be careful about any clogging conclusions that relate to specific RH numbers being reported.
2) I've been wondering why the summer months seem to be more clog-prone, even though in my case it has not been at all severe. I am coming to the conclusion that it is not specifically a RH value, but rather the variability of RH in the summer months that is the "culprit". If you have a dehumidifier in your studio (like I do) the possibility of your RH changing back and forth over a 8-10 point range is likely. Dehumidifiers pull down the RH, they turn off, the RH rises past a certain limit, then the dehumidifer turns back on and the cycle begins again. This up-down-up-down pattern of RH change can actually put more stress on things in my opinion. We know this to be the case for the prints themselves (especially when mounted), but I suspect this may also be a factor for the ink-handling parts in our printers, including the head, seals when parked, wipers, flushing box, etc.
This summer I'll be working on how to reduce the variability in RH in my studio in hopes that this might actually reduce the number of times I encounter the occasional clogged nozzle.
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A short summary of situation of ink in 7900 air-pressurising system.
I noticed some ink leak on a floor behind 7900 printer a few months ago.
I cleaned up the ink and checked the cartridges (I had an original at that time).
On right side of the printer I found no problems.
On left side of the printer all of a cartridges had some ink in the air-chamber (the bottom nozzle side of the cartridge).
It was a time to change most of them as I used them from November 2011.
I changed and old original for a new 700 ml (I have ordered 1 liter x 11 ink bottles for Epson Pro9900/7900 from Guangdong China (Mainland) via Ali-express). The only one original cartridge left in the printer was the photo-black cartridge, as I didn’t use it.
Printer was working OK. It took a while for me to notice some ink on the floor again.
A few days ago I finally took out the printer back cover and found out that the air-pump was covered in ink.
I contacted Eric. He directed me to Leptech. Leptech answered in a few days.
I contacted admin from Russian site http://resetters.ru. He didn’t answer.
Meanwhile I cleaned up the pump and area next to it. The printer's power board is next to the air-pump. The circuit board floor of 7900 is on a angle, so ink couldn’t damage the circuit boards and leaked down away from it.
I cleaned up the plastic tubes going to and from the air-pump.
I inspected all cartridges again. No problems found on the right side. The ink in the air-chambers was found on the left side.
I used syringe (from printer head cleaning solution kit) to pump out the ink from cartridges air-chambers.
When I was sucking the ink from the original photo-black cartridge I noticed some whistling noise. The noise was coming out somewhere from the top of the cartridge plastic body. The cartridge was damaged.
I changed the photo-black to a new 700 ml Chinese one. Filled up, resetted the chip.
I installed the pump and reconnected to cables.
Switched the printer on. The error 1536 kept coming on.
Rechecked the pump and wires. Reconnected the motor cable. Error disappeared.
Printed the nozzle check page. OK.
Printed the random image. OK.
Leptech contacted me. He shortly explained the situation. He wrote: ‘It happens a lot on third party ink’.
I thought it was my only bad luck with such a situation. I do understand that Epson company doesn’t like third party ink suppliers, but in my case it was the original cartridge, that caused the problem. Not the third party one.
Thanks for the answers, some help and directions.Eric does a good job. I took a lot of notes from his blog Epson 7900 from the inside - out.
Page with photos is here (for a while):
http://vetrazi.com/Ink_in_air_system/7900_ink_problem15Jun12.php (http://vetrazi.com/Ink_in_air_system/7900_ink_problem15Jun12.php)
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In the middle of a job my yellow ink on my 7900 wasn't printing fully. I was using an Inkpress Warmtone 300 paper for some wedding invitations. I did 4 paired cleanings on the yellow and kept printing nozzle checks. 1/2 of the yellow seems clogged. Could the paper have caused this? I called Epson and he said to check my humidity ...it's at 80% which is fine. Said to check out another yellow ink cartridge which I don't have. Said if the pair cleanings don't work he can call Decision One for me. Now what?
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I think it may be premature to call Decision One. After not using my 4900 for two weeks, I found the yellow channel was at first very weak and then dropped out completely. The procedure I used was to do a series of pair cleanings inter-spaced with making a print consisting of one big patch of yellow on a piece of cheap US-Letter sized paper. Do a regular pair cleaning, test the nozzles; if still clogged run the print, then do a stronger pair cleaning (on the 4900 there are two levels of pair cleaning - don't know whether the 7900 also has this feature); then check the nozzles; if not OK, run the print again, then do another strong pair cleaning, etc...I repeated this cycle 7 times and the Yellow channel came back fine and has stayed fine ever since. Running that print is a most important part of the process. If after all this you don't have a properly-functioning yellow channel, then I would agree it makes sense to call in a technician.
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Thanks Mark.... thats pretty much what I am doing. I turned on my dehumidifer for a reading and it was more like 66%. I have a new yellow cartridge coming tomorrow to see if the ink cartridge was the culprit. I will continue as you say and see if it let's go so I can finish the job and not call Decision One. Epson was too easy to suggest that.
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There shows sign of recovery Mark. paired yellow cleaning with a large yellow square and a nozzle check. Cross thy fingers!
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Good - keep redoing it and let's hope!
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Any logic to why it may have happened? The new variable was the Inkpress Warmtone 300 Rag paper. paper fibers clogging my main color=yellow? Should I widen my platen? The yellow is slowly coming to life but have done alot of pair cleanings on the yellow. Stay away Decision One!
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It's unlikely to be the paper. There is little "logic" to this. Something - either air - or debris is preventing yellow ink from firing properly. You just need to exercise it out by repeated prints and cleans (use the stronger option for the pair), but I'd think if after 7 to 10 of these cycles it's not back to normal you need a tech.
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All is well!!!! Back to the job. Took at least 20 power cleanings and nozzle checks and printing the large yellow square. Thanks for sharing your experience with clogging. I got alittle anxious due to the other 900 series problems. The Epson tech people need to get better versed before they call Decision One. What is the higher lever paired cleaning you referred to? Not the total power cleaning right? Don't see the choice on my printer. Hidden? thanks so much. Made my day!
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It could well be that the Epson 4900, being a more recent model than the 7900, has some different features. In the pairs cleaning utility of the 4900, there are two levels of cleaning - normal and more powerful. It is not a general power cleaning of all channels - just restricted to the pairs. Perhaps the 7900 does not have this feature in its pairs cleaning utility. The most I have had to exercise repeated cycles of pairs cleaning and patch printing is 7 replications, and that was after the printer had not been used for about 4 weeks. Normally, if it is not left idle for more than 5 days the nozzle checks come up fine.
It was an Epson tech quite some years ago, when I was having problems with my 4000, who instructed me about running the prints between cleanings. It would appear that in Epson, like many other companies, the knowledge and experience of the tech support staff is not uniform, and this should be expected. The way around that is for the company to maintain an on-line roster of best practices culled from the experience of their technical support people over the years. Then when a customer calls-in with a problem, the person answering the call would have been trained to consult the best-practices roster before responding. If they aren't doing this, they should be.
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And by the way, great that you got it back up and running properly. A story with a happy ending! I'm pleased it worked out for you.
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When did you last update your firmware?
Back in November/December they added an "Execute (Powerful)" paired cleaning to the menu on my 9890.
Also, there are some options in the serviceman menu for stronger level cleanings, but would have to research those or defer to a more experience member. As yet I have
not had to resort to this. Three paired cleanings (with prints in between) has been my limit.
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The following information is from the 79/99 Field Repair Guide and has probably been posted here in whole or part before, but I include as a reminder. Please note: Enter serviceman mode at your own risk. You can majorly screw your machine up if you are careless! So do so with caution and at your own risk.
Please also note that, not surprisingly, Epson chose to leave out most of this info from the user manuals. My 9890 User Manual only explains how to perform a cleaning. Does not go into the further, RATHER IMPORTANT, salient points that I believe are quite clear to any of us long time users.
Also note the SS Cleaning Mode. Dread the thought of the amount of ink spent, but this may be faster than 10 cleaning cycles in a row:
Now, for your reading enjoyment... to quote in full:
Cleaning Cycles (Types and Uses)
About All Cleaning Cycles
The Ink System is tuned to the gentle ink flow demand generated by printing.
All Cleaning cycles employ a much stronger ink demand than printing.
It is not unusual for the Ink System to “pull back” after a cleaning cycle drawing air or ink from the Cap into the Print Head Nozzle Plate. This can cause more Nozzles to be missing after a cleaning cycle than before. It also can cause contaminated (used) ink to be mixed with the “fresh” ink in the Nozzle Plate.
If the same Nozzles are missing after each cleaning cycle, continue cleaning.
If different Nozzles are missing after each cleaning cycle, stop cleaning, and print until the air or contaminated ink has been expelled from the Print Head.
Normal Cleaning: User Menu/MAINTENANCE/CLEANING/NORMAL
When a normal cleaning is activated, the Printer cleans all 5 color pairs, and uses the AID Circuitry to check results. According the information reported by the AID Circuitry the Printer increases or decreases the strength of the clean-ing cycle appropriately, and only cleans the color pairs that require additional cleaning.
The Printer always cleans color pairs individually. A color pair is defined as 2 colors that share a Cap. In theory the Printer will only clean the color pairs that have missing Nozzles. Cleaning color pairs individually takes more time, but saves Ink.
Color Pair Cleaning: User Menu/MAINTENANCE/CLEANING/CLEAN FOR EACH COLOR
Color pair cleaning is the cleaning method with the most efficient use of ink. How to use effectively:
1. Print an nozzle check, and identify the color pair with the most missing nozzles.
2. Clean that color pair only. After the Printer cleans the instructed color pair, it will use the AID Circuitry to determine the appropriate cleaning levels for any remaining missing nozzles on other color pairs. This method uses less ink than any other.
Power Cleaning: User Menu/Maintenance
The purpose of the Power Cleaning cycle is to remove air from the Negative Pressure Dampers, or air from the Print Head side of the Dampers.
The Power Cleaning cycle closes the Valves that restrict ink flow from the Ink Bays while simultaneously running the Cleaning Pump to build a vacuum on the Print Head Nozzle Plate. When sufficient vacuum is created, the Printer opens the Valves allowing the ink to “fill the vacuum”. This technique facilitates the removal of air from the system. Air in the system causes Nozzle drop out while printing.
Technicians: Use the Power Cleaning cycle after changing Dampers or Print Head.
User: Use the Power Cleaning cycle if Nozzles drop out while printing.
SS Cleaning: Maintenance Mode 1 (Hold the Pause button at power on)
SS Cleaning has a strong ultra sonic component. The Piezo Elements internal to the Print Head are used to attempt to break up pigment particles that may be clogging the interior of the Print Head.
Use SS Cleaning when a Nozzle can not be cleared through normal cleaning.
Color Pairs on the Print Head (Listed Left to Right)
1. Cyan and Vivid Magenta
2. Photo Black (Matte Black) and Light Black
3. Orange and Green
4. Light Light Black and Yellow
5. Vivid Light Magenta and Light Cyan.
EPILOGUE:
Funny thing happened to me the other day while printing: Service Call error 0010.
This had Epson tech support put me on hold for a good 10 minutes. Turns out this is related to the AID Circuitry's function. I just recently turn AID on after every printer (in an effort to better understand this whole shabang). Now, I CAN still print just fine, but AID fails - the printer cannot self check it's nozzles.
I think this goes all the way back to last August when I bought the printer. I would get "Automatic Cleaning Failed, RETRY?"
Initially, I put my trust in Epson and let the machine perform the cleaning, but it NEVER has a successful cleaning despite clean nozzle checks. I did complain to Epson about this, but they had no solutions. My supposition is that AID had never worked on my printer in the first place, and only after I turned it on to EVERY print did the error code through.
Now I'm waiting on a visit from Decision One. I spoke briefly with the tech over the phone (still waiting on parts) and he said it could be anywhere from easy (1 hour) to hard (4+ hours).
Will keep you updated!
-chaddro
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My Visit from Decision One -> INDECISIVE!
So it took a solid week for my parts to show up, and low and behold of the three parts ordered (pump cap assembly, main-board, and AID board), only the AID board was correct.
The tech knew the pump cap was wrong at first site, but the main-boards look very familiar. The tech took out the old one and put new one in and didn't notice it was wrong until he tried to plug a connector in that had no receptacle. This board is apparently for the 7890 (!?!).
So out comes the wrong board to put my original board back in. Sounds logical? But nope... (Now, remember... I could print before. It's the printer's AID function that has failed.)
After re-assembling the machine, the USB port doesn't work. I suggest we try the Ethernet and fortunately I can still print. Tech has no idea what could have happened to
the board to kill USB (we did try two different computers and also cables).
Now this tech says that it's rare to have the wrong items shipped. So I'm the unlucky 2%'er here. No idea when they will get back to me either. I have to wait on a call since they are going to have to order parts again.
BTW, when the tech ran the AID test from withing serviceman mode, he says that it should read "ok" on every line. Mine is in complete failure. Check yours. It doesn't hurt anything. AID is supposed to be superior to running manual nozzle checks. The tech pretty much thinks it's been bad from day one.
... stay tuned for episode two ...
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Wow Chaddro. ...wow.
I am just back to computer land now. Been gone over a week, driving through endless ages of deserts for days it seems on my trip to meet Edward the juggler about his 9900. Edward's 9900 is in the back of my truck now, awaiting the start of my own episode II "How To Drown a Dead Printhead In Six Gallons or Less".
You my friend are an endless supply of information. Thank you and good luck!
Nice work with randal21, Mark. Success!!
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Air-pressurising system in 7900
I have to say thanks to Eric again.
He directed me to some helpful information and I can write the next:
The situation is more complex (in real life), as I found it in my 7900, but there are two major errors or reports related to an air pressurizing system faults of 7900.
For some reasons I have never experienced any of those errors having some obvious problems in my 7900 at that time, however.
First error can be 1537 (and I think 1536 related to it) when the Ink System Pressure Sensor reports the low pressure in the system.
I believe I didn’t have that error activated on by not using the faulty cartridge (photo-black) at all. This cartridge was leaking the air inside it and what is more important – was leaking the ink inside the air-chamber as well. Two problems in one Epson original cartridge.
A good idea in this situation is to test the cartridge by gently pumping a small amount of air by using the cartridge Air Pressure Insert Nipple (at the bottom of the cartridge). If you will continue to pump the air inside the cartridge the answer would be simple: it is faulty. A good cartridge will not accept a lot of air and eventually you won’t be able to pump more.
I found out the faulty cartridge by doing the opposite. I used the syringe to pump the ink out of the air-chamber when I heard the whistling noise of air getting inside the cartridge. I suppose this is just the same to the opposite procedure by pumping the air inside the cartridge. One way or another the cartridge must stop accepting the air in it or stop letting you to pump the air out of it.
The second situation is Replace Ink cartridge message on display.
In this situation the the CSIC Chip reports ink in the cartridge, but the Ink Out Sensor (located where the ink leaves the Cartridge) reports no ink getting out of it.
In that situation you have to use (again) the Air Pressure Insert Nipple (at the bottom of the cartridge) to pump the air inside the cartridge (gently). After you fill some resistance you have to stop and close the Air Pressure Insert Nipple. The bag inside the cartridge is under air pressure around it and by using the office clip and opening the cartridge ink outlet (at the top of the cartridge) you can release the air bubble and let the ink out of the cartridge.
As I understood the good and healthy work of air-pressurising system is more important if 7900 placed on 33d floor or at some location really high above the sea level.
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Completely missing Light Cyan channel on Nozzle Test page
After I have finished fighting the ink in the air-pressurising system problem I have to face a new problem: the LC channel was blank on the nozzle test page.
I inspected the ink tubes. It was obvious that ink from LC cartridge wasn’t inside the plastic tube and some big air-bubbles occupied space between ink in the tube. I could see the dark and white areas in the tube.
It was an ink supply issue. The ink wasn’t reaching the Print Head.
I removed the LC cartridge and by using the syringe tried to pump the air inside it. It was happily pressurized without any problems.
Maybe I do have some problem in the tube intake valve. It possibly leaked some air inside the tube when the cartridge was removed when I was fixing the ink inside the air system problem. If it is the case, I will face it again later on one day.
I did next:
1. I have executed a “Normal” cleaning procedure. No changes were observed. The air-bubble inside the LC tube didn’t move at all.
2. I have performed a Nozzle Check. LC color was not printed.
3. I have executed a Color Pair cleaning procedure. The air-bubble moved up rapidly an inch and stopped.
4. I have repeated the Nozzle Check and Color Pair cleaning procedures tree times until the ink reached the Print Head and LC color was printed on Nozzle Check Page.
The say: The purpose of the Power Cleaning cycle is to remove the any air in the Dampers that might restrict ink flow.
And I think they right.
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My story, for short.
I was using dyes in my epson 9700 (same as 9900, but CCMMYYKK) since day one only with minor problems mainly due to bad carts or chips. I print most tehnical drafts and short therm POS and ocasionaly on photo paper. Last week i ordered OCP pigmented ink from Octopus Germany. First problem: one contacts in the ink bay to the magenta cartridge get broke. Service want to sell me the whole ink bay. Thanks to Eric, I have the serviceman manual. I dismantle the printer and discovered that from 9 contacts of the ink cart chip, only 8 are used, so i replace the faulty one with the unused one. So far, so good, 300 euros economy. Thanks again Eric.
But the worst part it is still coming. I have inkflow problems. It seems that ink is to thick / nozzles are to thin. Coze I have nozzles drop while printing especialy on mate black and magenta. Other guy on other forum also notice that he has problems with yellow.
SO.... my conclusion is that maybe, maybe even original epson inks are a little to thick for such thin nozzles. Maybe dampers are a little subpar for a good inkflow (dampers seem a little small inncomparison with other). I don't know maybe I am speculating, but in mutoh same inks perform way better.
One more thing: other guy on other forum suggests that he added 1 ml of ammonia to 100 ml ink, and his inkflow was getting better without sacrifacing(?) print quality.
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How can you base your supposition about Epson ink clogs by using third party ink from Germany!? Makes no sense. And this was after using dye ink that is not engineered by Epson?
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My story, for short.
I was using dyes in my epson 9700 (same as 9900, but CCMMYYKK) since day one only with minor problems mainly due to bad carts or chips. I print most tehnical drafts and short therm POS and ocasionaly on photo paper. Last week i ordered OCP pigmented ink from Octopus Germany. First problem: one contacts in the ink bay to the magenta cartridge get broke. Service want to sell me the whole ink bay. Thanks to Eric, I have the serviceman manual. I dismantle the printer and discovered that from 9 contacts of the ink cart chip, only 8 are used, so i replace the faulty one with the unused one. So far, so good, 300 euros economy. Thanks again Eric.
But the worst part it is still coming. I have inkflow problems. It seems that ink is to thick / nozzles are to thin. Coze I have nozzles drop while printing especialy on mate black and magenta. Other guy on other forum also notice that he has problems with yellow.
SO.... my conclusion is that maybe, maybe even original epson inks are a little to thick for such thin nozzles. Maybe dampers are a little subpar for a good inkflow (dampers seem a little small inncomparison with other). I don't know maybe I am speculating, but in mutoh same inks perform way better.
One more thing: other guy on other forum suggests that he added 1 ml of ammonia to 100 ml ink, and his inkflow was getting better without sacrifacing(?) print quality.
Have you ever actually used Epson ink designed for that printer? If so what was your operating experience with it?
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@randy: based on how thick pigmented ink is comparing with dye.
@ mark: no. Never used original ink, just serynge them for some tests.
I don' t want to offend someone with my post. Just made some speculations based on my personal experience. As i mentioned before i also have solvent printer and a sepiax printer, all epson printhead based and i can clearly see semnificant difference in response of the piezo head in relation with ink thikness.
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@randy: based on how thick pigmented ink is comparing with dye.
@ mark: no. Never used original ink, just serynge them for some tests.
I don' t want to offend someone with my post. Just made some speculations based on my personal experience. As i mentioned before i also have solvent printer and a sepiax printer, all epson printhead based and i can clearly see semnificant difference in response of the piezo head in relation with ink thikness.
There's no issue here of offending anyone; at least I have zero vested interest in whether you or any one else uses Epson ink - it's a purely objective question directed at understanding whether you've ever experienced the problems you mention using Epson inks, because according to Epson, the inks and the printer technology are an integrated package designed to work properly with each other. Therefore, if you are not using their ink, the diagnosis of your problems must now at least consider that 3rd party ink MAY BE another variable in play (and I'm not saying necessarily it is - just that it may be). The importance of this observation simply is that IF your printer would work fine using Epson ink, but would be problematic as you describe here using the inks you are using, that would tell you something about how to solve your problem, and IF not, then you would know ink isn't the issue.
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Do you mean how thick 'third party' pigment ink is compared to 'third party' dye ink? So far, in your description, you have not compared Epson ink in your Epson printer with the 'third pary' inks. I know that dye ink solids are less problematic than pigment ink solids but I don't know if your viscosity claim is accurate. Also, I don't know if the viscosity measurement of a static container of pigment ink is higher or lower than the viscosity measurement under shear, which can be dramatically different. One would need to use a capillary viscometer to evaluate that physical property. This property can be as important as 'the correct color' when it comes to using non-Epson inks.
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I am shure that Epson ink is carefully designed for each printer. And, probably, Epson ink is superior to most of the third party inks. But my experience so far tells me that a thinner ink is better for long run prints. And require way less maintenance to the printer's parts. With dyes I can barely see ink deposits on flushpad and capstation. Pigments deposits similar to auto grease on the flushpad and capstation. Also i think the little pumps in the printhead are less stressed by a thinner ink. You are right, my problems comes with the ink. THIS INK. when I was using dyes I had zero ink related problems in about 6000 prints, only carts related problems. The only drawback of dye was the fast sun fading problem. Oh, and the gamut. Almost double for dyes compared to pigments. To bad is a long way to USA because I realy want to try the new Cone dyes.
Randy, even epson pigmented ink is thicker than epson dye ink. Dye particles are much much smaller than pigments.
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Particle size is not the determining factor with respect to 'thickness' or viscosity. I'm fairly certain that dye ink has a wider gamut than pigment - double ? - I doubt it. But what is the point? They fade to less than the gamut of pigment ink in relatively short time frame.
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Even while the dyes are at maximum effectiveness I would like to see rigorous data comparing the gamuts for the different colour groups of those dyes relative to the Epson Ultrachrome HDR inkset. I think if we had this data we may well be surprised by how small the differences could be. The difference was quite visible in the days of the Epson 2000P back in 1999, but much has changed since then.
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Just for the record, there are no "particles" in dye inks. The ink is a solution containing dyes and other components in a disolved, or molecular, state.
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Hey All! Well, after yet ANOTHER delay for MORE wrong parts sent from Epson, it looks like D1 is going to show up tomorrow mid morning some time. That is if they didn't yet again send the wrong main board...
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FINALLY! A functional printer once again. Turns out that something was wrong with the pump-cap station and this was causing the AID to fail.
I have several print jobs in the pipeline. I'll let you know how well the AID performs when set to "every print".
BTW, DON'T DROP your paper roll end caps. One of mine rolled off the table, and **snap** broke the handle. At a 100 dollars a pair you'd think they could use a more durable plastic!
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help :'( :'( :'(
the print head on my Epson 9900 broke down after 82 printed pages ... and the printer is no longer under warranty since 9 months, epson France refuses to sell me a new print head and wonder me to let repair the machine in their workshops for 985 euros the head (+ / -750 U.S. dollars) and 520 euros (+ / - $ 300) for work ...... ouch!! it hurts .... :-\
As I am able to repair it myself (if I have a print head of course)
I expect a response from this site: that http://www.gedat-spareparts.com in germany it seems to be the only one who can send me a new print head in europe.
But i wonder !!!
Whatkind of software do you use to enter the head "ranking code" I can not find anithing about that on the cd's provided with the 9900.......and of course if I ask Epson France hahaha you know the answer as I do!
thank you for helping me it would be nice, and this forum is really very interresting I have not read everything ends
Excuse my English I'm using a translator ;D
Mais je parle anglais ! (in French in the text)
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I'm 30% through my next X900 video, tomsud. Just so happens to be on removing and reinstalling the 7900/9900 printheads. It's kind of involved, the process, but it is doable by most who are handy with a screwdriver. Lots of o-rings to damage/lose/put in cockeyed. Lots of screws to put back in the wrong holes. And lots, I mean LOTS, of sequential steps to follow. That's before we even get into the ranking part of it - which also is not impossible, just takes time.
Your goal now is find a head. Once you do that, the rest gets easier.
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Thank you for your quick response Eric
that's right you have to be very attentive to all the screws and especially the magnetized screwdriver is essential (on the photo below the tools I used !)
Disassembling reassembling the head took me nearly 3 hours, as my 9900 is relatively new o-rings are in good condition and remain in place
I had the shop that sells print heads on the phone yesterday (luckily I speak German!...Französisch mit einem Akzent...lol) And there seems to be no problem with them for a new head, (around 900$) if i order it I will receive it within 48 hours, in fact this store is the largest reseller for Europe, after there are also many other stores that sell print heads but mainly in Asia and in China, but that makes me a little scared!
the technician also asked me to check the cables connecting the head to the motherboard, I did it (again) and the printer display (again) : "connection error", so as i think motherboard and cables seem beings in order I must say that the German technicians are very accurate and professional compared to the French! 8)
I also filed a complaint with Epson France, first by the way that my printer as only 82 pages printed and with Epson premium photo paper only, the head had to have a factory default! and secondly by the fact that a manufacturer is required to supply spare parts of equipment that it sells, it seams that epson voluntarily refuse to sell parts!
So i'm ready to file a legal complaint with the help of a lawyer and an organization of Consumer Inquiries if necessary!
Regarding the procedure of ranking of the head, I am in touch with a photographer friend from spain he
had many problems with the quality of maintenance work epson, and finaly... changed the head of his Epson 9880 himself 8 months ago, without in the end entering the code ranking, he have to do several cleaning before printing of course, but the printer works fine since ... (may be my friend was lucky and bought a head ready for 9880, but there are many users who say that this is just a trick to Epson to provide work for their service maintenance!)
In fact this type of print head (ref: F191040, or x6 in asia) is mounted on several Epson models, the German dealer explained to me yesterday that "recording code heads parameters" in the computer of the printer helped it to synchronize properly...I know the operation principle of a piezo print head but somewhere it leaves me dreamy :) :) :)
He did not know if the given program with the 9900 allow by itself this kind of change, he said that some models have it directly in soft whith acces from the control panel and others do not, he also told me that I would find on the net a cd called epson resources,who can help me if the 9900 don't have the option, I seeks for this cd... in case!
So in summary, I do not have any problems for disassembly reassembly (I must say that my nikon d3 is much more difficult to disassemble!... ....oups !! no trouble for disassemble but to re-assemble ;D ;D ;D : see the picture of nikon dismounted below and you can cry whith me...)
But as my printer is bloqued into a fatal error I have no more access to internal programs and I do not know if it can execute any procedure of ranking... ::)
Did you know if your 7900 authorizes by itself this procedure? if it does I think the 9900 will as well!
thank you again
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email me tomsud - eric at gotagteam.com
all you need is a pc (not a mac) and you'll be able to rank yourself silly.
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Tomsud,
Just for the record, the Euro is at $1.21, so 900€ = $1,100. Beyond that, my head just got replaced, I watched every second of it, and t is always the same thing, if you have done it, and have the software, it is not like rebuilding an engine, but on another hand, I probably would not do it myself, to many things to worry about, the labor is still somewhat less than the part, I would go for the professional route. I would though hire just about any other authorized repair person, rather than D1 (for here in the U.S.), as these guys are certainly not worth $175./hour.
Bonne chance,
Jean-Christian
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Bonjour Jean-Christian,
Proper maintenance on this kind of Epson machines here in Franceand specialy in my region is REALLY hard to find!
And sorry for my wrong calculation euro in dollars ... that's a while since I have bought in the usa ... and I do not watch currency movements closely. ::) ::) ::)
Ok thx again Eric I will send you an email soon! ;)
For the print head model :f 191010 or f 191040 f (new model) I received an offer from a dealerfrom poland who sells new heads for 721 euros
1 euro = $ 1.23 = $ 886.83 ;D ;D ;D , no shipping costs for the head , I will call tomorrow (I have the night to learn Polish ...) :-[
Otherwise it will be Germany, but must decide tomorrow
I also through the intermediary of a forum on the plotters in belgium get the advice of a technician who knows the Epson 9900, he did not think the print head can be defective after only 82 prints...(heu in fact i have just 100 prints >:( I found a way to display the number of pages printed in the maintenance menu! it would have been funnier if it had stuck after 666 impressions ;))
I also find hard to believe ! that a piece as young as it can break whithout any warning before, but I really did every test possible, exept the reset of the mother board that you can not do on this machine to my knowledge.
So tomorrow i purchase the new head
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hello,
The new print head is on the way, thank you to Erik for all the infos.... 8)
However, one thing worries me: what has blown a head of only 100 impressions ....... I did not want to sit the new without really understanding what happened!
I found an idea on a Chinese site but the automatic translator does not work well with the Chinese, then the result is nearly incomprehensible ... he talks (the Chinese guy) about short circuits in cables and overvoltage in the head during the cycle cleaning............................. >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
the link is: http://www.dfmdyj.com/archiver/tid-50.html or here is the text about the 7900/9900 fatal error 1A39.
epson9910/7910/7710/9710 报错 1A39 Head error （打印头错误）
最近有客户epson 9910/ 7910 经常会出现 报错 1A39（打印头电压过高）
分析：1.打印头缆线是四根 如果没有插进过测试 会报1A39，请拆好所有缆线
2.如果自己私自拆下来过打印头 用水或酒精 冲过打印头 可能打印头主板 短路了
3.打印头在大量清洗中途，突然断电 又可能烧坏打印头电路
解决方法：
测试：找个可以出墨水的旧打印头，装上看，如果可以进入正常模式 进行打印头清洗 和打印测试页，测试出原打印头烧坏 依然报错可能是缆线短路
解决： 更换打印头 及缆线
If anyone speaks Chinese it could help me! ;D
Thanks !
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My wife tells me I speak Chinese all the time. Maybe I should give it a shot..
tomsud the guy you want to talk to is HAL9000 (http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/HAL_9000-100.gif)
He's actually a member on Luminous Landscape - his screen name is LFPTECH, and I think he might even be Chinese. Talk about a home-run. Look him up and send him a personal message. He chimed in on this thread back on page 36. Chances are he can tell you why your head failed. Please let us know what happens. Good luck with HAL
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Hello Eric and hello to all,
I will send a PM to HAL9000 to tell him about my 9900 odyssey, I've seen his posts on this forum is a repairer and dealer parts it seems.
Yesterday I checked (again) the board assy hands 1, 2, 3 and tensions of the main board, everything looks ok!
In fact i was not personaly right in front of the tracer when the error comes, but a friend who was in the studio told me that it was arrived at the beginning of a cleaning cycle
I reflect on that.... ??? because the mysterious text in chinese talk about something like that.
The new print head will arrive middle of next week I think.
I am also frightened by the amount of ink loose when i have to power on the machine for checks ! of course I've disabled all cleaning possible! except the start one that you can not stop ....
Meanwhile as photography is my job ! I need sometimes to print (thank you god !!! only for now in medium format!) I re-use my "little" Epson 1400 six color, which also cost me a fortune in ink! but at least it prints!
Today i'll will try to find an old client who is Asian and ask him if he can read Chinese (he is from asia....but where .....vietnam thailand corea ...china ???)
see then the next episode!
Have a nice day! or night!
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Yes ! the translation of the text in Chinese is done !
It is question of:
-Checking of the cables which feed the head
-Precaution to be taken during the cleaning of the head with some special liquid or...water...alcool.... (maybe i should try with some wine ;D ;D ;D red or white ?)
-And because connections are make with very long computer cables type it is difficult to verify them perfectly so it is recommended to change all of them and to try with an old operational head before put a brand new head...
- A short circuit in one of the 4 cables can cause(provoke) a fusion(merger) of the head.... :'( :'( :'(
Translation made by an old Chinese!!! 8)
Of course i have no new cables here and the only old head that I have is the broken one
the new print head can be here thursday...'ill see how far i can go with my cable check, And if I have doubts I am going to order a set of new cables.... ::)
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Thanks so much Eric for EVERYTHING you have done, experienced in order to share with all of us. I have read this entire thread and I feel comforted in what I have done, tried and taken apart :D And thanks to everyone else that has shared info and problems in this thread as well.
I have a problem with my 9900 that seems similar to what you started out with. My 9900 which is of course out of warranty has what I am assuming clogs in my PK/MK.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Krokf-WMzAc/UAiCmArBIcI/AAAAAAAAeo0/v4jcRvZsixw/s884/photo%286%29.JPG)
I had started a thread here http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=68971.0 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=68971.0) but then found this one and started to read.
First let me start of by saying I am in the oldest part of a library on a university campus. I have had my 9900 for about 3.5 years, no problems, great prints. I love this machine (well until now). I print several times a week big and small, matte and photo. I do not print on any fabrics. Just photo paper and matte presentation paper. On rare occasion I do print on the poly-synthetic vinyl. I only use Epson inks and paper. Early on I tried some other branded paper and had so much problem with settings that I switched back.
Now luckily enough I have never had any problems with the air in my area until (even being built in the 1950s) until now. Starting this past may my air went from being 65 degrees F to being between 82-87 degrees F. Then it went back and forth forever until now, I am back at 65 and suppose to stay (so I have been promised). I am saying all of this to say I feel like this has begun the problems with my precious (yes im a LOTR fan).
So I started out with some cleaning cycles "naturally". Pairs, full clean, SS, nothing helped nozzle check stayed exactly the same. I put a wet sponge in over night, nothing. I have taken the machine apart basically and cleaned the wiper blade, which after seeing pictures of yours, mine actually looked okay but I am still planning on replacing it. I cleaned around the caps, etc...
I even managed to take the thing apart to get to the head ( I am not skeered, lol, I am a woman that lives to take junk apart!) My head looked okay to me but I have no idea what a clogged head looks like and I am guessing not many people do since you cannot really see it lol. I cannot wait till you take yours apart.
Now being that I work for a University the budget for me is not great LOL, im serious. So if I tell my boss I need to buy a head for $1200 he is going to flip but if it has to be done....
I am trying everything in my power to not have to do this of course. I obviously have no problem tearing in to this machine, I have not even screwed it all back together just waiting for something else to hit me to try. I have let it sit over night off after a cleaning, nozzle check no change. I have tried various prints to work through air and what-not, no change. I have noticed that if there is alot of black of course that is where you see the banding but if something is very colorful you do not see it.
I would appreciate any ideas, help, thoughts anyone has at all. I have tried several things I have read in this thread except for the overnight soaking of my head because I do not have cleaning solution (yet). I have some windex and warm water, that is it.
Thanks again everyone
B
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Hello all
Here news of my “adventures” with my 9900, but first I would like to answer bhuddleston in the preceding post (I use a translator on line because in the morning I speak only Chinese, it is early here in France thus excuse for the errors) my opinion is that the problem is not (too much) serious, makes Poly-propylene-film has tendency to melt slightly with heat, therefore the microphone-cells on the head pièzo are stopped ( only at a given temperature) there was deposit of adhesive (cellulose) therefore to pass a sponge on the head will change nothing!!! it is stuck! and with dust inside moreover!
As regards my print head on my 9900 it arrived, I assemble it tomorrow, but ...... I did not find the source real of the breakdown! so......
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So what do you suggest? Is there a way to get it unstuck or do you think I will need a new head? Do you think I should try Eric's soaking method?
thanks
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epson9910/7910/7710/9710 报错 1A39 Head error （打印头错误）
最近有客户epson 9910/ 7910 经常会出现 报错 1A39（打印头电压过高）
分析：1.打印头缆线是四根 如果没有插进过测试 会报1A39，请拆好所有缆线
2.如果自己私自拆下来过打印头 用水或酒精 冲过打印头 可能打印头主板 短路了
3.打印头在大量清洗中途，突然断电 又可能烧坏打印头电路
解决方法：
测试：找个可以出墨水的旧打印头，装上看，如果可以进入正常模式 进行打印头清洗 和打印测试页，测试出原打印头烧坏 依然报错可能是缆线短路
解决： 更换打印头 及缆线
Ok i'm gonna do a direct translation. i'm not gonna be responsible for the factual accuracy in the article.
Possibilities analysis:
1: there are 4 electrical connection points for the print head. if any one of them is not connected properly, it'll generate a 1A39 error message, so check all the connectors.
2: if you removed the print head yourself, and have used water or alcohol to clean the print head, you might have short circuited the main print head circuitboard.
3: there is a chance that during a SSCL or power clean cycle, there is a power outage, that may possibly destroy the print head's circuits.
Solution:
Try to connect another (older) print head and see if it works. if it does work, enter into cleaning cycle and do a normal print. from there you can determine if you'd need to change a new print head or whichever connector / circuits.
hope that helps.
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Hoooo................. yes thanks, think i understand my prob !!! and i'll will get a power regulation system! that a power outage ! capisto ! compris ! understood !!! merci ! gracia mille ! thks
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First Things First !!!
Especially Eric and all those who have contributed to this post
A BIG THANKS !!!!!
It was a great learning for maintaining 7900 with immensely valuable inputs.
Certainly gives us the confidence to maintain and use the machines.
Regards
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So what do you suggest? Is there a way to get it unstuck or do you think I will need a new head? Do you think I should try Eric's soaking method?
thanks
Sorry I just got this, sometimes my thread updates end up in the toilet (spam folder).
First don't freak out I doubt soaking your head has hurt anything. Remember, my genius buddy and I put our head through a very intricate maze of water based/chemical based/Simple Green based cleaning procedures, some of which involved soaking for 24hrs, others which involved sucking fluid through the head in reverse, etc - none of which helped or harmed our head in any way at all. Both the clogs and the clear nozzles remained as they were. The trip to Canada completely crushed our head but whatever, we had already written it off before shipping it.
HAL suggested to me this special fluid which is rumored to be from Epson themselves. I have it, but have not yet tried it.
Our race season is in full swing and quite surprisingly we are achieving results which suggest I am not only faster than I really am, but also less than half of my age, which has been rather inspiring. My free-time focus is distracted as a result.
So irresponsible, I'll get back to work soon I promise
(http://gotagteam.com/KTM_Days/images/racing_2012/afm_round-5_2012/NM1U4060.jpg)
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HAL suggested to me this special fluid which is rumored to be from Epson themselves. I have it, but have not yet tried it.
Where or how do we get this "special fluid" :)
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Oh also let me share that I call the epson people and the guy i spoke with gave me the number of the person to call to purchase a new head for my 9900. He also gave me the part number and said it was $1132.12. That was this past friday, August 17th. We called monday to order the part and they said that beginning August 2nd the head had gone up to $1299 :o
What's insane is I found a brand new 9900 from a company online that was selling the machine for $1500!
Anyway my head and wiper assembly is on the way! I cant wait to get it installed and running. I will keep you all informed :)
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LFPTECH (HAL) is your source for the cleaning fluids. You can email him directly or by doing a member search on this site. Either will get you the same address - lfptech@yahoo.com
I'd get on it if I were you. Supposedly the longer your head stays clogged, the longer it's going to stay clogged..
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Okay, I have a question. I know that in this thread you have discussed some things to do as PM or general up-keep.
Is there a list somewhere of all the things that you should be doing for or to your printer on a regular basis to keep it running well?
does that make sense lol?
thanks
b
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It's been quite a while now I've been considering creating a "Sticky" for the first page of this thread - maybe considering your request we should create two! One giving a power-points summary of key points in this thread, the other giving key maintenance tips.
Does anyone know who to contact about creating "stickys" on this forum? I'd be happy to do the summary.
As for your regular maintenance question bhuddleston, for sure I will only scratch the surface here - many others here are far more knowledgable than I am. But I'll give it a go for you;
Wiper Blade: check it, clean it, change it
Humidity: 40-60%
Print regularly: I have a test print of estimated swatches of each ink color that I run through our 7900 every 2-3 days, which helps keep it from clogging but it is NOT perfect. Like someone suggested when I initially posted the test print image here on Luminous Landscape, this image would be more effective if it were made from rip program which exclusively called for each channel to fire. My test image does not do this
Cleanings: inevitably, no matter how well you take care of your printer, you will have clogs to clear. I printed a perfect 24"X80" print Saturday night, which made me feel great about flushing our printhead of any old ink. Wrong. I had a clog to clear Sunday morning. What I CAN offer you is advice on "how" to clear routine clogs in your X900 printhead. Print a nozzle pattern, turn the machine off then restart it in serviceman mode, scroll down the serviceman cleaning menu until you get to specific channel pairings, select the lightest cleaning (#1) of that pairing and run it, restart printer in regular mode, print a nozzle pattern. It has been my experience that this method wastes the least amount of ink during cleanings. Someone, I can't remember who, suggested this method deep inside this actual thread. It works.
Ink Storage: I met this printer guru guy from San Francisco a while back. Supposedly printing is all he does. He's a genius in his own mind from what I can tell. Anyway I asked him about using Epson inks past their expiration date, which many people suggest is fine to do. I figured while I had him in front of me I'd ask him too. He said, and I quote, "Store them in the refrigerator. Not an issue."
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Thanks Eric for the list of tips. This helps out alot. I do think it would be wonder to start a list as you suggested. I know it would be very beneficial to people other than just me :)
I need to get a gauge that tells me the temp and humidity level for the room my printer is in. Most of the time it stays at about 68 degrees or so.
Also do you suggest turning off the auto clean option?
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Yes I have mine off, and I know many others do as well. It puts more responsibility on you, which is a decision only you should make, but it opens up the opportunity to save you a lot of ink
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Hi All,
Thanks for the informative blog generated by loads of pain. It is quite overwhelming.
I am recently the victim of a 7900 printer nozzle clog after returning home from a 2 wk vacation. I kept the cost of the vacation to a minimum, driving to New Orleans from South Florida with a buddy sharing expenses. After I arrived home I realized I should have purchased travel insurance for my 7900 printer. My printer is coming up on 2 yrs old and has had very little use, most of it being cleaning cycles and nozzle prints. There has been perhaps 15-20 prints made due to my introduction to digital photography learning curve. I always check the print nozzles and do cleanings as needed. I've contacted Epson supported and although they are very kind they offer no solutions, liquid or otherwise, only the services of overpriced Delusion 1. When I found out the likely cost from Delusion 1, I nearly went into cardiac arrest. Epson has added insult to injury by not allowing me to purchase parts and not giving me access to the Servprog software. I'm willing to fix it myself and am also capable.
I'm very angry with and disappointed in Epson. When I read the brochure about the print quality, I don't recall any warnings about having to be a commercial user or the printer will fail you warning. This is a problem with the printer design and they should fix these without cost as this shouldn't be happening, period.
Does anyone know where I can get parts or the servprog.exe software?
Thanks
Bob D.
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Bob. Sorry about your troubles. Listen I have no idea where you can get the software and I can't offer you any advice about your 7900. But I did just stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so maybe you should email me - gogo at gotagteam.com
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Bob,
If you have a stubborn "clog" (it could also be a LACK of ink), doing standard cleanings probably won't help you. the x900 series printers DON'T fire the nozzles during the cleaning processes. The cap station covers the head and SUCKS ink out ... several ml's each time. You may need to do a piezo-clean which is only accessible through the service mode.
No idea about the amount of ink used, but this "super-strong" cleaning does fire the nozzles. I've not had to do this myself.
Disclaimer: The following is given for informational purposes only. Entering the Service/Maintenance Modes is not looked upon with grace by Epson. Perform at your own risk. YOU CAN FUBAR your printer in here:
Enter Maintenance Mode 1: Press and hold the Pause button and turn on the Printer.
Arrow down to "SS Cleaning" and press the right arrow.
Press "OK" to Execute.
Definition of SS Cleaning:
SS Cleaning has a strong ultra sonic component. The Piezo Elements internal to the Print Head are used to attempt
to break up pigment particles that may be clogging the interior of the Print Head.
Use SS Cleaning when a Nozzle can not be cleared through normal cleaning.
Note that there is no paired cleaning available with this mode. I think it's much like doing a power clean on the older 9880/9800/4000 series printers.
Also, it's a good idea to do a normal image print between cleaning cycles.
Good luck. I hope this helps!
-chadd
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Thanks Chadd.
I tried the SS cleaning with no success. I'm going to try printing a large area of Cyan (the clogged nozzle). Once again I had a conversation with Epson support regarding my problem to give them another chance to help. There are very pleasant but no help. They say I have a faulty print head. I explained I don't agree. Why did it work before my vacation and fail immediately after. I told them it is a design problem that is Epson's fault and they should develop a work around or replace the head for free. They also said I should buy an extended warranty which I can't now because it isn't working. The extended warranty is very expensive anyway but if I'd have known how problematic this printer was I certainly would have. They will sale me a print head for about $1130 but not allow me to use servprog.exe to align the heads. No point in that. Also, I mentioned I wasn't alone and told of the many problems listed on the luminous-landscape blog. I'm sure they know of it already. I suggested because of the expense of the repair likely reaching 3/4 the purchase price, selling the printer for parts and buying a new one made sense than a repair. They agree. The problem with that I is I wouldn't get much for my barely used printer and the probability of getting the same problem again is high. No matter how you slice it you lose. I haven't given up appealing to Epson's better judgement by writing them.
Bob
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Eric, thanks for the sympathies and commercial humor. I can use all the laughter I can find.
Bob
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Sad these days when something that has some design flaws and costs people more money is tolerated. I have been with Epson for years but myself and a devoted Epson friend are thinking of waving Epson goodby. My 7800 was like the old trusty pickup with no problems...my 7900 is alittle more touchy. If I have any head problems it will probably be my last Epson printer I will own. Many people will jump ship I think if Epson leaves them holding the bag. See why class action lawsuits happen. Maybe a collective, signed letter to the upper corporate ranks expressing our concerns and disappointment with the head clogging 900 series printers is in order....BUT doubt it would help since they seem to be deaf to any reimbursement for the "dead heads" Sad. Sad. "Hello HP.... Canon... I would like to order....."
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Eric, thanks for the sympathies and commercial humor. I can use all the laughter I can find.
Bob
I was serious about emailing me Bob. Buy the head, we'll get it going.
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Hi Eric,
Oh Sorry. Thought you were joking because of the hotel comment. Thanks so much. I'll email you. Don't I need some software to calibrate/align the heads?
Incidentally, when I complained about the ridiculous cost of repair, Epson gave me the name of a nearby repair facility that might be less expensive named Byte computer. Just spoke with them and think they are slightly less expensive ($125 to come out and analyze and/or a flat rate of $350 for repair plus the cost of the heads some $1220).
Anyway, I will email you.
Bob
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If you are comfortable working on your own machine, which it sounds like you are, you need not pay anybody to get your new head installed and printing like it's designed to. Email me and I will help get you and your machine up and running again.
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So add another one. I have a barely used, but 2 year old epson 9900 that has had the middle 2/3rds of the cyan nozzle stop working in the last month. I've tried all the "light duty" stuff, nozzle cleanings, spraying hundreds of $$ of ink into the maintenance cartridge, etc. I finally broke down and pulled the head out today to see if there is anything I can do with it. Looking at it under a microscope was not revealing. The good news is that getting the head out isn't all that challenging if you can turn a screwdriver. I'm gonna try a few things to save this head, i figure it's probably a total loss anyways. After that it's either try and source a new head, and the software to "rank" it, or buy a canon. Grrrh. Honestly, if they would have told me that there was maintenance I needed to be doing, I would have been doing it.
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Contact LFPTECH on this forum, quick. You may have the best shot yet at fixing your head. Ask him for his cleaning solution, he's got two - one clean and one red. Try the clear first if you have the patience. If not go straight for the red. I have yet to try it. From what he says it's best if your clog is not so old. So maybe you have a chance still. I'd give it a shot if I were you, since you have nothing to lose at this point.
Yes, the heads come out easy. Just be sure not to take the wrong screws out and loosen the carrier for the head as well as the head. Tough to do if you're paying attention, easy to do if you just start unscrewing everything you see. If you do unscrew the carrier it would mean complete manual head alignment. I don't even want to think about that..
I'm sure you didn't do this, I'm just bringing it up for anyone else considering the operation.
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Eric,
Thanks again. Will do tomorrow first chance I get.
Bob
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I don't want to hijack Eric's thread (like it was even possible by now) but there's is a lot of good and smart people here so maybe someone will be able to help.
Original thread is here http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=70144.0 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=70144.0)
Basically my problem is banding caused by this:
(http://i.imgur.com/jGkBG.jpg)
Tried all kinds of cleaning, head adjusting, paper feed adjusting and nothing seems to help. Anyone got any ideas other than damaged head?
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So I managed to make mine worse. I'm getting an actual error code now. Honestly, I'm not surprised based on what I could see happening. I wasn't really all that aggressive with the head either when I took it out. So my dilemma is this. I see that I can get a canon ipf8300 for about 2600 bucks right now, vs 1200-1600 for a print head, assorted other parts I may need, and my time to replace it. And there is no guarantee that I will get it right, and I can't send any parts back if they don't work or I have problems. So it's 1500ish bucks and I will probably have a working printer vs 2600 bucks and I get a brand new printer.
One thing that I occasionally do with my epson is print labels for bottles of acetone and methanol. Much to my surprise, the epson ink appears to be completely impervious to either of those chemicals once dry. I wonder if canon's ink is the same way? It's kind of why I think cleaning with things like, soap, water, ammonia, name your solvent here ____ are pretty useless. I'm certainly no chemist, but the ink almost seems to catalyze, kind of like a 2 part paint..
Either way, there is some debate in our office as to whether we fix this, or just bail out now and get a different printer, that is a little more resilient to sitting around. Our shop is a small business that does stuff completely unrelated to high end color printing. We are all photo nuts, and our excuse to buy it was to print large technical drawings. The ability to do awesome color photo printing was a bonus, and I wasn't concerned about the 9900 being slower versus their other models that basically double up the colors with the same heads.
If I had any idea the result of intermittent use was a ruined print head, or if epson had spelled out regular maintenance to be done, I certainly would have done it. I would have least had a print job that exercised all the nozzles set to print once a day. Anyhow, I'm pretty disappointed in epson..
Anyone that owns a large format canon care to dump some methanol on a print? Lol....
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Eric
THANKS FOR ALL THE WORK FOR ALL OF US !
Wanted to contact you a bit earlier but decided to read complete thread with videos first.i am glad that i did
I came across your project by accident...i have a couple of 7800's which needed repair to their cartridge chip sensors and that went ok...cost 19€ instead of 230$ plus labour by doing myself....ended up pulling out the cleaner blade with a bamboo skewer rather effortlessly despite Epson telling me not to touch it...next minute,i am looking at your 9900 blade which you described eloquently as tiny and i cannot believe that it is servicing a newer printer than mine...it is not a blade but a recipe for disaster as you outlined later in your thread...Epson wanted to be able to blade clean individual channels rather that 8 or 10 channels in one move ..what do they do next...they invent multiple rubber head gaskets on the park station rather that the bigger single gasket that is on my 7800...so we now have 8 seals that can go wrong rather than one and now serviced by a tiny blade more suited to keeping one seal serviced and not 8 or 10 seals..oh..oh..trouble ahead..then i look at your gunk deposits all over the place and i think straight ahead where is that gung going ? I guess you found it for us and was that a thriller to follow....and then i asked myself where did the gung start....and back i head to the cartridge itself for an explanation and its very simple....your problem would never have been a problem had you been able to do your 24" prints from the cart itself....put your Piezo head on top of your cart head and print away...carts can be stored in fridges and last for years they tell us and they are right...the problem starts when we move out of the cart towards paper...
Yes we sure need pigment(k3) to be able to see our lovely photographs and we sure need resin to stick our photos on the wall...and Epson tell us that we need glycerol (surfactant ) to make the pigment and resin be sociable to one another whilst they live together in the cart...ok ? But..but..the one thing we dont need until the last minute is enemy no 1 AIR...but i hear you say we dont get air in the cartridge or the printer ...patience! Wait six months please and lets increase the number of rubber seals from 1 to say 10...now lets invent a blade that is hard to get at to clean ...with a bit of luck some of the resin muck will stick and harden to make a tool like say a chisel...now add some pigment mess and paper dust and wait....we should be lucky with one or two efforts to break a rubber seal somewhere and attack the real prize...the piezo head itself ....sound familiar..now whose really making money? Its not intentional i will readily agree...just bad and overambitious design...
Epson need to offer us a printing device where users are able to clean away with ease and DAILY their resin deposits from a quality blade....dont buy from them until you can see that they have invented a printer where the user knows and sees that there is no resin threats in the system..new or second hand....it has to go wrong otherwise
I live with and without Epson..i go for their inks and cleaning solution...when i dont print (which is often ) i shake my printers on their castor wheel base..very gently and lovingly..they like it.. ....several times a day...that puts manners on the pigment side of the family in the cartridge and printer system..i dont get drop outs !in fairness to Epson they have given me msds on all their inks and cleaner solution and have sold me their cleaner solution as well....they will HAVE TO produce a printer that is RESIN PROOF....btw when i hear guys talking about dehumidifiers i think to myself PATIENCE...theres air somewhere..we just need a bit of time..go get the resin...and a dolop of pigment for good measure..THANKS ERIC AND EVERYBODY ELSE AND ITS GREAT TO SEE The SITE GOT RID OF THE CYBER BULLIES WITH THEIR CYBER EGOS...
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Sorry to have missed your post until now Blue moon. You make good points and I love your humor. I am glad all of this work has helped you - great community here.
It's true I have been quiet, but I have also been thinking. I have identified what I think is our greatest enemy considering X900 printhead clogs.
...TIME
Not the time you have owned yours, or hope to own yours, without experiencing the unclear-able clogs from hell. That time has no bearing. And it's not the amount of time that's passed since your last clog. That doesn't matter either. What time does then? It's the amount of time that passes from the moment your clog forms, to the moment you get to clearing it. THAT is the ever critical "time" that we are all up against owning X900 printers. Get to your clog soon enough and you're fine. Wait too long and you are thoroughly,entirely, screwed.
I don't go out on a limb waving flags of caution often, but I'll do it now. If you print multiple times per week you're likely in the best shape of all considering clog management. But if you don't print multiple times per week, you've GOT to get yourself into the habit of routine maintenance. Run some nonsense print through your machine on plain paper at least twice a week. Better would be three times a week. And once a week, please, run a nozzle check pattern. If you find a clog, clear it right then.
Think of your printer like it's a dog. Maybe a really lazy dog. One you have to walk, and to feed, just not every single day. Maybe every third day. I believe doing this will keep you and your X900 happy.
(http://www.art247.com/images/large/MIRRORPIX/WA/WA2311362.jpg)
I believe the best thing anyone could do for all of our X900 users is to create an image that runs each channel individually, specifically, just like a nozzle check pattern does. Only have it print an area large enough to flush the most vulnerable ink sitting right out there in the printhead face. If we ran a print like that twice a week I'll bet clogs could be a thing of the past for all of us.
HAL suggested this a while back. I created a print for everyone to download here but it does not access each channel accurate enough. It does not purge all of the nozzles on all of the channels. I had been running this print that I made through my machine twice a week for a couple of months of no "real" printing and never saw banding or any other problems. Then one day I organized my short stack of routine plain paper cleaning prints and noticed a color shift in some of the prints when I compared the first to the most recent. I did a nozzle check and sure enough I had clogs all over the place. Scared the crap out of me. All of the clogs cleared with ease, thank the lord, but the point was made - I need a new system.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_routine_print.jpg)
So at this point I am putting out a request. For sure this forum is populated with far greater/wiser/more experienced/more connected X900 users than me. So maybe one of you can step up and flex your network, maybe put some requests out for the development of a routine maintenance doc we can regularly run. In an awesomely optimistic world it would be great if Epson themselves could work something like this into a firmwear upgrade. Perhaps a setting for while you're away - maybe call it "Holiday Mode". Put some cheap roll paper in the machine, set it to Holiday Mode, then fly to Aruba with your girl (or guy) and not a worry to be had. Twice a week the X900 fires an inch or two of ink across the sheet then advances to the next inch in a few days. You come home three weeks later to twenty inches of home made Christmas wrapping paper hanging out the face of your printer, and you have no clogs.
I have been contacted several times behind the scenes of this site by now - no I am not joining any class action lawsuits against Epson. Not my style. But I WILL say this...
...It would sure be nice if Epson gave us a "Holiday Mode".
.
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So at this point I am putting out a request. For sure this forum is populated with far greater/wiser/more experienced/more connected X900 users than me. So maybe one of you can step up and flex your network, maybe put some requests out for the development of a routine maintenance doc we can regularly run. In an awesomely optimistic world it would be great if Epson themselves could work something like this into a firmwear upgrade. Perhaps a setting for while you're away - maybe call it "Holiday Mode". Put some cheap roll paper in the machine, set it to Holiday Mode, then fly to Aruba with your girl (or guy) and not a worry to be had. Twice a week the X900 fires an inch or two of ink across the sheet then advances to the next inch in a few days. You come home three weeks later to twenty inches of home made Christmas wrapping paper hanging out the face of your printer, and you have no clogs.
.
On the 6 channel wide format Epson models that I used in the past I actually had a small strip with CcMmYK lines running over the entire length of the rolls next to the actual prints. Sometimes you had images where at the end of the image a certain color was needed that was not used at the start and the nozzles were clogged before it reached that point. It was a surprise to see that on the HP Z3100 calibration target similar lines are used and on the profiling targets wider bands at the beginning. The lines and patch colors addressing the 12 channels directly of course. With QTR you can address the Epson printer channels directly too so if something has to be automated it could be QTR for that purpose.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
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Thank you Ernst. You're a wealth unrivaled perspective. Please remember I'm a carpenter, what the hell is QTR?
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Thanks to Eric we know a bit more about how to look after our Epson printers particularly the infamous wiper blade....for any of our diy painting enthusiasts the one word that is forbidden to think about or worse still mention is the word resin....we specialist varnish experts know that we have thrown away more varnish paint brushes than we have had hot dinners ...it wasn't our fault..it was the bloody resin in the varnish that got hard ...get a new brush (and a 9000)and be done with it says the wife every time!
WHAT DOES EPSON PUT IN ITS INKS FOR CLEANING THE GADGETRY IN THE PRINTER ? Not resin surely ? That would be stupid now wouldnt it ...we painters know that dont we....?we always ask for white spirit (thinner for the more enlightened of you ) at the hardware store to combat our varnish clogs...we would be laughed out of the store if we asked your man behind the counter for something like epson ink (with resin please) to clean our paint brushes...dont you agree ?do you ?
What did you use the last time you did your tried and trusted nozzle check...? Surely to god you didnt use the epson ink with the fancy resin(10%) included to clear the block in the head..sounds just like a drug addict using heroin to get rid of his drug problem doesn't it ?
Well OK.....you did as you were told by Epson ((clever blokes and girls ...THEM NOT YOU...)and after your nozzle check you went ahead ...took off the side-case...wiped the wiper blade clean of its little resin with white spirit....like they told you in the hardware store...swiped the underhead and the pad station of any resin snot that you could lay your greasy rag on ...and stopped doing nozzle checks altogether until your next print didnt you ?did you ...? You didnt....WELL YOU SHOULD.......
EVERY TIME you do a nozzle check you are moving resin from the ink cartridge on to the wiper brush to bake-harden with air before eventually moving back into the Piezo Head itself where it is very comfortable and where you are very uncomfortable...right ?
My last print was in April....for the last 6 weeks the best i could manage was two blocked nozzles ( it was democratic.at least..one cyan ...one magenta). They werent blocked nozzles...they were just two single nozzle blocks ...in the head itself...readied in one rerun...thats not a lot of blocking is it ?and i have been doing the bloody nozzle checks every 5 days as Mr Epson told me ...SHAME..SHAME ON ME ...AND i have not had the case off to do my hardware store bit yet ...i have Epson glycol cleaning solution coming this week so i can put away the white spirit from your man behind the counter...I ALSO LAID MY PAWS ON FANCY LINT FREE HANKIES FOR WIPING OFF THE UNDERCARRIAGE RESIN SNOT.TOO...POSH EH....THE SYRINGES ARE MORE DIFFICULT AS I MENTIONED EARLIER THE ALALOGY OF THE HEROIN SITUATION AND I LIVE IN A SMALL VILLAGE WITH A SMALL PHARMACIST WHO IS SUSPICIOUS OF MY PURPOSE...MORON
maybe i can use epsons cleaning solution rather than Epson ink to clean my varnish brush ?what do you think lads and lassies ?
SO.......... :-)
YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU (if you )
Are a heavy user.........(of ink stupid)
Rarely use the bloody thing
Have wheels on your printer...
Dont have wheels..prefer your printer to walk instead
Love pigment
Hate pigment ...would die for the dye..
Love screwdrivers
Hate screwdrivers...get himself or herself to do it instead
Live in the tropics
Prefer Iceland
Able to use a pen
Prefer a pencil
JOIN UP TODAY
We can have another gospel according to BLUE Moon (im blue in the face too )for those light users ..(abusers...whats the difference !) who rarely print in these tough times....who shall be known as the SHAKERS in the family...put more succintly...the ANTI -PIGMENT MOVEMENT...thats if we get theRESIN MOVEMENT sticking to its goal to be mean to Mr.Epson first
THIS IS ERICS THREAD.......3 cheers for Eric !!!
Eric do we start a new thread or go for the Guinness book of records.....
Its entirely up to you my man.....and of course the rest of you if you want to fight for your country....
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Blue moon you are cracked, but I like it. And this is not my thread, it's our thread.
It's funny how the more I learn in life, the more ignorant I realize I am. I used to think I was a decent writer until half the people I begged to read came back at me asking wtf I just said.
...so I ask you Blue moon, are you saying you wipe your x900 head with mineral spirits and as a result rarely if ever have clogs? I do get your point I think, about clearing clogs with the same fluid that caused the clogs being somewhat ridiculous. But I can't quite tell if you are an x900 daily printer, a sporadic printer, or a heroin addict. Clue me in, please, and while you're at it tell me how long you've been at this mineral spirits trick.
On a side note guess who I met today, thanks to this very thread.. Ken Doo. Turns out he lives an hour and change away. I got to see his studio, and his work. Massively impressive. Makes me want to curl up in the corner of my studio and drink mineral spirits all night. I've got such a long way to go...
Nice work Ken.
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Please remember I'm a carpenter, what the hell is QTR?
QuadTone Rip, supports the x900 models too now and with the linearisation tools/targets/driver you can address the ink channels individually and drive them at 100% when needed.
http://www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRoverview.html
Maybe Roy can be persuaded to add that auto-print function to the program.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
400+ inkjet paper white spectral plots, October 2012:
Extended: Ilford-Innova-Hahnemühle-Pictorico,
NEW added: Tetenal-Mitsubishi, NEW halfway: Kodak-Bonjet,
NEW to do: Permajet-FelixSchoeller-Sihl
Would like to get samples: InkPress-JonCone
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Thanks, Eric. It was great to meet you as well. And now with an introduction into printing K7 piezography, you might get that QTR introduction as well! And maybe Harvey Head Cleaner too....
:) ken
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Thank you Ernst, thank you Ken. I have sent an email to QTR proposing such a rip. I even suggested it's name be "Holiday Mode". What the hell, keep the humor rolling. I will of course post with any response I get.
Printers crossed...
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Eric
Your a sport..and a gentleman for letting me contribute...
My real point is couched in jest..i do not use ammonium/isopropyl or simply green ....or white spirit etc etc anywhere near the piezo head...they are rough spirits designed for something other than piezo magic heads..you know that better than myself..spirits dry out the parts..epson cleaning lubricant just walked in the door this minute...Epson use lubricants in their cleaning products...(i have been using the above spirits on my paint varnish brush with no spectacular success either )
My point is that epson inks and all pigment inks carry resin and pigment inside the ink cartridge ...these ingredients are happily separated by a softening lubricating liquid named glycerol...which keeps the resin and the pigment very happy at that stage in their dark air tight COOL comfortable cartridge...for possibly 5 years or more if you just dump it in your fridge...the marriage (-and the magic) happens when the resin and the pigment (which has to be nicely mixed please )are sucked into the piezo chamber..heated and spat out to dry on your lovely hahnemuhle photo rag paper...voila..the resin has found what it really needs....heat and ..air....so it can harden quickly and keep our precious pigment stuck to the paper and you have a durable beautiful print to your name...ok ?
Now what about the resin and pigment that never gets into your photograph...is left over as slop ?
What Mr.Epson then does is wipe the wet dripping piezo jets clean with his tiny miserable overworked little rubber brush thing and the cleaned ?piezo head goes back to bed in its airtight dark rubber air sealed park station ...for the moment...
what has not been generally realised i think ,is that the rubber wiper brush has been made much smaller than heretofore and is now asked to clean 8 to 10 dripping sections on the piezo head before it gets to the park station...also the 8 to 10 rubber seals have got to cause trouble in TIME ..just too many of them..
EPSON ARE YOU LISTENING....YOU HAVE GOOFED BIG TIME ...SLOW DOWN AND GO BACK TO THE SIMPLER EARLIER DESIGNS.....LESS RUBBER SEALS TO KEEP AIRTIGHT.....BIGGER STRONGER Rubber BRUSHES TO CLEAN THE PIEZO HEAD WITH....not a big ask is it ?
What does Mr Epson then do with the collected resin on the wiper brush...you guessed it....absolutely nothing...on the 7800 ...the resin is left to drip on to a piece of white felt on the floor of the printer...does it all drip on to the floor ? Of course not....it stays on the wiper brush ...just in case the piezo head might pop around for a visit...can the brush be wiped clean before the piezo head calls around....nope...call a technician please....do not open the printer case or you will be in trouble....would you like a little glass door that you could open after each days printing to simply wipe the blade yourself.....HELLO EPSON..too too simple is that idea..i think that a small glass door to let the customer clean the wiper blade would mean that Epson would not need to go complicated with their new cleaning techniques..(i am leaving the side case off my printer altogether so i can clean the blade ,pad and piezo UNDERHEAD every time i print.. ) for another day...Eric..will we cut out a bit out of the cover with a hacksaw ?
I know for a fact that Epson large format resin printers for shirt and sweater logo prints do have a sliding top case section so that it can be slid off every night to clean out residual resin debris...now why are our machines not that user friendly ?
For heavy printer users (pigment will probably never get a chance to clot ) its about getting at the dirty resin blade every day...and the other bits too.not a big deal....
For light users its also about cleaning the blade after each occasional days printing and shaking the cartridge every day in the meantime to keep the pigment from going into lumps and blocking the even finer piezo nozzles that the 7900 has...ok? NOZZLE CHECKS ARE NOT ONLY UNNECESSARY BUT ALSO TROUBLEMAKERS.....
There is no logical reason why ink in a printer should behave different to ink in a cartridge if your seals are good, you clean the resin slop and you gently SHAKE your printer frequently.....is there ?you could put the printer in the fridge to get the 5 years free of clogs...only joking
Eric you mentioned TIME as the key....and it is......pigment needs time to clot which it gets if you dont shake the cartridge...resin needs time to harden which it gets if you dont clean the wiper blade !even regular users have no guarantee that their open to the air wiper blade will not harden with slop resin....no matter how much you print...
I am breaking the NOZZLE HEAD CLEANING CYCLE BY CLEANING MY BLADE AFTER EACH PRINT (haven't printed for 6 months )AND SHAKING MY PRINTER WHEELS EACH DAY THAT I DONT PRINT.....I DO NOT SHAKE THE CARTRIDGE ITSELF JUST THE PRINTER...make a set of castor wheels if you don't have a printer stand from Epson....
So far i am just using the " printer shake" technique which has got me down to a
Once every 6 day successful auto nozzle print...i know my wiper blade ,park seals and piezo underhead are resin dirty...(last print was 6months ago )i will be using small amounts of epson cleaning solution to keep everything soft clean and air tight and thats it...i want my printer to be as air tight as my cartridge...
I am looking for volunteers to try out improving their printers performance
By
# cleaning their printer after printing with Epson cleaning solution or whatever they think is better..
# reduce nozzle print checks as they increase the cleaning of the dirty (resin ) wiper blade...lets see if we improve ( or otherwise ) your printers reliability by using less nozzle checking....!!!and more wiper blade cleaning
# experiment with cartridges (gentle )shaking on their printer stand...please dont remove carts separately every day as you will likely smash up your cart sensor parts with disastrous consequences !
And if people want to do the opposite to the above GREAT.... lets record it and compare to the puritanical way....
Its a five day at a time test...we start doing nothing different for the first five days....just recored what our printers are like right now..ill give you the guidelines if you want to join..
Anyway,wont go any further unless some of us are interested
REMEMBER..
EPSON INK IS BEST WHEN IT MAKES YOUR BEAUTIFUL PRINT...
EPSON INK IS NOT SO SMART WHEN IT WANTS TO CLEAN YOUR PRINTER AS WELL !!!
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I heard back from Roy of QTR this morning. He said we can access all nozzles on all channels with his software on our own but that he's not touching our X900 printhead clog problem with an eleven foot pole. "No way" were his exact words. So as far as creating, or getting someone else to create for us, a "Holiday Mode" - the search goes on.
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I heard back from Roy of QTR this morning. He said we can access all nozzles on all channels with his software on our own but that he's not touching our X900 printhead clog problem with an eleven foot pole. "No way" were his exact words. So as far as creating, or getting someone else to create for us, a "Holiday Mode" - the search goes on.
Well, for those of us using PC, Harvey Head Cleaner is probably the easiest and closest you can get to a "holiday mode" to schedule automated nozzle check patterns. No mac version yet, but might even be worthwhile to have an inexpensive pc laptop to run Harvey Head Cleaner when leaving your printer unattended for extended periods....
ken
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Well, for those of us using PC, Harvey Head Cleaner is probably the easiest and closest you can get to a "holiday mode" to schedule automated nozzle check patterns. No mac version yet, but might even be worthwhile to have an inexpensive pc laptop to run Harvey Head Cleaner when leaving your printer unattended for extended periods....
ken
The inexpensive PC laptop would need to be able to deal with the relevant version of the Epson driver, and then I wonder about the merits of leaving the printer on all the time one would be away and unable to attend to it.
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The inexpensive PC laptop would need to be able to deal with the relevant version of the Epson driver, and then I wonder about the merits of leaving the printer on all the time one would be away and unable to attend to it.
I don't know why, but for just a moment, I had visions of a Carol Burnett or Lucille Ball skit, running maintenance on an Epson with ink and paper spewing everywhere.... ;D
I haven't left my 9900 alone for great periods of time, but have left my K7 B&W 9800 unattended for long periods with a pc laptop running HHC with scheduled nozzle checks using cheap 10" roll lustre paper, and no issues... The 9800 has since found a new home with Erik. I wouldn't hesitate to use HHC on my 9900 and 9890 for extended periods or if out of the studio for more than a week.... Carol Burnett and I Love Lucy at the helm notwithstanding.
ken :)
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I heard back from Roy of QTR this morning. He said we can access all nozzles on all channels with his software on our own but that he's not touching our X900 printhead clog problem with an eleven foot pole.
I can see how to fire all channels expect green and orange using QTR calibration mode. Anyone knows how to access all channels with QTR?
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Here's a quote from Roy's email this morning. Hope it helps you cybis, so far this is all Greek to me:
"QTR happens to have a mode where you can address each ink separately
so that's probably what you want. The Ink Separation Page and Calibration Mode
at 100% will print 100% of the dots on paper. You can try this easily in QTR.
There are ramps 0,5,10,15, ... 95,100 -- the 100 will use all the jets if you
make the squares big enough."
Ken, I love Lucy, classic..
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I don't see how it is possible to fire the green and orange channel with QTR in calibration mode.
When printing an image in calibration mode, QTR uses the 8 bit binary value of the RGB file's red channel to decide which ink channel to fire.
| Ink | RGB | Binary |
| black | 127 | 01111111 |
| cyan | 191 | 10111111 |
| magenta | 223 | 11011111 |
| yellow | 239 | 11101111 |
| light cyan | 247 | 11110111 |
| light magenta | 251 | 11111011 |
| light black | 253 | 11111101 |
| light light black | 254 | 11111110 |
P.S. An RGB value of 0,0,0 (binary 0000000) totally fires all 8 channels at once and make an awful mess... don't ask me how I found out :o
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Hi Eric,
I didn't make it to try to clean the head. I was nursing it along every day when a few days ago the 7900 indicated a fatal error on initialization which the field service guide states means replace the dead head. Why it should go from one clogged nozzle to dead head I can't figure. Could it be a counter trigger I wonder?
Anyway, I ordered a new head and it's one it's way.
The adventure continues. I really just want to make prints, not deal with faulty equipment.
Thanks for you help.
Bob DeBellis
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Hi Blue Moon,
You sound like an engineer or chemist. There is a lot of good information in your post. Some of your ideas for maintenance should have been provided by Epson support. Epson doesn't support this product not nearly as it should. They've left us high and dried out. I want to make photographic prints, not spend my time navigating the mine field of their poor printer design. Anyway I greatly appreciate your's and Eric's input. We need a manual describing how to survive life with the Epson 900 series printers.
Thanks,
Bob DeBellis
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Ok, found a way to purge all nozzles for all ten inks with QTR. I posted the needed files and instructions here. (http://lucbusquin.com/content/purge-all-epson-x900-ink-channels)
Couldn't figure out how to do it in calibration mode, this method uses a curve in QTR to fire each channel at 100% for different grey values. The curve maps specific grey values to 100% ink in specific channels in the following manner:
| RGB value | Ink |
| 0 | none |
| 1-24 | black |
| 25-49 | cyan |
| 50-74 | magenta |
| 75-99 | yellow |
| 100-124 | light cyan |
| 125-149 | light magenta |
| 150-174 | light black |
| 175-199 | light light black |
| 200-224 | orange |
| 225-255 | green |
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awesome cybis, thanks for sharing your hard work. I plan to buy into this QTR situation tonight, for two reasons. Ken is one, you are the other. Thank you.
Bob, I am still waiting to hear back for answers on your error codes. Look at the bright side of having such an involved relationship with a high-maintenance chick, once you get past all the struggling you will be very happy again. Until you're not. And then you are.
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Ok, found a way to purge all nozzles for all ten inks with QTR. I posted the needed files and instructions here. (http://lucbusquin.com/content/purge-all-epson-x900-ink-channels)
Good work. Now find a way to let an OS task scheduler do the rest, firing up QTR etc. A roll of cheap paper on the printer. PC wake up on schedule is possible too.
Why a HP Z can keep its heads in condition with just the nozzles fired on schedule in the spittoon with a minimum of ink waste and an Epson not + more ink wasted remains a mystery. True it takes energy when kept on but you can not buy a lot of ink or paper for that loss.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
400+ inkjet paper white spectral plots, October 2012:
Extended: Ilford-Innova-Hahnemühle-Pictorico,
NEW added: Tetenal-Mitsubishi, NEW halfway: Kodak-Bonjet,
NEW to do: Permajet-FelixSchoeller-Sihl
Would like to get samples: InkPress-JonCone
-
Why a HP Z can keep its heads in condition with just the nozzles fired on schedule in the spittoon with a minimum of ink waste and an Epson not + more ink wasted remains a mystery.
Good question to put to Epson really. I wonder whether they could achieve this with a firmware update.
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Why a HP Z can keep its heads in condition with just the nozzles fired on schedule in the spittoon with a minimum of ink waste and an Epson not + more ink wasted remains a mystery. True it takes energy when kept on but you can not buy a lot of ink or paper for that loss.
It's a matter of different technology.
Piezoelectric printhead has long channel that provides ink to a nozzle, so there's a lot of place where air bubbles can gather, which leads to clogging - in thermal printhead the same channel is much, much shorter, so condensation of air bubbles is not such an issue.
Another problem is that piezoelectric membrane produces significally lower preasure while ejecting ink than heater in thermal nozzle.
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I'd love to see something like Harvey Head Cleaner or Eric's "Holiday Mode" incorporated as a firmware update.... I don't even mind leaving a cheap 10" roll of paper loaded...
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It's a matter of different technology.
Piezoelectric printhead has long channel that provides ink to a nozzle, so there's a lot of place where air bubbles can gather, which leads to clogging - in thermal printhead the same channel is much, much shorter, so condensation of air bubbles is not such an issue.
Another problem is that piezoelectric membrane produces significally lower preasure while ejecting ink than heater in thermal nozzle.
While these differences of technology may well be correctly stated, I don't see why they would frustrate the development of a piece of firmware that turns the printer on at scheduled intervals, triggers a nozzle check or test page, then shuts itself down again. When you think of it, manufacturers of domestic ovens have enabled absentee householders to roast food on this basis for many decades now. Admittedly, the mechanics of an Epson 7900 are more complex than a kitchen stove, but so are the abilities of our firmware designers.
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While these differences of technology may well be correctly stated, I don't see why they would frustrate the development of a piece of firmware that turns the printer on at scheduled intervals, triggers a nozzle check or test page, then shuts itself down again. When you think of it, manufacturers of domestic ovens have enabled absentee householders to roast food on this basis for many decades now. Admittedly, the mechanics of an Epson 7900 are more complex than a kitchen stove, but so are the abilities of our firmware designers.
Like Ernst said, HP (and Canon) wastes a minimum ink amount for maintenance - I suppose that (due to the above mentioned differences) piezoelectric print head would just require much more ink for such procedure, and/or it wouldn't be as effective as in case of thermal print heads.
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I suppose that (due to the above mentioned differences) piezoelectric print head would just require much more ink for such procedure, and/or it wouldn't be as effective as in case of thermal print heads.
I wouldn't make such a speculation - it's completely unsupported by facts. The amount of ink used in a nozzle check is VERY trivial, and by my calculations even a letter-sized print of a real photograph in an Epson 4900 uses about 0.57 ml for 6*9 inches of sheet coverage. The cost of that here in Toronto for example is about 30 Canadian cents including taxes. If I had to let the printer self-run 6 of those over a three week absence at a total cost of less than 2 dollars, it makes a hell of a lot of sense compared with the value of my time spent dealing with declogging the printer upon return.
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Ok, found a way to purge all nozzles for all ten inks with QTR. I posted the needed files and instructions here. (http://lucbusquin.com/content/purge-all-epson-x900-ink-channels)
The files in the above link couldn't be downloaded, hopefully it's fixed now. Sorry about that. Let me know if it's still not working.
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If I had to let the printer self-run 6 of those over a three week absence at a total cost of less than 2 dollars, it makes a hell of a lot of sense compared with the value of my time spent dealing with declogging the printer upon return.
...and you're under warranty Mark. Imagine this from the perspective of those who cannot buy into a warranty anymore? Using your calculations this preventive maintenance program would cost just under ten cents per day to run. That's $36.50 per year, compared to over $2,000 to replace the printhead. This is quite an affordable alternative to crossing your toes in the white sandy beaches of Aruba hoping your printer isn't dying over your margarita.
Think back - how many X900 users have chimed in on this thread reporting their troubles with clogs happening just after a stretch of inactivity...?
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I wouldn't make such a speculation - it's completely unsupported by facts. The amount of ink used in a nozzle check is VERY trivial, and by my calculations even a letter-sized print of a real photograph in an Epson 4900 uses about 0.57 ml for 6*9 inches of sheet coverage. The cost of that here in Toronto for example is about 30 Canadian cents including taxes. If I had to let the printer self-run 6 of those over a three week absence at a total cost of less than 2 dollars, it makes a hell of a lot of sense compared with the value of my time spent dealing with declogging the printer upon return.
Can't speak of x900 - but as a former SP7880 user I used to print nozzle checks every day, and the printer meanly kept clogging anyway (prefereably in the middle of 24x36" baryta printing). So at least in my case it wasn't usupported by facts.
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Can't speak of x900 - but as a former SP7880 user I used to print nozzle checks everyday, and the printer meanly kept clogging anyway (prefereably in the middle of 24x36" baryta printing) - so at least in my case it wasn't usupported by facts.
The statement unsupported by facts is this one:
"I suppose that (due to the above mentioned differences) piezoelectric print head would just require much more ink for such procedure, and/or it wouldn't be as effective as in case of thermal print heads."
The fact that you had a 7880 which clogged regardless of nozzle checks isn't relevant to the statement I'm questioning.
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Rolands, Mimakis and other solvent printers ALL with epson piezo heads have small cleaning cycles every few hours. So it is possible. And it is not ink consuming as you may think.
For example, my Roland wakes up every 12 hours from stanby, pump is cycling a few times sucking up a very small amount of ink, then returns to stanby. Guess what? No clogs for 2 weeks while hollydays, and i'm talking about ecosolvent ink, not waterbased ink like 9900.
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Hi Blue Moon,
You sound like an engineer or chemist. There is a lot of good information in your post. Some of your ideas for maintenance should have been provided by Epson support. Epson doesn't support this product not nearly as it should. They've left us high and dried out. I want to make photographic prints, not spend my time navigating the mine field of their poor printer design. Anyway I greatly appreciate your's and Eric's input. We need a manual describing how to survive life with the Epson 900 series printers.
Thanks,
Bob DeBellis
Bob
Thanks for your kind comments to Eric and myself! Appreciated..
My little experiment in now in its eight week...no block at all again for the last 6 days..(just 2 singular nozzles (1 c 1 m) weeks ago,blocked in the 7 week test.....just turned on the 7800 daily in the last 6 days ...i know you are all on 7900's but bear me out...there may be common factors between the two machines..also shook the printer (gently on its wheels) twice daily over the 6 days as well ..no blocks...with the machine on....NO PRINTING...Next stage is to extend my experiment to 7 days before next auto nozzle check...just turn ons and gentle shakes when on..i have not started with the simple cleaning of park pads rubber seals wiper blade and piezo underhead yet..it will happen guys....i have all the gear organised for lint free simple cleaning..with Epson's own solution...kitchen sponge cut up into cubes...sorry darling ....... later...i want to incorporate a cleaning routine so that i can reduce turn-ons and nozzle checks if the cleaning goes to plan..but i will definitely be rocking the printers daily for sure.for sure...
I am not a chemist or an engineer ! What is rather funny is that when Epson sets about cleaning a machine, it uses either Glycol and Glycerol or both ...depending on whether they are trying to clean pigment or dye machines...and we are asked to CLEAN BY nozzle checking daily with a product that contains RESIN...which as you know is INK ! ..some of you are focussing on (QTR ) unblocking individual channels by again using Epsons resin (ink) to target and"clean " specifically channel by channel ....in other words take more arsenic and you are going to get better ! Seriously it is funny ...does Epson take us for mugs or what ? Supposing that your brilliant qtr software adaptions were combined with a " FLOATING " designated ,pure ,Epson cleaning solution cartridge which is temporarily put into the place of the bad color cart....see the end....i am going to try it on my 7800's ....dont know about the 7900..i have all the epson parts now to try it...first things first ..
MY AMBITION IS TO USE JUST EPSON CLEANING SOLUTION TO do what Scott in AIS is doing for you guys and girls in the States with his daily drops of his clean solution on the park pad....but for me....NO NOZZLECHECKS...JUST CLEAN DAILY IF YOU PRINT DAILY..CLEAN IRREGULARLY IF YOU PRINT IRR......and of course go rock an roll (your printer stupid ) every day too.. I will probably end up eating my words but im on the way and im not going back now..and you might notice that i am turning on everyday..i have a clock timer to do that little exercise.but turn ons may disappear or reduce later depending on tests...
I also want to strip out out all the rubbish in the maintenance tank and replace it with an ice cube container sitting on a paper hankie...that way i can see exactly what ink is spat out as we do our nozzle dozzle daily purge routines called "nozzle checks".... funny thing is that an ordinary ice cube container fits perfectly into a maintenance..tank .and we can separate the spit pipe from the pad sump pipe to see what an Epson power clean looks like in real lost ink....anyone interested let me know and we can share it....you will want a resetter to reset the tank....
I live in the West of Ireland...have not seen an Epson service engineer in about 10 years..last may, my color printer collapsed with a broken cartridge chip sensor...my stupid fault..really....this was the first time that i opened a printer...i had to borrow a chip sensor from my other ( b/w dormant) printer which meant that i stripped both machines down to rock bottom..will send you photos if you are interested.....anyway.....it struck me why did Epson not put an extra ink line in ,which could be serviced by a portable cleaning solution cartridge and this extra ink line could be converted to become a solution line....right.....so if you have a blocked channel in the head ...you disconnect that channel's damper and plug in your new solution damper which hopefully you have connected first to your "spare " solution pipe line..which you have installed on the ink lines "motorway " with all the other ink lines. Not for the fainthearted,i will admit !
.you will not use any ink in this purging exercise....because you have taken out your bad ink cart and put in its place your Epson tailor-made solution cartridge....of course you need to be able to tie off your real ink line as you drip feed the head with your solution line...and reverse lines when you have finished...i will have to come up with improvisations as i need to convert some of the pipe joins into dead ends.to waterproof the pipeways....will anybody help me please to come up with ways to make pipe joins into dead ends...promise ill photograph if anyone interested !! ....it will be an experiment when the un-blocking experiment is over ...if ever...
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Eric
Gone over your thread a second time..im thinking that i need to make a book of it and put it on my ipad..! THANKS...
Can i please ask you to go back to your blade replacement for a minute....when you wisely replaced it did you also replace the felt (concrete by then ) blade cleaner block ?....it seems to be held down with 3 screws ?the earlier 7800 let the resin ink residues drop straight from the wiper blade (by gravity )straight to the felt on the floor of the printer so that particular resin never got to "shake hands " again with the wiper blade...a longer lasting blade and head is the result..i surmise....blade still not perfectly cleaned...just drained...
Now with your 9900 model,that does not happen....(am i right ?).the blade keeps going back and forward over this one piece of felt which i reckon takes 9 to 10 months (judging by some of your contributors )on a new machine to become dangerously metamorphed back to reisin brick...head damage is now closeby.....am i anyway near the mark ? I think that Epson have gone forward with the head specs and backwards with the cleaning procedures for their advanced heads....the felt pad i suspect to be the root cause of the resin problems anyway...it is,ithink, the means by which residual resins and pigments work their way back into the head...is there a procedure for cleaning and softening the felt pad ? Who would be offended if that felt pad were to be removed altogether ?
Epsons next printers will need to break the direct link and subsequent friction of rubber blade and resined felt and replace with some sort of solution bath or bay that the blade can clean itself in (or user does )before the blade goes back to cleaning the head again...the heads are becoming so sophisticated that i feel Epson will have to introduce their users to regular cleaning of blades and seals etc together with supplying the appropriate cleaning solutions too ...one master safety seal on the cap station might also be worthwhile to keep head fresh ..in case some of the smaller seals are breached...
Reminds me of restaurants....they use to throw their fat down the sink and let the city folk worry about the blocked drains later...now they have to collect and dispose of the fat residues at source....printer manufactures could do the same..
Swop your hound for a labrador and a scottish west highlander ...if you throw in the bike and the suit....you can keep the helmet...i have one for the bike (bicycle ) thats ok...
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Blue moon, the felt pad on the X900s is not a felt pad at all. It's more like concrete. Seriously, I'll take some macro shots tomorrow night (AAA came through on my robbery claim, time to be a photographer again. Yey!). I also have a 9800 here, thanks to Ken Doo, which I will be neck deep in shortly. I'll know more in time about the differences between the two machines.
For now, best I can say is the wiper blade is not the source of our main problem. As X900 printers the greatest challenge we face is ink drying just behind the face of the printhead. Simple as that. These nozzles are super tiny (that's about as technical as I get), so anything thicker than fluid ink in it's happiest state of flow, is a potential problem. Sure the wiper blade smudging splooge around the face of our printheads is not helping matters at all. And a worn out wiper blade is doing even worse for us than it is helping. But like I said, the wiper blade takes a back seat to the real challenge we face, which is drying ink.
I am leaving for NY Thursday. I'll be gone 12 days. Holy hell do I wish we had a Holiday Mode already...
(http://www.mindtechnology.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/afraidcartoon.jpg)
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Hi Eric,
Ha-Ha! I like your comment about the high maintenance chick. Yup, the 7900 sure is. She warnged me that if you I didn't take her on the trip with me to New Orleans, it's gonna cost a bundle for a gift for her when I get back. Ouch! It sure did cost mucho dinaro. Next time I'm dragging her with me in a U-Haul :)
You and Blue Moon should form a comedy writing team as there are some really funny exchanges between you guys on this blog. In fact you should reconsider renaming the blog "My funny life with the Epson 7900".
I've received the new printhead. Now reviewing your writings of your experiences and suggestions which I will interface with the other service manual instructions. Like the cowardly lion (Burt Lahr) in the Wizard Of Oz, what I'm missing is courage.
I appreciate your following up on the error code. If you hear anything please let me know.
Regarding your Thanksgiving trip, can you really afford to leave the turkey at home while you are gone?
All serious aside, this a problem.
Bob
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Bob
Maybe we could babysit Erics 7900 and the bike while he's in NY....(if he lets us play with the 7800 as well... Of course..) you know. ....while he's out o town like. I think he looks worried in his last post ! What do you think Bob ?he's lookin for help if you really want to know....actin tough like he's in control ...dont believe a word of it...seen these guys before Bob,.there all the same...coloured photos is all they throw at you ! The more worried they get the more color they throw at you...(cos the printers banjaxed and they have a lot of spare carts with no work for them to do right now ).see. Bob..dont let him fox you now Bob...they havent a clue whats wrong with their heads (printers heads i mean ) have they ? Do you agree with me now Bob?
Have you ever opened up a 7900 before.Bob ?...its a cinch im told.....no way Eric would know we were just ..just...no way...messin in the name of science...he's got all the numbers to put the head back on frontways.anyway..he can fix it back in no time..and look at all the experience for the two of us too......and bring your camera an a notebook an a pencil with you so we can snap as we go along to be sure..we could start our own facebook account as well...maybe ...if your happy about it that is..
He's gone for 10 days...gives us time to get it right somehow....we can always swop the parts from the 7800.if we run in to a spot of bother.....Eric will never know....and his block worries will be over .for good..the 7800 never blocks....just use coolored water for ink...flies perfect once you get used to the difference...spot of rust...thats all....nothin to write home about....they tell me
Bob...i guarantee you ....you and me are goin to be talent spotted by Mr Epson soon.....we think outside the 7900 box...which is what they need fairly badly right now..can you see it comin soon Bob....The New Epsonian 7111111111..(1BO). ....stands for one block only...stupids...
Guaranteed to block only once ....but we cant exactly say when that once is goin to be...OK ?were human after all dammit !
Serously....all that the others dont get is that Epson is owned by Gillette.....the next big hit has to be the disposable printer....keep the cartridges though......
Eric are you there?
While we are waiting for Eric to wake up...
Bob...old son...go ahead... you win ...
Alright....you can have the 900
Ill make do with the 800!( and the bit of a bike )
If you ask me ,your all a bunch of snobs
I'm rightly Disgruntled this minute ...but ill get my own back...dont you worry
Eric Eric...helloooo...are you there....Eric ? Wake up now....listen and learn from the old accomplished bikers who just cant afford the flash gear....thats all...are you there Eric ?
what was i just sayin ?
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I have one concern about holiday mode...
It will reduce the chance of a clog occuring - that's for sure. But what if one nasty clog happens just as we shut the door? Won't printing with clogged head make it even worse?
I'm not saying I'm against "holiday mode". If someone will make one I would definitely use it. Also I have seen printing big squares of single color help unclogging (although they may have been air bubbles). My question is what's the bigger risk - reducing the chance of clogging for the price of trying to push too much ink through clogged nozzle...
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Blue moon. You fell off the wagon again..
jack777, I experienced something in my early preventive maintenance practices which may shed some light on your thoughts above. Used to be I figured I was free and clear of clogs, as long as I ran my routine print with 1" squares of colors through the printer ever third day or so. Sometimes for weeks on end all I would print were these colored squares. They looked fine as they came out the bottom, one after another, every third day or so. I had short stacks of color swatches on my desk next to the 7900. No banding, no dropouts, consistent color throughout - life was good. ...or so I thought.
Then one day I organized my short stack of color swatches. Much to my shock I noticed a huge difference in colors between my first preventive maintenance prints and my last. Original greens were bright, by my latest greens were mud. Original LLK was fine how it printed, but the new light cyan was now also LLK. My original red swatch was bright as blood, but my latest red was dull and muddy. ...you're catching on by now right? I had tons of clogs and didn't even know it - I had been printing with clogs for weeks. My fillings almost fell out I was so scared my new head was dead. And crap, it's not like I'd been neglecting this 7900 - I thought I'd been taking good care of it!
Boy was I wrong.
Anyway after just one cleaning per channel in maintenance mode on the lightest setting all my clogs were gone. I am no scientist jack777, but from this experience I bet we run a far greater risk with no maintenance mode then with one.
Oh God I leave tomorrow morning.
the horror...
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I have been reading this thread for a few weeks now because I am also getting the LLK bad nozzle check pattern on my printer w/ banding in my prints. I decided to do the print head hovering above cleaning solution method and wanted to share my results for your feedback.
It seems like ink is not being pulled from the head as much as it was demonstrated early in this post. Seems like some ink did release for a few of the colors then it basically hung around at the head (wasn't pulled into the cleaning solution) and then "caked" onto the head into little ink chips. I left it over night to see if there would be any more to it.
Here are the pictures this morning after cleaning the ink that was extracted and stayed on the head and whats left in the water...
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9420.jpg)
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9418.jpg)
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9417.jpg)
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9416.jpg)
Also when you look at the other side of the head some of the openings appear to be blocked... is there a way to clear that blockage? You can see orange prominently but magenta and one of the blacks also appears to be have it.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9415.jpg)
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9414.jpg)
So main thing is, should I do more? I didn't see any of the black inks release from the head. mostly magenta, orange, yellow, green and some cyan.
All help/feedback is greatly appreciated!
Sid
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Hi, this is Scott from American Inkjet Systems (AIS) with some comments regarding 7900/9900/9890 printers. It is gratifying to read about the effort everyone has put forth in solving the problems with these new printers. We constantly receive calls and Emails from companies with issues and there is little time for us to follow all the groups. We own many Epson printers and among them a 9900. I also have many clients with of 9890’s and 9900’s. We upgraded our Website to www.americaninkjetsystems2.com which should be a lot easier to navigate. As you might know, we help and support our clients with all their Epson printers, whether they are using Epson ink or third party ink; so we’re able to acquire great deal of information about these printers and the way they perform under different conditions.
This new series of printer’s offer some attributes that have grabbed the interest of production studios, individuals, and enthusiasts, especially because of its speed as well as offering more color channels. While these printers offer great potential in the print business, there are several problems we see that are related to Epson’s pigment Ink and many pigment inks in general, especially where they are not in constant use. I thought I would give you our lab’s take on the problem and how to solve most of the clogging issues.
Most pigment inks, and of course Epson’s, are a combination of pigment and resin (liquid plastic) in a suspension. When the ink gets a chance to dry, it turns into a solid-like state. Ink is not a cleaner and not intended to dissolve a solid built up over time. When you perform a cleaning, you are trying to push the dried ink out clearing the nozzle. However, if ink starts drying inside the head forming more of a cluster over the nozzles, then it becomes more futile to expect choosing the nozzle cleaning command to be effective; that is where your efforts of soaking the head with a cleaner or running cleaning fluid into the head through the whole system will be more effective. The idea of the head being capped on the capping station pad is to prevent the head from drying out quickly. However, if the pad is not replenished with moisture, the pad will dry and therefore cause the head to dry and in turn form clogged nozzles. I call the dried ink on the capping station pads “Gunk.” One of the reasons that these nozzles clog more readily is because they are so fine. Not using the printer on a daily basis or having the printer in a dry atmosphere will speed up the drying process.
The remedy to this issue is quite simple. Simply place a lubricant cleaner on the pads as often as once a night depending on the dryness of your place. Ideal humidity as prescribed by printer manufacturers for the printer is 40% which is not ideal for media. Any cleaner that evaporates quickly, like Windex, is not effective for this operation. The cleaner needs to be able to break down resin, while at the same time reducing evaporation. The process for moving the head aside using the controls on the printer and placing the liquid on the capping station pads is about 2 minutes or less. This seems to me to be a no brainer. Our clients have used our cleaners from the time Roland and Mimaki printers first introduced pigment ink, about 12 years ago. Using the cleaner also prolongs the life of the capping station. It was suggested to me by an Epson technician, that the capping station should be replaced every 3 years.
Just to reiterate, you may feel upset that clogging did not appear as fast with previous Epson printers, like the 9800 series; however, sometimes with so called progress comes more challenges.
Our company is dedicated to solving problems and looking at all aspects of inkjet printing from an unrestricted position. In this case, we produce several cleaners for different purposes that you can read about on our new website: www.americaninkjetsystems2.com
If you are going to use a cleaning fluid made by any company for use of maintenance on the capping station, make sure it accomplishes what I described. The benefits are so great and the cost so little.
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Hi Scott,
While this thread is about Epson 7900 - and I shall remain relevant, I own a 4900, having previously owned a 3800 (and before that a 4800 and before that a 4000 and before that a 2000P) so I've been at this from the time Epson (the industry leader) started making archival inkjet printing available in a desktop solution. When you think of it, really amazing what kind of quality these machines deliver with such precision using a technology that in terms of print quality essentially matured within the first few years of its introduction in mid-2000. From the time the Ultrachrome inkset appeared later in 2002 it's been gradual improvement and refinement since then. Of all these printers I owned and operated, the 3800 was essentially trouble-free, as was the 2000P by the way. All the others have exhibited various degrees of clogging issues, the 4000 having been dreadful, the 4800 improved and the 4900 better yet, but not immune, which is what I am coming to here. The basic 4900 printhead technology is similar to the 7900/9900.
You make a point, which I have observed too, that the more frequently one prints the less the trouble with clogging. Up to this week I believed that. This week strange things started happening. Example One: My Yellow channel simply "dropped out" between two prints, having made half a dozsen just immediately before that. Example Two: Yesterday the PK channel dropped out and the Cyan channel showed very broken nozzle check patterns, again between prints after having made about half a dozen. In both cases this happened after the printer had done one of its auto nozzle checks and self-cleaning. I have now disabled auto nozzle checks and I hope that will also disable automatic cleanings (there is no user-control specifically aimed at enabling this), because the coincidence of these events suggests to me that I may have less trouble doing manual nozzle checks before each printing session (which I did anyhow) and clean as needed only. That, however, is speculative, and doesn't answer why the clogs are happening, where they occur (in front of the head or behind the nozzles), or indeed whether they are clogs at all, or ink simply not reaching the nozzles for other reasons (air. [pressure issues, etc]. The real cause of the problem of ink not reaching the paper needs to be properly understood before one can have *a priori* confidence in proposed solutions, unless of course one is out of warranty and prepared to go the trial-and-error approach. Nothing inherently wrong with that, and this is where your products and experience with them could be useful. But it would be nice to see Epson testing and recommending your cleaners.
I think it's important to recall that most equipment one buys has specifications that are the result of design compromises. For example, we get incredible detail from these printers, but the cost of that may be (and I'm speculating) those extremely small nozzles which could perhaps be part of the issue. Not being print-head designers or ink chemists we in fact don't really know what these design compromises may have been and what options the manufacturers could yet explore for resolving them. (I speak generally here, because the others aren't exempt from clogging issues either - they are handled differently.) I think the one remaining avenue of technological improvement for these printers is reliability in these respects, and for that we essentially depend on the manufacturers.
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Hi Mark,
No company wants to admit to design flaws and Epson is no exception to that rule. I have found over the years that misleading, not facing problems, ignoring customers, and even lying is the guarantee to doom. I see so many companies in the inkjet field aiming on maintaining ignorance in their customer base. People can handle the truth mainly if they feel you are going to do something about it and take them into consideration. We have Epson printers running with heads that are over 8 years old. If we were running a Canon, we would have had to have at least 16 heads replaced by this time. I do not understand why companies selling printers will not discuss maintenance. Does anyone believe the car they bought never needs an oil change or a tune up? Do we not wash our dishes, clean our floors, and wash our cloths? Is that not maintenance? If ink did not dry then it would not adhere to a substrate. So the issue is to prevent it from drying on the capping station.
Regarding Epson Printers:
The Original UltraChrome was Epson’s introduction to a rich pigment ink set, especially, the Magenta and Yellow, the two most difficult inks to produce in high pigment loading. We found people printing with that ink set in general to have few problems as long as the humidity was around 30%.
The next printer to come along from Epson, the 9800 using a new red-magenta also had great success. Companies like Mimaki and Roland realizing how good that head was built printers with that head running all kinds of ink with great success. The 9800 printer is my all-time favorite and I own 4 of them.
The 9980 although the head appears to look better, the forgiving nature of the 9800 diminished somewhat.
Then they introduced the new high speed high tech head to compete with HP, the 4900, 9900, 9890 and 9700 series and problems developed. These printers are highly sensitive to air pressure. You should run a pressure test to make sure your cartridges are receiving the proper pressure. We have a client with a 9900 which seems to constantly having the air pump running. We can’t find an air leak and have tried all new cartridges. Here is the funny part. It is the only 9900 that we have seen that has virtually no problems, not that every 9900 has problems. This one is as though it is powered by the Ever Ready Battery on steroids. It runs well all the time.
My 9900 had the ink bay replaced 3 weeks after I bought it, but it has been running well for over a year.
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Hi Mark,
No company wants to admit to design flaws and Epson is no exception to that rule. I have found over the years that misleading, not facing problems, ignoring customers, and even lying is the guarantee to doom. I see so many companies in the inkjet field aiming on maintaining ignorance in their customer base. People can handle the truth mainly if they feel you are going to do something about it and take them into consideration. We have Epson printers running with heads that are over 8 years old. If we were running a Canon, we would have had to have at least 16 heads replaced by this time. I do not understand why companies selling printers will not discuss maintenance.
Hi Scott, for clarity - let me be clear :-). I don't believe we are dealing with "design flaws". I think we are dealing with the evolution of technology in which choices are made to achieve this or that objective, and in doing so, something else may have to give. This is not unusual, and part of "progress". This is leading-edge nano-technology that is not only totally merchantable, but totally marvelous - we should not forget that. Nor do I believe in this instance that Epson is guilty of misleading, not facing problems, ignoring customers or lying. My experience has been that they do none of that; in fact they provide excellent support, especially to machines that are in warranty, but in various circumstances even thereafter, and they have always been amenable to go the extra mile, again depending on the circumstances. This is a company whose products I have always felt very confident and comfortable purchasing, regardless of the issues which do arise.
Your comment on the Canons is really interesting, and illustrates the point I was making at at the very end of my previous post, about how different technologies handle clogs differently.
As for discussing maintenance - they do: there is a whole section of the manual devoted to it. As usual, what they chose to discuss reflects what they feel safe to recommend as user-accessible maintenance. For legal, confidentiality and perhaps other reasons, manufacturers are normally very conservative about how far they will take users down the maintenance route. I don't fault them for that, as long as when trouble happens there is a sure and reasonable route to clearing it up. So far so good - my experience. As well, I'd add this is clearly an avenue where third-party service and materials providers can play a role in all those situations where voiding a warranty would not be a risk - unless the owner wants to take that risk. For example, I may well have voided the 3rd year of my AppleCare warranty on my MacBook Pro by pulling out the HD and the optical drive and self-installing two high capacity SSD drives from OWC using their superb instructions. The performance boost is unbelievable and it all works like a charm. Apple Computer would never in a million years have supported me doing this, and again, no blame - I can readily see why. A minor slip of the wrist and I could have snapped a very thin vital little wire connecting one of the drive bays to the motherboard. That's a risk beyond their control so they won't take it. Fundamental principle number one of risk allocation.
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Hi All
Just a summary of what i have already posted to date...hope it helps !
1. Pigment ink includes resins and pigments (thanks Scott ) which are intended to end their journey through the printer by landing on your print paper or to be safely disposed when in residue form. Not so ! the bad news is that residue resins and pigments can be recycled back to the inner micro piezo nozzles as follows:
A .print head to wiper blade
B .wiper blade to wiper blade cleaner
C. wiper blade cleaner back to wiper blade
D .wiper blade back to outer print head in a random manner.
E. outer print head back to micro piezo nozzles..no logic/order to the process either.
(Returning resins/pigments are aerated to speed up hardening process...its random).
2. Ink in the micro nozzles can be " attacked "by freshly coagulating pigments coming from above the print head ..coming down through the ink supply chain. If you don’t need orange or green colors try a 7890 maybe.. these (nozzles)may simply coagulate through ink under-use. llk can also coagulate if you don’t print b/w frequently... tip..vibrating the printer occasionally could help.
3. Snapshot of Epson 7800 residue ink disposal method included.
(http://)
note there is no wiper blade cleaner in the chain. Just a gutter to collect gravitational residues from the blade. Gutter then drops ink residues directly (without physical contact), on to a felt blanket on the printer floor. ( little surprise that Epson likes to keep this cleaning method secret . however its safer than the 7900 disposal method )
(http://)
4. Clues were offered by Hal when he told Eric that Epson withdrew green from the market to rejig it for coping with under-use when printing. (probably a readjustment by adding extra lubricant like glycerol..or water..who knows)
5. Mark…seem to recall that you had reservations about cleaning or replacing wiper blades earlier in the thread.so why not give Scott some praise for designing a lubricant system which up to now has been beyond the capacity of Epson to provide to its customers for the x900 models .
I will not be "upgrading " to x900 until Epson includes me in the printer maintenance role as a partner and radically improves disposal techniques for ink residues as well.
Thanks
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Epson does have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the inks that they use in Epson 7900/9900. They do give some information about the amount of pigment versus the amount of solvent used for each ink.
You can find the MSDS by googling: Epson 7900 MSDS
or you can use this link:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=119097&infoType=MSDS
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Epson does have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the inks that they use in Epson 7900/9900. They do give some information about the amount of pigment versus the amount of solvent used for each ink.
I wrote about this about a year ago on another thread. The problem in looking at the MSDS is that we really don't know what the proprietary organics are. Even if you look at a the patent literature you cannot find out anything. It's likely that they are the resins. That being said, water is the most prevalent molecule in all of the ink formulations and the concentrations of glycerols (including ethylene glycol which is similar in structure) can vary depending on the ink color. The actual coloring agents is relatively low in concentration.
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All very interesting, but what does it buy me in terms of knowing anything useful and reliable about outcomes?
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Hi MarK,
It seems we both have similar Mac Laptop with two SSD Drives. Yes, it is a fast computer and Apple does not accept you modifying your computer under warrantee.
I am glad you have had such good experiences, but there are numerous others that have not quite had the same response and those are the people who go on the web to look for help.
Of course, the development of new technology brings all sorts of issues, but it is the responsibility of the manufacturer who deals with the public to be responsive. This is especially in the case of heads dying in the LLK channel of the new series printers and the excessive clogging. A college in Virginia called us for help. Their 7900 has been developing clogging in the LLK Channel and they have followed everything Epson told them to do. They will need to change the head and the repair is about $1,800. The professor was in shock. Now he has to acquire funding for the printer and a 3 year warrantee.
In general, when a printer is sold, the salespeople do not advise the client that they should take on the extended warrantee because of the expense of parts. The 9900/9890/4900 head was I believe $1,100 and has just been increase in price by $100.00.That repair of that printer will cost on the average $1,800. I personally know of no salesperson who explains that the head will clog more readily in dry climates and it is advisable to make sure that the printer is kept in a climate of about 30 to 40 percent humidity and in a temperature around 70f. The only advise I recall them saying to some of my clients, it is a good idea to run the printer and not let it sit unused for long periods. There is one major sales chain that advices their clients to use our cleaner when there is a problem, not to prevent a problem.
Decision 1 is the repair operation for Epson who is used when a printer is under warrantee and in need of repair. Generally, they do a good job. It took some time for them to learn how to repair the 9900 series. It took them over 8 days to repair my printer having an ink bay electrical failure. The problem is for people who live in rural areas where it is difficult for them to get service.
Epson has made great printers and for the price I can only compliment them. Many of our clients complain that they always are fast to say get a tech even when the fix maybe simple. They do not want to allow you to repair your own printer when out of warrantee. They offer no repair guidance. They restrict their service manuals from being distributed. They do not allow you to buy a replacement head. They also restrict you from setting head ID codes. I can only imagine how any of us would react if our car manufacturer was to say, we do not allow you to repair your own car or go to the mechanic of your choice or even use the gas, oil, and lubricants of your choice as well.
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Hi Scott,
As you know, the heads of these printers are in the realm of nano-technology. Yes, you can put any grade of gasoline through many automobile engines. It's not comparable to an x900 printer. As for the service manuals, they consider those to be proprietary for reasons that should be obvious, available to certain people on a need-to-know basis and under strict NDA. They are within their rights to do that. They are also within their rights to determine user access to components - indeed, how much equipment is there on the market with a warning "there are no user-serviceable parts in this product" or some such. I'm not passing judgment on any of this, I'm simply pointing out that there is nothing unusual or untoward about it.
The extended warranty is a pure unquantifiable insurance risk, because we don't know two fundamental things determining the value of the risks: (a) their various probabilites of occurrence and (b) the costs of the consequences if any of them were to occur. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know for sure that if we bought the warranty and were fortunate enough to never draw on it we spent a lot of money, and if we didn't buy it and misfortune fell upon our printers we are in for a lot of money and "shoulda" bought it. Otherwise, we are none the wiser. And it is a fact of life that for these printers, the print head is essentially the printer, so if it goes, the recovery costs are high; but the probability of it going??? No-one is saying; however, no matter how low it may be, when it happens to one of us, the probability was 100% and the cost significant. Now, as a rational evaluator of risk, let us pretend for a moment (and this is pretend) they were to give me information showing that the risk of head failure is very low, likely on the basis that only a small fraction of all those sold have ever totally failed. On that basis, given the high cost of the extended warranty I would probably decline it. And that may well have been a rational economic decision based on solid principles of risk evaluation; but then two months out of warranty my head fails. So I'm s.o.l. and it sucks. I don't know what else one can really say, unfortunate as these situations are. All we can do is try to manage the risk as best we can with the means available, and hope the basic quality is in the product to serve us well. And yes, people turn to web forums with their problems, much less so with their successes, so it is not likely the most objective source of reliable guidance on overall, "expected" (in a statistical sense) product performance.
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This thread is starting to repeat itself. And you have to ask yourself why Epson problems feature many times more often than HP or Canon. Easy to say "there's more Epsons out there," but I wonder whether that's the full story.
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This thread is starting to repeat itself. And you have to ask yourself why Epson problems feature many times more often than HP or Canon. Easy to say "there's more Epsons out there," but I wonder whether that's the full story.
You're right it is - probably because it's a Book of Records forum thread by now and there's probably not much left to say that any one outside of Epson would know or care to say. As to why Epson's ink flow issues appear more often than for Canon and HP, I think it has two explanations: (i) the relative number of Epson printers out there may indeed be very large (though I have no real information) and (ii) the technology - Epson makes us deal with clogs as and when they occur, while Canon's clogs "accumulate" until the heads need to be changed. The over-arching point may be however, the very large number of satisfied users who most likely don't contribute to these forums and constitute the "silent majority".
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Hi Blue Moon,
Thank you for the information. What is your background?
Your point about where ink collects is so true. Roland has a feature on the control panel that allows you to move the head all the way to the left where you can get under the head and clean it. They even produced a video on cleaning. If you take your head out of the printer you can see just how much Gunk attaches itself around the head. You should see what a head looks like that prints cotton fabric. A wiper should be cleaned often at least once a week and replaced more often than most Epson users have ever done. Many of our new clients tell us that they have never replaced or cleaned their wiper since they bought the printer. We used to clean our Mimaki Dampers twice a day. Clients who purchase Mimaki and Roland printers are usually advised to clean wipers constantly and even change dampers from time to time.
Regarding information on MSDS sheets: There is very little information you will obtain except for the type of Glycol that is being used. For instance, Ethylene Glycol in considered an unsafe material and is not accepted by some of our clients. My company for one does not use that Glycol. By looking at the CAS number you can find out what they are using, but not the true amount or even what the main ingredients that make up the so called magic of the ink are. They are usually listed as proprietary. There are numerous chemical that can be used in ink formulation in less than 3 or 2 percent including surfactants. It is a waste of time trying to find out what is in Epson’s Ink.
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I just hauled my 7900 to the landfill yesterday. Good riddance.
Looking at an HP Z3200 44" model to replace it.
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Not a troll post, but a comment on Canon ipf printers we have. We've calculated that having done printhead replacements, the cost per print, using 24" rolls and prints of all sizes but filling the roll width and moving to 17 " rolls for smaller prints, the cost per print of the printhead is about 60 cents. This is over thousands of prints on canvas.
Over that time we've left the machine on in sleep mode. Every so often it wakes up and either does an ink shake, checks temperature and humidity and very infrequently does a nozzle check. Except to change heads we've never opened any covers except to change rolls or put in new carts.
For us, this simplicity of operation has been very beneficial. It explains our curiosity as to why Epson is still so popular here.
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Hi Blue Moon,
Thank you for the information. What is your background ?
Regarding information on MSDS sheets: There is very little information you will obtain except for the type of Glycol that is being used. For instance, Ethylene Glycol in considered an unsafe material and is not accepted by some of our clients. My company
Hi Doccolor
Glad you found some use from the bits and pieces i have posted...its nice of you to say that.
My background is landscape photography and giclee printing for myself at this stage.i get a real kick from it .(thanks to joseph holmes i must say ) i live in the wilds of Connemara Ireland .i am a one man band and simply cannot afford service contracts.i am the ideal stool pigeon for testing Epson printers..this year i was faced with the choice of quitting to print or strip down both of my old GOOD Epson 7800 printers and learn fast..up to now it was run inks to stay alive...but i discovered (from my perspective only let me caution you ) that
1 Epson is going towards perfection and away from practical matters
2 Epson will help its customers greatly when it involves those customers more in day to day cleaning routines.
3 Epson ( i believe) will redesign its printers casings so that we can
# clean wiper blades effortlessly ( 7900 can...i leave case off )
#clean seals easily
# lubricate park/spit pads effortlessly
# stimulate ink pigments by inserting a spring mounted gadget under damper unit to vibrate ink pigment entering head
# disconnect the closed circuit "cleaning system" which sends hard residue resins back up into the head.this disconnect can quite easily happen by forcing wiper blade through Epson "solution bath "as the blade returns to the print head.
#Epson will remove its wiper blade cleaner
# Epson will produce one master air seal to protect smaller seals on the printer head from air intake.
# Epson will market different strength pigment inks for heavy or light printer users.
#Epson will produce ink carts that are translucent...meanwhile i just reset and weigh them
#Epson will profitably market specialised cleaner/lubricant solutions to assist its customers in their daily cleaning/lubrication routines.
#Epson will educate its customers on the importance of daily maintenance..
ABOUT MSDS of Epson inks
For the 7800 there is no problem picking up rough make up of k3 ultrachrome from Epson itself...what i found of interest is that the more pigment in the ink the more Epson uses more glycol /less glycerol in their cleaning solutions for the x800 printers...i can get their own cleaner solutions no problem..whats wrong for the 7900 ? also Epson told me that vivid majenta used in a 7800 instead of majenta would burn the head out in 6 months.....and there both Epson inks....so using ammonium/ isopropyl....simply green....windex....whatever ...i wonder is there a risk of damage....and why the heck does Epson not think of making some money for itself by setting up a new cleaning solution division within its empire...beats me !
Thanks for listening
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[/quote]
Roland has a feature on the control panel that allows you to move the head all the way to the left where you can get under the head and clean it.
To a degree that was also possible with the Epson 1000/10600, you had to remove the left cover for it and pull the power plug when the head was free, then move the head to the left manually. The Roland method would be a good feature for all wide format printers. Easy access to the capping station is more important though and that was a hell of a job on the 10000. But it had at least 3 wipers for a total of 6 channels where the x900s have 1 wiper for 10 channels.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
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. But it had at least 3 wipers for a total of 6 channels where the x900s have 1 wiper for 10 channels.
...............................
And the wiper blade is 35 % the size of the x800 wiper blade ..made from a flimsy ,anorexic thin, piece of rubber....overworked of course....wont last long will it ?
And the wiper blade is beaten up and stiffened relentlessly by a wiper blade "cleaner" which is covered in ancient resins that are meant to be left exactly where they land...except for the bits that get back on to the wiper blade again for another ride....
At least the poor bent and bruised (and poker resin stiff by now ) little wiper blade can get its own back on those lovely juicy teeny wee air seals on the head ..aha ! Kick the cat...thats it !
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I just remembered, Eric is in New York!
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I think he is from New York but lives in CA. I think.
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ABOUT MSDS of Epson inks
For the 7800 there is no problem picking up rough make up of k3 ultrachrome from Epson itself...what i found of interest is that the more pigment in the ink the more Epson uses more glycol /less glycerol in their cleaning solutions for the x800 printers...i can get their own cleaner solutions no problem..whats wrong for the 7900 ? also Epson told me that vivid majenta used in a 7800 instead of majenta would burn the head out in 6 months.....and there both Epson inks....so using ammonium/ isopropyl....simply green....windex....whatever ...i wonder is there a risk of damage....and why the heck does Epson not think of making some money for itself by setting up a new cleaning solution division within its empire...beats me !
Thanks for listening
The balance of ethylene glycol to glycerol is to address the carrying property of the aqueous solution so that the pigments are properly suspended and deposited. It's also possible that it optimizes the solution to minimize (note that I don't say eliminate) clogging. I'm very skeptical of the statement that the vivid magenta ink would 'burn out a 7800 head in six months.' With respect to head cleaning by users, this is somewhat analogous to Nikon's statement (at least in the US) that camera sensors should not be cleaned by users. Despite this many users do clean their camera sensors without difficulty or find a local expert to do so at a reasonable price. A high end Epson printer is in the same price range of a high end Nikon but it's difficult to get any information on how to do self maintenance on the printer. I personally think that this is unacceptable.
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Alan, I'd have absolutely no hesitation cleaning a camera sensor, because the procedure and precautions are totally straight forward and the only moving part is removing the lens. Maintaining a printhead, especially given how the whole assembly is structured I think introduces more variables and therefore more risk. During the warranty, a company is perfectly within its rights to assess how much user intervention they are prepared to risk in terms of traffic on the warranty. In the case of Apple Computer for example it is ZERO. Undo a screw and your warranty is dead-meat. Maybe I exaggerate a little but not much. Where I do agree with you, however, is that printer manufacturers should publish at least enough guidance explaining to users how to physically clean and degunk the exterior of the printhead, the wiper assembly and related parts in that area which could affect clean performance - and provide cleaning solutions, so that those who wish to do so at their own risk at least have the necessary guidance and materials. I can see this being especially useful in situations where the service network is not very well represented in numerous areas, making the cost of service calls very high.
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Mark, I'm on the same wavelength as you. There should be some simple user maintenance that the user can perform to keep their equipment working to specifications. Simple cleaning procedures should be made available. I'm sure that Epson have designed equipment so that this type of work can be performed pretty easily. It's interesting with respect to Nikon cameras is that in Japan, sensor cleaning kits are marketed to consumers. This is in contrast to the US where Nikon US does not recommend users do this.
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Hi Sid,
You can go one step further and remove the two screws on the bottom of the head to separate the nipple plate from the printhead. Then use a syringe and a tube (like the air tubing you would find on a fish tank), and lightly inject water through the nipples of the plate to clean them out. FYI, the water (and ink) will spray out of that plate with different angles....
Whatever you do, please do not inject water into the printhead. Make sure you remove the nipple plate first, and clean it separately.
Thank You, I will try that and then put the printer back together.
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Here are shots of the head separated from the nipple plate.
Do you suggest putting the tubing on the nipple and injecting the water from the opening on the other side?
Anything I can do to clear that ink from the back of the head?
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9423.jpg)
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18/xsydx/Epson%207900/IMG_9421.jpg)
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Unfortunately, not much you can do with the printhead out. You can soak the nozzle plate. But if you were to inject water into each of those chambers, the variable pressure (and high pressure) of physically injecting directly into the head would damage the chambers inside, as well as end up with a printhead paperweight.
Would a vacuum applied at the nozzle side and inkhead cleaner supplied at the nipple side harm the components? That was my usual approach with an Epson head. A small tablet of perspex with the vacuum tube running to a bottle that is again connected to a vacuum pump. Soft rubber sealing on the perspex leaving the nozzle area free for the vacuum. The pumps at the capping station usual do not create a similar vacuum.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
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I used that method on an Epson 10000 head but it was not removed from the printer. There can not be more than 1 bar pressure difference when a vacuum is applied. In the end that head was lost too but I could solve some clog issues over the time I worked with it. My idea is that a really clogged nozzle set does not give way for any cleaning fluid that could resolve the ink again, you are just touching the surface of the blockade and not more than that. Ultrasound could shake up things up but today's head electronics will suffer too then.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com
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This came to us today: is it how our photo printers should be sold?
http://www.visa.org.au/CampaignProcess.aspx?A=View&VID=6286233&KID=219475
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Ultimately, the piezo printheads are designed in a way that really demands to be running. Almost every day a job should run - or run power cleaning to keep fluid flowing in those chambers of the printhead and to flush out any ink that may be beginning to harden inside those supply ports.
I have not used my 7900 in months, after giving up on the LLK channel. I turned it on today and cleaned it and got this. It's getting much worse; something in that LLK that must be hardening.
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The balance of ethylene glycol to glycerol is to address the carrying property of the aqueous solution so that the pigments are properly suspended and deposited. It's also possible that it optimizes the solution to minimize (note that I don't say eliminate clogs)
I wasnt referring to the suspension of pigment by means of the mix of ethylene glycerol and diethylene glycol . You may have misunderstood what i said.
I was specifically referring to epsons own solvents for both aqueous and pigment inks clog problems..what i said was that Epson increase the amount of ethylene glycol ( at the expense of glycerol ) as they switch from attempting to unclog aqueous inks to trying to unblock pigments ink clogs.
My understanding of what glycerol does in an ink is to act as an emulsifier (and mild surfactant ) so that resin and pigment stay nicely mixed together when air tight in a sealed cartridge.correct me if i am wrong.
My understanding of what glycol does in a solvent is to attempt to undo the harm caused when mixed surplus to requirement resin and pigment is mismanaged when finally heated and aerated out of the piezo nozzles and not properly disposed of by the printer system itself.
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I'm very skeptical of the statement that the vivid magenta ink would 'burn out a 7800 head in six months "
I would be delighted to be sceptical too ( i have a few vivids that id like to use in the 7800 ! )
Will get in touch with Epson next week and ask them whats the big deal about not using vivid majenta in a 7800.
Promise to let you know what they say .
BTW..i meant to refer to diethylene glycol in my last post
Thanks
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I would be delighted to be sceptical too ( i have a few vivids that id like to use in the 7800 ! )
Will get in touch with Epson next week and ask them whats the big deal about not using vivid majenta in a 7800
Hi Alan
Promised i would let you know why one must not use vivid majenta in older printers which are not specially coated in the heads for the use of newer inks..said i would contact Epson....but located my thread on Joseph Holmes website instead..appears Epson wanted to sell the newer vivid inks to x800 people but decided that would not be wise...i can only assume Joseph got his info directly from Epson...i personally would simply not go against his advice anyway....will dump the vivid carts for safety reasons...
Back then to people using non-Epson inks....all kinds of cleaning solutions not endorsed by Epson..im baffled as to why they are any safer than say myself trying vivid inksets in a 7800 piezo head....confused...
Quote from Joseph Holmes enclosed
"A) New "ink repelling coating technology" on the surface to reduce head clogging and cleaning hassles, especially with linty or dusty papers (fine art papers of some kinds) and to make the new, more demanding inkset work. The heads are much the same as those in the Stylus® Pro 3800, but with this ink repelling coating added, in order to prevent the new inks from causing serious trouble. The new inks cannot safely be used in the earlier printer models. The Vivid Magenta is said to be especially problematic for heads without the ink repelling coating, and to completely ruin such a head within about six months of use. I'm assured that Epson would prefer to be able to offer this inkset as an upgrade to their customers who own the SP3800, 4800, 7800, and 9800 if they could. I am told that the net effect of the new head, together with the new inkset, is to substantially reduce clogging, compared with the SP4800, 7800 and 9800."
End of quote....
Thanks
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@Blue Moon - I'm still skeptical of the 'warning' not to use Vivid Magenta on x800 printers. I don't think it's a matter of the chemistry of the new ink versus the old ink and somehow this burns out print heads but rather a more simple explanation in that Epson would have to come up with all new drivers for the x800 printers using Vivid Magenta instead of the older version since one would presume that there would be color shifts if the older driver would be used. This would cause problems for Epson in that they now have to support two different drivers for the same printer and might cause headaches in terms of user support. In addition, when the user makes the shift to Vivid Magenta, the ink line must be completely purged of the older ink in order to get the correct results another headache for Epson support.
I don't put much faith in second hand quotes.
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@Blue Moon - I'm still skeptical of the 'warning' not to use Vivid Magenta on x800 printers. I don't think it's a matter of the chemistry of the new ink versus the old ink and somehow this burns out print heads but rather a more simple explanation in that Epson would have to come up with all new drivers for the x800 printers using Vivid Magenta instead of the older version since one would presume that there would be color shifts if the older driver would be used. This would cause problems for Epson in that they now have to support two different drivers for the same printer and might cause headaches in terms of user support. In addition, when the user makes the shift to Vivid Magenta, the ink line must be completely purged of the older ink in order to get the correct results another headache for Epson support.
You have just given me a second good reason not to try using newer inksets in an older printer...Epson,please be more upfront in future and just tell us as it is !
[quote ]
I don't put much faith in second hand quotes.
[/quote]
Good for you.I do if they come from Joseph Holme's website in particular or Joseph Holmes himself in person ..but i must admit i would be pretty selective in trusting almost anyone elses quotes though (either first or second hand..)We cant be too careful .
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Word of advice - do not fly home to spend weeks with your family (when a hurricane named Sandy looms on the horizon). No electricity, fuel, refrigerator, heat, internet, work, school or tv, can get stressful.. :)
I left for NY worried about our 7900 dying while I was away. I should have worried about people dying instead. Came home to find CY completely checked out and PK on it's way, but they both came back with no permanent damage. We need a Holiday Mode.
...
OK people I have a perfectly good (clogged) 9900 head here, still in a machine with only 300 prints on it. Been clogged for many months apparently. Before I replace the head on it I'd like to experiment a bit by cleaning it like my genius buddy and I did to our 7900, only this time with something a little more potent than simply water. With all this chemistry talk here lately I'd like to ask the noodles that be, what do we think is the best solution available for this experiment? Epson 9900 head, Epson Ultrachrome HDR Ink.
I do have two bottles of Epson cleaning solution (red and clear) which I got from HAL, but I have no idea what the solutions really are. Bottles are unmarked. So before I blindly use this solution, I ask the noodles that be..
Obviously I will share our results here in smashing fashion.
batter up!
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Glad to see you home safe and sound Eric.
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I can't comment on what to use for a cleaning solution, but I have had some bad dropouts on my 7900. The machine is only about 6 months old and is still using the intial cartridges, although almost all are now at the <10% level. I have always had success with a color pair clean, so far, occasionally needing a power clean if there are a lot of nozzles out in one head. I try to run nozzle checks every day or two since I am a low user making only a few prints a month. I am begining to think the when the ink pressure system turns off, there may be a gradual backflow of ink from the head. That would indicate the whatever method Epson uses to pevent that from happening is borderline. If the nozzles did not clean I would think that it was a plug, but since they always clean it seems to me that the ink is not up to the nozzles. Perhaps cleaning as soon as a dropout is noticed the problem can be rduced before the ink hardens into a plug.
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I just wanted to add that my 9900 is having issues with the Green channel mainly and the LLK too. I think you may be onto something about those two inks. No other problems with any of my other inks. It's so bad that my printer is unusable and Epson quoted me $2200 in parts (possibly) $100 travel fee and $175 per hour fee with one hour minimum to fix it.
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I just wanted to add that my 9900 is having issues with the Green channel mainly and the LLK too. I think you may be onto something about those two inks. No other problems with any of my other inks. It's so bad that my printer is unusable and Epson quoted me $2200 in parts (possibly) $100 travel fee and $175 per hour fee with one hour minimum to fix it.
You are obviously outside of warranty new or extended..how old is the printer...heavily used ?
In terms of inks used i wonder have you been getting through as much llk and green as your other inks...?
1 do you do b/w as much as color...llk is there for lowering bronzing in b/w prints as you know..
2 would you use green much either....i gather its more for graphics people than photographers...but i have no idea myself.which side of the fence are you on ...?
3 if you had problems with 2 colors in the same pair a guess would be the air seal itself but not so in this case.
4 have you ever vibrated your green or llk carts in any way
My own little theory is that the Piezo channels and nozzles are bombarded by underused pigment from above and recyled resins from below beyond the capacity of the Nano Nozzles to deal with over time...I would be very keen to see Epsons next design model to replace the x900 series.
Please bear in mind that i use the 7800 series and anything that i have picked up about the 7900 is solely through Erics heroic thread..thanks Eric..
Thanks
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I can't comment on what to use for a cleaning solution, but I have had some bad dropouts on my 7900. The machine is only about 6 months old and is still using the intial cartridges, although almost all are now at the <10% level. I have always had success with a color pair clean, so far, occasionally needing a power clean if there are a lot of nozzles out in one head. I try to run nozzle checks every day or two since I am a low user making only a few prints a month. I am begining to think the when the ink pressure system turns off, there may be a gradual backflow of ink from the head. That would indicate the whatever method Epson uses to pevent that from happening is borderline. If the nozzles did not clean I would think that it was a plug, but since they always clean it seems to me that the ink is not up to the nozzles. Perhaps cleaning as soon as a dropout is noticed the problem can be rduced before the ink hardens into a plug.
Your inks must not harden into a plug!!
As you know better than me the idea of the air seals on the park station is to replicate the environment of the air sealed ink cartridge itself.....there is no additional line of defense to prevent resins hardening anywhere in the printer system other than in the one place that air is allowed in...when your printer head is off its park station and the rubber seals are redundant....just for the duration of the print job...the outflowing pumped pressurised inks would naturally prevent air working its way back up the head while actually printing...then its back to rubber seal protection..
To follow up on your theory why not leave your air pressure system on more often....maybe see does it keep fresher inks out on the surface of the head...do on and off and record any change.
Through no fault of your own you also may be importing hard resins back into the Nano Nozzles by means of your wiper blade system...God and Epson are the only ones who know the real story there.
I made a little case earlier on that your type of situation was possible for a consciencious infrequent even new owner....using lots of resin to clean resin...leaving pigments (through underuse )to settle to the bottom and then come forward as a sort of pigsludge..why is Epsons cleaning program not able to keep a 6 months old machine on the rails ? Your warranty ! Extend it and be safe....
Thanks
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To follow up on your theory why not leave your air pressure system on more often....maybe see does it keep fresher inks out on the surface of the head...do on and off and record any change.
Your warranty ! Extend it and be safe....
I normally leave the printer powered on all the time, but it does go to sleep. How does one keep the pressure up when the printer sleeps?
No doubt about it I will purchase the extended warranty.
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I normally leave the printer powered on all the time, but it does go to sleep. How does one keep the pressure up when the printer sleeps?
No doubt about it I will purchase the extended warranty.
Good...sorry i do not use x900 so i have no idea if air pressure system is relaxed or released when in sleep mode...i would guess that pressure is maintained but maybe some of our expert x900 users will confirm that or otherwise for you..or can you override defaults to ensure air pressure is continuous for say your experiment time.if you decide to experiment that is...i do remember someone saying earlier in the thread who uses a lot of printers that the best ink performing machine they had was a machine where the air pressure was on continuously for some obscure reason..others seem to doubt the overall capacity of the x900 to keep up a reliable and regular air pressure (to their satisfaction anyway ) its there somewhere in the 45 pages if someone can remember this issue being discussed !
Anyhow whether air pressure is up or down i feel should make absolutely no difference to your ink quality if your air seals are sealing out air and your wiper blades were keeping out resins and your pigments were and still are emulsified in the overall ink mix.....air pressure will move ink along the lines to the dampers and the piezo pump will take the ink to the end hopefully.....assuming damper is sealed and balanced..and air pressure is good up to the damper...the point is your ink should be the same quality whether its in its cartridge,lines,dampers and head (on the park station) ....what makes your ink deteriorate in a sealed system? If you have no ink it might be a pressure problem....look at your damper early on...pipes...carts nearly empty ?if you have clogged ink its back to the other reasons ive outlined...and very probably others too..let us know when the service rep tells you if you air pumps ok wont you...its such a new machine it sounds odd to be clapping out on pumps
Thanks
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Earlier this year, I sold my 9600. At the time, I expected to relocate and I wasn't printing very much. After reading about clogs in the new 7900/9900 printers, I'm regretting the sale of my 9600.
Demand has changed, though, and I now need a wide-format printer or I'm going to have to pay someone else to print for me.
A question about extended warranties: has anyone tried SquareTrade?
From what I've read in this thread and elsewhere, it seems the experience with Epson field technicians is a mixed bag. In addition, Epson charges a lot of $$ for extended service, especially when compared to other warranty extensions on products ranging from automobiles to enterprise computer systems. At 32% of the purchase price, the cost seems exorbitant. Hence the question about alternatives to Epson's warranty.
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Hello all you fellow Epson sufferers,
Some of you may know about my situation with my 7900 printer, not that it is unusual.
I have an Epson 7900 with which I've made about 20 prints. It is about 2 yrs old and 1 yr out of warranty. All was fine until I made a 10 day trip with a friend. When I got home, the head was clogged permanently. I purchased a new head ($1390) thinking I would replace it myself but am reconsidering. Here's why. In my opinion, based on my experience and what I have read on blogs of others experiences, the probability of another permanent clog within a year is high. If a person intends to keep using a 900 series Epson printer, it makes sense to buy the extended warranty which I believe costs about $775. That would cover not only the print head cost but all other parts and labor. For me to be able to do that, I must allow Delusion One to make the repair and certify to Epson that the printer is 100% functional. That means I would sustain an initial hit of about $2000 for the repair plus the $775 warranty. Also, I believe Epson should inform potentional buyers that is strongly suggested that they purchase this contract as their printers are prone to clogging and other excessive maintenance expense, especially if they are casual users. I would appreciate any thoughts, comments or suggestions about my conclusion.
Thanks,
Bob DeBellis
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Bob,
This sounds a lot like a "repair or replace" question.
I suggest you check out Adorama and B&H Photo to see their prices on brand-new 7900 printers. With at least one of the two, you may find the new printer cost to be less than your repair cost plus extended warranty cost.
I've also discovered that B&H sells SquareTrade warranties for the Epson 7900/9900 for less than SquareTrade, so at a cost of under $150 for an extra year of warranty coverage they appear to be subsidizing the warranty cost.
When I asked SquareTrade whether print heads were covered, here is what I was told: " the internal components of the unit would be covered such as the internal circuitry, the print head, mechanics of the printer and other parts. However, any external cables, cartridges and software would not be covered under the SquareTrade warranty."
I recall reading that Epson has made some improvements to the print heads to reduce clogging. It would be valuable if others could confirm this with specifics of what was improved and what evidence exists for less clogging.
I've also read that using non-Epson inks may also avoid clogging . . .
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Hi Chris and Kevin,
Thanks for your replies.
I don't think you're rude Chris by asking the question of so few prints in 2 years. It seem nuts but it was because of circumstances that this happened. When I bought the printer I had also just purchased a new dwelling and was also simulataneously dealing with a digital photography learning curve (Lightroom, Photoshop, MAC environment, EPSON 7900, monitor calibration, film scanner, DSLR, etc). I was overwhelmed. The reason I bought the printer at this inconvenient time in my life was because Epson sent a coupon to me offering a $1000 off the cost of the printer.
Even though I didn't make serious prints I was getting used to the printer and had become well aware of it's propensity for clogging. Eveyday I would run a nozzle check and make sure it was fine. If not, I would do a regular cleaning or attempt to print a color wheel and a subsequent nozzle check to see if that cleared.
In any event, after just moments ago contacting Epson Support, it appears that because my printer is 2 yrs old there is no way for me to get an extended warranty anyway so I was wrong about that.
As for the B&H extended service contract, I think I remember reading that weren't available for FL where I live.
As to the low volume of printing being the fault, I remember reading on this blog that hi volume printing was no guarantee that the printer would not get a clog. Not to mention once again that if you go away from the printer for a week or so, you might find yourself with an expensive problem.
Anyway, any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Bob
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So after reinstalling the head and killing two maintenance tanks with cleaning and I am back to square one with the LK ink and now the Orange ink showing gaps in the nozzle check.
I guess the next step would be to change the damper assembly?
Sid
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Bob, I do understand why and how you ended up with an x900 monster in your living room. For me this line (still boasted by Epson on the front page of their X900 description) had a lot to do with it "And, with our latest ink-repelling coating and auto nozzle verification technologies, clogged nozzles are virtually eliminated." No need to explain yourself here Bob - with the discount you got when you bought your machine it only takes a few decent sized orders at a professional lab to get guys (and gals) like us to wondering if owning an X900 of our own makes sense. And if you want it bad enough, at least in theory, it does make sense...
Unfortunately, as you know well by now, in the case of the X900 - reality is actually a little different than theory. I too am a beginner, in all of this, compared even fractionally to the many pros on this forum. While I don't print with our 7900 every day like the pros do, I do print about every third day. Even that is not enough to keep our machine clog free.
1 - you need a new print head.
2 - you need to maintain it.
both can be achieved at unridiculous (love that word) cost and effort.
Sid, I have been down the very same road you are considering. Our problem wasn't our damper assembly, although we did replace it. Our problem wasn't our pump and cap assembly, although we did replace that too. Our problem was our uncloggably clogged print head, most likely stopped up by a crap condition wiper blade, which was most likely left in crap condition because at the time of the crime who knew better..
Rumor has it these Epson X900 print heads are quite a valuable commodity. The replacement cost for these very same heads when they are used in different brand printers I've been told is actually three times our cost. I have heard unreliable tales of forgotten warehouses filled with headless Epson printers sitting in quiet lonely rows like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. Not so believable in reality, but in theory I can see it. So while it is bad, the cost you now face of replacing your head, it could be worse. Not sure that's comforting - I heard the fluorescent silhouette of a faceless doctor lean down and whisper to me once I'd never race again, "But it could be worse." Not sure that made me fell better then either.
If you call Epson yourself, they WILL sell you a replacement print head for your X900, for considerably less $ than you would be charged by D1. You have to give them your machine's serial number first though (keep the Indiana Jones scene in your mind), and they will offer you NO guarantee/warranty with the purchase (you could damage the head installing it). No serial number, no head.
You don't need a degree in astrophysics in order to replace your print head either. If you follow the steps, one step at a time, and you have good hands, you have what it takes.
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Our collectively building knowledge base about better maintenance practices and repair capabilities is inspiring actually. So much so in fact that recently I have been pushing in new directions, from repairing our problems to avoiding them all together. ...at least in theory : )
Ken Doo and Ernst Dinkla aimed me at QuadToneRIP as a possible route toward developing a routine ink-purging system that might keep our X900s out of clog trouble, for what Mark D Segal calculated would be a minimal yearly expense. Especially in contrast to the threatening repair costs of total print head replacement, a holiday mode would be fantastically cheap. So I contacted the creator of this QTR program, asking if he had any interest in creating a "Holiday Mode" for us all. I thought he would jump right in but I was wrong. Strike one.
I didn't stop there though, next I got my genius buddy Steve to take a look at the QTR software. Our hope being if the software source code was available for download/development, Steve himself could create our "Holiday Mode" using QTR as a platform to work from. But no dice. Although the QTR software is indeed under the GNU Public License, it doesn't appear that the source code has been made available. Strike two..
So today, and here is where this gets potentially dangerous, I called Epson themselves. I must admit I have a dreaded fear of stifling our momentum here on this Luminous Landscape forum, so I neglected to identify myself, nor did I mention this thread. My question was basic, but curious,
Epson: "Epson Technical Support, can I have your model name and number?"
me: Epson Stylus Pro 7900
Epson: OK. (long pause) how can I help you?
me: I don't have a problem, I have a question. How would a person... Ummmm... What would the protocol be for an entire community of Epson users to influence Epson themselves to develop a specific firmwear update that could vastly improve Epson user experiences, and even possibly greatly reduce Epson's own warranty parts replacement costs?
The gentleman I spoke with, a nice enough guy named Jimmy, then asked me what I had in mind. I explained our Holiday Mode to him.
jimmy: No, sorry, there is nothing in our firmwear which does that. But I do agree, that could be very helpful..
eric: No Jimmy you misunderstand me, I know this doesn't exist. It's just an idea. My question to you is how do ideas turn into firmwear updates? How do users influence Epson to activate change? What are the steps we need to take? Who are the people we need to contact?
jimmy. Ummm... well you can email me, then I can forward the email to my supervisor, then he can forward the idea to Japan. Really Japan is who you need to talk to, but you can't. At least not directly.
...and then I stuck my (our) neck out. I mentioned the fact that there is a thread, on a forum, that is global, which has over 70,000 views and nearly 900 entries - all of which are specifically focused on print head clogs on Epson's Stylus Pro 4900/7900/9900 printers, specifically using Epson's Ultrachrome HDR ink.
This is when things got interesting. Suddenly I got a sense that at least Jimmy himself had absolutely no idea such a thread as ours here even existed. Also suddenly, he wanted access to it. Maybe five times before we hung up he asked me to include the link to this thread in my email to him, which he would then go over with his supervisor. Then I got the feeling all things considering this potential firmwear update lobbying would be left to them, which didn't make me feel confident.
eric: What if we got a whole community of Epson users to email your supervisor? Or even Japan directly? I mean would such a thing produce different results? Because if it would, I bet we could make it happen. Even professional Epson Print shops could benefit from such a program, it's not just infrequent private users that experience unclear-able clogs.
jimmy: If a whole community made contact with us about the same problem this would have a greater influence than just one user. So send me an email with the link to that forum, so I can show it to my supervisor..
hmmm. What to do now
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Well, I think it sounds like someone needs to author a "form letter" to Jimmy/Jimmy's supervisor, much like a block of supporters would to a congressman. I really don't think an Epson firmware update with a holiday mode would be that difficult. It's really just something as simple as Harvey Head Cleaner, but more open and available to those using Macs as well. Since it would run independent of a computer (just the printer software/firmware) it would be platform independent and be able to run without a computer left on. Nice.
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I think that pursuing the QTR source code might be a more productive avenue than hoping for something from Epson. That is something that would interest me
If they are using the GPL license, they do have an obligation to make any derived code public (although the part that is covered by GPL might not include the code that communicates with the printer - I am under the impression that various companies have different interpretations of just exactly what GPL compliance involves).
My own testing indicates that keeping an Epson clog-free involves more than just an occasional nozzle check - something closer to a page or two a day is what it takes for me to keep my 9900 running clean reliably.
It might be as simple as an automated test page print, fired off by a daily chron job.
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Hi Erik,
Thanks for understanding my situation.
Re: Your suggestion of putting together or request to Epson is a good one. I've been feeling the need to formally complain to them. I'm for it and feel they owe us. They owe me for misrepresenting their product. They've made a ton of money off of me in wasted ink and a prematurely failing print head and I got little but aggravation in return. I've spoken to Jimmy just yesterday and other tech support personnel in the past suggesting that they need to do more for us in dealing with this clogging issue beyond selling us another print head or leaving us to the mercy of D1. I also told them that Epson should spell out that you should be a frequent user and not a casual user of the printer. The response from tech support to me was "You don't have to be a frequent user". Again, I point out, even if you are a frequent user, nothing protects you when you are vacation somewhere for a couple of weeks. There needs to be a reasonable fix or prevention solution. At the very least, they should sell the print head at cost to us.
Thanks,
Bob
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So $1300 + tax + ship for a print head from Epson and no guarantee that it will solve my problem.
I can get a canon 44" 8400 series printer for $2590 with free shipping and a set of 330mil inks ready to go by Monday...
:-\
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This is my first time at the forum and came to it by Eric G's hell. I've a new Epson 7900 in San Diego and love the prints I exhibit in galleries in Southern Ca but the machine clogs like a bastard. Epson has to do something about this ink waster.
At any rate, after 4 months of non-use I tried and succeeded in bringing the printer back to life. (never had this problem with my smaller Epson printers - had to burn a print or two, but that's ok. Burning cart after ink cart and filling tank after maintenance tank is ridiculous). An overnight rest of the head on top of a single layer of 5"x7" windexed paper has had good results and although I tried a few days of other solutions, time to let the printer rest (elasticity of ink in the tubes?) is actually key. Another useful trick was making a print composed of the ink colors that fail in the nozzle check. Seems to help, though the printer will sometimes only print half the image, give up and asking for a cleaning. With enough time and ink spent, it always comes back. (though now I have a paper sensor issue that won't quit).
Count me in for a class action against Epson on the 7900 if they don't fix the FW, give some head dock solution, or provide an actual remedy. This has moved from a chess game where every move costs between $5 and $50 to a point where I feel I sweating on a strip in Vegas gambling to get some pictures out.
Mark Richard Beaulieu
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Hi Mark,
The Epson 7900 reminds of the the strange blood consuming plant in the movie "The Little Shop of Horrors" that constantly said "Feed me Seymore" except it's ink and $ that it consumes in vast quantities.
I'm very annoyed with Epson as well and believe they should do something. I'm preparing to replace my print head and am concerned of a repeat performance after all this expense. In my case I had a little used printer that I made sure was working fine before I went on a 10 day vacation only to find had a permanent clog in the CY channel upon my return. After many cleaning attempts the CY clog ultimately resulted in a "fatal error" code indicating a replacement of the print head was necessary.
I would gladly join a class action.
Bob DeBellis
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I have had my 7900 for 4 years now and have had Decision One out FIVE times for clogged/failed heads. The technician is competent its the hardware that sucks ($ literally!) I got an extended warranty from Epson for another $650 after it cost me ~$1,800 to fix the 3rd head failure. I am now faced with a clogged head (again) after not printing for more than 4 weeks! I burned through almost a full maintenance tank trying to clear the clog. Finally, after researching other printer options, I gave up and am buying a new 7900 with a 3 year warranty right at the start. Although I am planning to adopt some more rigorous procedures for printing more often and monitor room humidity level, if it screws up it will be on Epson. If you own a 7900 that is less than 1 year old 7900, I think you would be crazy not to buy the extended 2 year warranty. As of today I found a 7900 for $2,399 and a 2-yr Extension for $1,272.
Needless to say, I would be a good plaintiff's witness!
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Well I decided to roll the dice with Canon. I spoke with someone who deals with canon/hp/epson and he suggested I go with that over the others. Lower maintenance, user replaceable print heads and good quality. He admits canon has stepped their game up to bring their quality up from where it was a few years ago.
I ended up getting the newly released iPF8400 44" since we used to outsource our larger enlargements due to the 24" print size on our old printer.
Any offers for my epson 7900? ::)
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Did you get it for that $2590 price you mentioned earlier? If so, where?
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I got it for $3599 - $1000 Canon Mail in Rebate (take picture of any non-canon 44" or larger printer's serial number) + Tax
Free Shipping
Set of 330 ml ink
And Lexjet has a special now that if you order $500 worth of material you get a free iPad Mini. So i got that.
Call Lexjet (800-453-9538) and ask for Michael Clementi. Tell him Sid from Miami referred you if you would like, although there is nothing in it for me.
Even if you don't purchase a printer, I highly recommend Lexjet for paper needs. they are very good and offer tremendous support plus 9.99 flat-rate shipping on all products.
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Hi folks,
Another gem of customer relations from Epson and D1 (Delusion 1). If D1 replaces your print head, you must surrender to them the original print head that they removed from the printer or they will not do the job. D1 told me Epson charges them for not returning the print heads to them. Epson support told me today that D1 gets something from Epson for returning the heads to them. Excuse me, but isn't this my print head that was in my printer that I paid for with my money. If I want to keep my old print head to decorate my Xmas tree with, it is my decision - one. It just gets more unbelievable all the time.
Bob D.
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Obviously Epson will be doing some inspection work on the returned print heads. Ongoinng development work will be assisted greatly by lab examinations of used heads. Standard industrial practice. They should actually pay the user for them though.
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I find it unbelievable that Epson are treating this problem with their printers with, it appears, a certain amount of indifference. They surely must be losing customers big style to other large format printer manufacturers. Don't they care about good customer relations?
Just incredible.
Pete
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I find it unbelievable that Epson are treating this problem with their printers with, it appears, a certain amount of indifference. They surely must be losing customers big style to other large format printer manufacturers. Don't they care about good customer relations?
Just incredible.
Pete
In fact it is so unbelievable that I don't believe it. And not only for that reason, but also because it is well-known that from the get-go their research teams have been studying and testing ways to optimize both quality and performance. That doesn't mean the solutions they come up with are necessarily optimal for all needs and all people all the time, but "indifference" is hardly how I would characterize this company. Yes, not every customer will buy an Epson printer, but one has to assume they're bright enough to know this and that's business, and good for us that there is competition.
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In fact it is so unbelievable that I don't believe it. And not only for that reason, but also because it is well-known that from the get-go their research teams have been studying and testing ways to optimize both quality and performance. That doesn't mean the solutions they come up with are necessarily optimal for all needs and all people all the time, but "indifference" is hardly how I would characterize this company. Yes, not every customer will buy an Epson printer, but one has to assume they're bright enough to know this and that's business, and good for us that there is competition.
+1
What might been perceived as indifference is perhaps due to the lack of a public statement of Epson about this issue?
I agree that it looks to be indifference at play here, but the very few people I know of Epson Europe are indeed the opposite.
What might be at play here is a cultural difference. Asian companies hardly ever admit any issues publicly as that will be seen as a loss of face, even more so for Japanese companies. It is the same with Nikon / Canon and the like.
cheers,
Remko
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I agree that it looks to be indifference at play here, but the very few people I know of Epson Europe are indeed the opposite.
Not everyone's experience in Europe with 11880 and x900 models. "Not using Epson media on that printer sir, if it happens with Epson media you can come back with your complaint. No mister, not even for Hahnemühle papers¨
In the past there was that Epson dye ink orange plague, Wilhelm Research did not test on ozone gas fading. Both parties admitted failures. The US customers were compensated but nobody in the rest of the world including Europe was compensated. Advertising in Europe was not changed either after the incident. The point is simply that if a company can be indifferent to the problem and it does not become a legal issue or does not cut fast and deep into the sales numbers then that strategy is paying off. Loss of face in whatever country has nothing to do with it.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
470+ inkjet paper white spectral plots, November 2012.
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About a year and a half ago, I bought a 4900. What sold was the advertisement from Epson "And, with our latest ink-repelling coating and auto nozzle verification technologies, clogged nozzles are virtually eliminated." I am not a production printer, but love the printing process. I have had nothing bu plugged jets from the get go to the point of plugged beyond repair at this point. I appreciate the work of Eric and others on this site and had hoped to find the bucket at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately, it is a situation of like I read earlier " feed me" I didn't get into this printer with the idea that it would be all consuming. I have a life beyond printing.
With that off of chest, I have bought and used 4 Epson printers with the first one being the 1270. Loved that printer. Never have had as much trouble with clogged nozzles like I have with the 4900. I like Epson but at this point would never buy another. Mind you I am not an irrational person, just very frustrated that Epson cannot or will not be honorable.
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Yes, I remember that advertising line also, and I too believe it is not correct. Clogging is not "virtually eliminated". But my experience has been that it is pretty well-controlled, and if it isn't, and at least while your 4900 is in warranty, Epson will do something about that. So what I don't understand about your situation - because you didn't say - is what happened for that whole first year when the printer was under warranty and "from the get-go" you were having these accumulating clogging problems. What did you do about it, and what did Epson do or not do to help you out?
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I have the typically situation whereby the clogs during the warranty period were clear able with, at often times heavy cleanings. The only time it was necessary to call Epson was when if first received the machine that there was such an over-whelming smell that I could not bring it in the house. I am not a chemist, but I thought that maybe the plastic had not cured. They had offered to replace it, but I opted to wait a week and see if it got better before taking up their offer. Several weeks later, it did get better.
My real troubles started about the end of August, when C And VM dropped out a dozen nozzles each. No return from there and has gotten worse. With no warranty and faced with major expense, ie maintenance call, I went on the web to see what I could do. Unfortunately I did not find this site until this week.
I tried windex under the head, then two cleaning cartridges, then a copy of the service manual and cleaning the face of the head. More work than and ink I should have for only having printed 250 prints.
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If you've only made 250 prints in 18 months that could be the source of your problem. If the machine was left repeatedly for weeks at a time not making prints, I think the trouble you are describing perhaps should not be totally unexpected. These printers were designed to be used quite regularly. I have had to leave mine unused for weeks at a time over the past year, but it was recoverable with a cleaning or two and then perhaps a channel pair once or twice on top of that, but always success at the end of this. Do you have the printer in a very dry room? That can also contribute to problems. Even though your warranty has expired, I would recommend that you ANYHOW call Epson Prographic Support at the number they give you in the documentation and discuss the problem with them. BTW, I'm curious about how you obtained the service manual? This is *supposed to be* a proprietary document available only to authorized service personnel.
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The Internet can connect you to a myriad of sources for service manuals for limitless types of machines - printers are no exception.
On another point, this thread has run its course as it has become a place to tell others your Epson has bad clogs, and for others to say theirs don't. Helpful solutions are very few and far between at this point.
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On another point, this thread has run its course as it has become a place to tell others your Epson has bad clogs, and for others to say theirs don't. Helpful solutions are very few and far between at this point.
+1000; it would be great if future respondents could adhere to the original premise of the thread and post their solutions to problems rather than discussing whether or not Epson printers clog or not. I find the technical discussions quite illuminating and potentially useful even though I don't own a 7900.
Alan
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+1000; it would be great if future respondents could adhere to the original premise of the thread and post their solutions to problems rather than discussing whether or not Epson printers clog or not. I find the technical discussions quite illuminating and potentially useful even though I don't own a 7900.
Alan
There are no other solutions other than buying a new printer, whether from Epson or another brand. This thread has demonstrated that, and for those of us that have blocked heads on our Epson printers that's a bitter pill to swallow.
Moral of the story is to always buy an extended warranty when buying an Epson printer and factor that into the purchase price.
Pete
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Moral of the story is to always buy an extended warranty when buying an Epson printer and factor that into the purchase price.
Pete
Quite frankly I'm not convinced this is the moral of the story, or that buying an extended warranty is necessarily a good investment. An extended warranty is an insurance policy, and like all insurance policies it is a risk pool. Whether it is worth buying into that risk pool depends on the cost of the premium relative to the value of the risk. You can only know the value of the risk if you have data on the percentage of machines that require calling the warranty and the avoided cost os the covered incidents. The value of risk is probability of impact times cost of impact. Hence, just for hypothetical illustration in a simple way: if there is a 5% probability of impact and the avoided cost is expected to be $1000, the expected cost of the risk is $50. So if you pay $500 for the risk premium and its expected value is $50, you aren't on the winning side of that bet. Only if you are one of the "5%" do you come out ahead. It's a lottery. Or it's a feel good thing. One thing absolutely for certain: you cannot tell from web forums, including this one, what your probability of impact is for two reasons: (a) we don't have Epson's data on how many printers were sold and how many needed to be repaired, and (b) web forums are skewed, so you can't infer expected performance data from them: complaints are heard in much higher proportion than satisfied customers. It's like the news. All the thousands of aircraft that take off and land safely all over the world every day never make the news because it's not news. If one crashes it is news and that gets reported. Same kind of thing here. Believe what you read, but don't believe for a moment it's the whole story.
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We sell A LOT of Epson printers. We suggest that our customers call us when they have a problem just to be certain it is not something that we can resolve without a call to Epson. We also have contacts we can make to get answers regarding Epson issues. Sometimes, we have to suggest a call to Epson (bad ink carts, for example). Based on this, we have VERY FEW complaints about the large volume of Epson printers that we move. Mark has repeated this a few times on LuLa and I have to support his concept that this Forum is where complaints rise to the surface so it would appear that problems are common. My experience selling Epson printers for the past 8 years does not support this claim.
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Quite frankly I'm not convinced this is the moral of the story, or that buying an extended warranty is necessarily a good investment. An extended warranty is an insurance policy, and like all insurance policies it is a risk pool. Whether it is worth buying into that risk pool depends on the cost of the premium relative to the value of the risk. You can only know the value of the risk if you have data on the percentage of machines that require calling the warranty and the avoided cost os the covered incidents. The value of risk is probability of impact times cost of impact. Hence, just for hypothetical illustration in a simple way: if there is a 5% probability of impact and the avoided cost is expected to be $1000, the expected cost of the risk is $50. So if you pay $500 for the risk premium and its expected value is $50, you aren't on the winning side of that bet. Only if you are one of the "5%" do you come out ahead. It's a lottery. Or it's a feel good thing. One thing absolutely for certain: you cannot tell from web forums, including this one, what your probability of impact is for two reasons: (a) we don't have Epson's data on how many printers were sold and how many needed to be repaired, and (b) web forums are skewed, so you can't infer expected performance data from them: complaints are heard in much higher proportion than satisfied customers. It's like the news. All the thousands of aircraft that take off and land safely all over the world every day never make the news because it's not news. If one crashes it is news and that gets reported. Same kind of thing here. Believe what you read, but don't believe for a moment it's the whole story.
Come on Mark, you're stating the obvious !
I can assure you I'm not that naive in believing it's the whole story. All I know is there are several folks that have the same problems as me, so as far as I'm concerned there is a problem with some Epson printers with these heads. Of course there must be thousands around the world that work OK each and every day. I feel it would have been a really good exercise in customer relations for Epson to have said to anyone with this problem, 'We'll help you out here guys' instead of which they have just chosen to ignore the pleas for help. Fine if that's their choice, trouble is a bad vibe about a product can spread like a virus across the net in a very quick time these days and can destroy a good reputation.
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Come on Mark, you're stating the obvious !
. ...All I know is there are several folks .......... across the net in a very quick time these days and can destroy a good reputation.
Yup - that's the whole point - "several folks" against many, many thousands of printers sold. And I seriously doubt this thread is destroying Epson's reputation to a commercially significant extent. It would be real interesting to know how many thousands of printers they've sold world wide since this monumental, record-breaking thread started!!!! :-). You know, if I believed every complaint I read on the internet I wouldn't be buying anything anytime from anyone. Anyhow, I think Alan made a good point several posts up - it would be nice to see this thread focused on technical solutions to problems.
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As a comparison, the aircraft story doesn't hold water. If one aircraft crashes due to blocked engine nozzles, the whole fleet is grounded until a solution is found. As anyone in marketing will tell you, one or two bad apples can ruin a whole barrel of apples. As a Canon user, when my machine dies I wouldn't consider an Epson for it's replacement. Buyers troll the internet for purchase hints in their hundreds of thousands - printer buyers are no different.
As to impressions gained, this forum is a microcosm of users and a casual reader would say to themselves, boy, those Epson owners have a hard time of it. I can also understand the defensive posts members make, given the investment in funds and the years of familiarity.
You could say that comparison of numbers reporting problems against those who don't has some meaning. Well it really doesn't. Some are having problems - to state the obvious, and that another user doesn't have the problem, is really saying nothing. For them there's no problem and stating so adds nothing to the search for a solution by those who do. It's similar to the salesman's ploy when confronted by an unhappy customer. He's trained to say "No-one else has reported this".
The sign printing industry often obtains their printers under fully maintained leasing arrangements. For a fixed monthly amount you use the printer and the machine is kept running by others, usually for a three to five year period. That way you know you total printing costs and machine failures are at no cost to the user.
So, let's go on here with solutions.
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I have to add this here, I apologize. I'm usually focused pretty hard on finding solutions to our problems but this true story begs to be told. We need some comic relief:
My genius buddy Steve has a girlfriend now. Half a year already. I rarely see him anymore but I do text him regularly "jerk". Anyway his new girl has a brother. Creative guy, into photography - especially printing (largely, if you can even believe that). So she asks Steve one night, "I don't know what to get my brother for his 40th birthday. He's sure been at this photography and graphics design stuff a while now. Any ideas what he might like or need?" Steve thinks real hard about it then comes back with a classic, "How bout we buy him a printer? I might even know one we can get him at a super deal..." So she unveils the idea to little brother and he gets all lathered up about it. Already he'd been researching them, almost a year by now. Naturally big sister gets all jazzed too, until she tells him what it is. Instantly little brother goes blank, "Oh, an Epson 7900? I heard they clog an awful lot..."
Rumor has it Steve never uttered one word in response. Instead he simply thought, long and hard, as he gazed out at the luminous landscape surrounding them (which showed signs of banding and had slight color shifts in the blues)
(edit) by the way I absolutely love my 7900. I am continually fascinated with the prints it produces.
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Not everyone's experience in Europe with 11880 and x900 models. "Not using Epson media on that printer sir, if it happens with Epson media you can come back with your complaint. No mister, not even for Hahnemühle papers¨
Loss of face in whatever country has nothing to do with it.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
470+ inkjet paper white spectral plots, November 2012.
Hi Ernst,
I was not aware of the Epson attitude you described .... that kind of attitude is too bad.
You misinterpreted by remark about loss of face though or I was not clear enough about it. I was referring to the Asian and in particular Japanese people, for which loss of face is the very worst thing that can happen to them. They will do everything to avoid that!
Within Japanese companies usually top management in other regions (outside Japan) is Japanese. So probably that is also the case here in Europe, but they most of the time do not get these kind of info / complaints as lower management learns to keep it away from them - unfortunately. It is against the company culture :(
cheers,
Remko
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I was very happy with the way my epson made prints. Its just the past few months of constant head cleaning and nozzle checks that were the headache. Last week when I tried to clear the heads again I went through one maintenance tank in ONE DAY. Forget the cost of the maintenance tanks, the ink cost was hurting me more. There comes a time when I had to make a business decision and say I can't keep pouring money into it and not produce any results at all.
I just said a prayer tracked my new printer and it comes in today (thank god) when it was expected to be delivered after thanksgiving. I'll be spending all weekend here in the office making prints.
I still have my 7900, i'll try to see if I can get these clogs out of it but at least for the time being my new printer will allow me to continue my production. My next step after I settle back into the workflow will be to order the damper assembly kit and replace that.
My search for a solution brought me to this forum and I think its a great community. I will continue to update you all if I make any progress.
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Hi xsydx,
I know how you feel. I was doing the same thing until it indicated a fatal print head error. Now I'm sitting with a new print head and nervous about installing it. In a strange way, I'm not so anxious. This is because there was a stress level caused by worrying about and clearing clogs.
Re: the 7900 maintenance tank. You can obtain a reset chip to avoid having to purchase a new tank. Any of the 3rd party ink suppliers will sell you one. Mine must be used before the tank drops below 15% capacity but I've used successfully.
Bob DeBellis
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Me and the genius walked a couple of miles to dinner last night. Talked girls on our way out, X900 clogs on our way back. You may not expect this since our 7900 prints happier than a pig in mud these days, but I still think about solving the two greatest mysteries that plague X900 users across the globe - avoiding clogs before they get you, and clearing the ones which already have - just about every day. Recently I have hit on some new ideas I want to explore, after considering all that we face from a brand new perspective. Last night for the first time I aired some of these ideas to my genius. Steve is a lot smarter than I am so when my thoughts got his head to cocking sideways like dog hearing air squeak out of a birthday balloon, I couldn't help feeling I may be on to something...
I want to understand exactly what it is we are up against. Like, why are some clogs clearable and others not? If time is our greatest enemy considering head threatening clogs, just how much time is too much time? How dry is too dry? And why is too dry, too dry? I want to understand how long rinsing dried ink with wet ink will leave you with a clean slate? Is it a day, is it a week? Or is it just an hour? It's pretty amazing I think how the very same ink we ask to stay wet for months at a stretch in the face of our heads just millimeters away from life-threatening air, we then ask to dry in fifteen seconds once it's shot out onto paper. Is there a varnish-like hardening agent in Epson's pigment ink that does this for us? Could this be our best friend once outside the head, but our greatest enemy while still inside of it?
I mean really, this is not a complicated scenario. It's a hole, clogged, with dried pigment ink.
So exactly WTF IS dried pigment ink? I want a glass slide, a smear of Epson Ultrachrome HDR pigment ink, a really powerful microscope, and a camera.
I want ten glass slides with pigment ink smears on them, each one soaking in something different to loosen them up again. And I want to watch them, under a microscope. I want one glass smear to be just an hour dried in the open air, the other I want to be dried for ten minutes with a heat gun. I want to see the differences, up close, with a microscope. And I want pictures.
Just then Steve looked back at me, like, well you know what like...
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/dog.jpg)
After a bit Steve came back at me saying thing's I've never before heard him say. We wondered at first if a microscope which we could actually get our hands on could even see what I want to see. So tonight I did some research. Here, translated by my pea brain into standard monkey language, is what I learned (please excuse me for starting this at the beginning, geniuses feel free to skip two paragraphs)
If you run Epson Ultrachrome HDR inks through your X900 printer, you use pigment ink. WTF is a pigment? Pigments are the powder, the particles, the molecules that give us color. These are pigments:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/pigment.jpg)
Pigments are tiny, solid particles which reflect light in different colors than that which they absorb. Different pigments produce different colors, depending on where they come from and what type they are. Shine a white light at a particle/it shines blue back/someone calls it a pigment/Epson buys it and mixes it into your cyan cart. Now you have pigment ink. Pigment molecules attach to one another and form groups called crystalline structures.
So what does all this mean to us X900 printers? We have tiny rocks, in our wet ink, which stick to one another like white dog hair on black velvet, and then they dry - to form mountains, right inside our even tinier piezoelectric printhead nozzles. Why are X900 printers far worse with clogging than previous Epson models? Same size rocks, smaller nozzles. End of story.
...or is it.
As it turns out these tiny crystalline structures made up of groups of pigment molecules measure up in size to a whopping 0.1um. Since I have no idea in hell how big a "um" is, and therefore have no idea if a reachable microscope could even see one, I did more research. Apparently seeing things as small as 0.1um is possible with a decent, realistically attainable microscope...
more to come
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Eric,
One of the big problems is trying to find out how exactly Epson formulates their inks. I can't find anything in the patent literature on the ink formulation (I have a 3880 printer and if you look on the ink box, all of the patents that are listed are for the cartridge assembly and not the inks). If you look at the listed composition in the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=172206&infoType=MSDS)) you don't really get anything informative. I'm a chemist by training and have looked at all the data sheets to try to figure this out and can only conclude that Epson are keeping a lot of the crucial information as trade secret and not disclosing it as a patent filing. Of the listed compounds from the MSDS, the most interesting from your perspective would be the glycerols which are used as a carrying agent and some percentage of these compounds end up leaving the paper after printing as gas (which is why you need to wait a bit before framing under glass or acrylic so that the print has had a chance to fully dry, otherwise you get a residue on the inside of the glazing) and the proprietary organics which I deduce as the carrying agent for the dye or pigment. It's likely that these are some type of encapsulating resin whose manufacturing tolerance needs to be quite tight (the 0.1 µm that you mention above). If the particle size is not well controlled during ink manufacturing, you could end up with larger size particles that 'could' cause problems in terms of clogging. Is this why printers such as the 3880 that have larger size 'holes' in the print head don't clog much at all and the newer generation with smaller 'holes' do? It's possible but I suspect that Epson have pretty good QA/QC on the ink production line (the only way we could tell that this was contributory would be to gather information on the lot numbers of ink that led to clogs in user machines and this would be extremely difficult to do).
From the reading of your many posts, my own feeling is that the wiper blade and head parking assemblies are likely culprits here. The wiper blade could leave residues on the print head (and I think you've posted pictures of this happening as the blade gets old. The head parking assembly could lead to residue dry out if there isn't a good seal. I don't know what material the print head is made of (haven't tried doing a patent search on that) but Epson do advertise this as having "...our latest ink-repelling coating". This could also be problematic if not properly controlled during the manufacturing process. I like to think of this akin to a Teflon non-stick fry pan which is fine as long as the integrity of the Teflon is preserved. However, we do know after periods of use, the non-stick surface degrades and one gets stuff sticking. I don't know if the Epson heads degrade over time (perhaps not since users report clogs at all points after they have purchased their printer).
As others have said these are complicated machines and are designed for constant use. The problem with clogs could have several different contributory factors.
Alan
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Excellent contribution Alan.
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Thank you Alan. Great you are a chemist. Greater yet that you take the time to share your knowledgeable perspective. Please consider the following ideas:
On the subject of clearing clogs -
1 - Why do some clogs become un-clearable in time on X900s, whereas older model Epson printer clogs are virtually always clearable? As it's been pointed out earlier in this thread, some of the X900's cleaning procedures force ink through the head, while others suck ink from the head. In terminal clog cases, neither procedures are affective. In these cases of un-clearable clogs, my genius had an interesting idea the other night - "What if it's not just the very face of the nozzle that gets clogged? What if what we're really up against is something more like a bad clog in your sink - where no amount of Drian-o clears a clog simply because it can't break through all the layers of, well, clog, to get to the clog..?"
Steve's idea presents an interesting scenario, especially when it's grouped with Blue Moon's point - it's almost ridiculous to expect you can clear ink clogs with the same ink that formed them.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/clogger.jpg)
2 - If pigments are particles which group together to form crystals that measure up to 0.1-2 ums, how big do groups of dried crystals get? And how big are those groups compared to the opened holes in X900 nozzles - apparently larger..
3 - How do you break up piles of pigment crystals (and whatever else is in our ink) using only liquid?
4 - What types of liquids will not harm the many various materials which make up these printheads?
5 - Where can I get my hands on a microscope powerful enough to explore the realities of these ideas on glass slides, without having to buy one for $4Gs? I'm already looking into rentals but haven't landed anything yet.
.
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especially when it's grouped with Blue Moon's point - it's almost ridiculous to expect you can clear ink clogs with the same ink that formed them.
Hi Eric
Loved your puppy !
I want it big size please !.........
"Its almost ridiculous..."
Would you share the same thought with me please but from a slightly different perspective ..or way of putting the same thing... Into different words.....
"Its almost ridiculous to contaminate beautiful ink with horrid rotten stale ink...backlashed from or by a dirty unwashed,uncared-for wiper blade....
(The only differences between the two inks is that one has air attached to it and the other does not..)
OR
put simply..........
How would your kitchen dishes and pots and pans be if you decided not to clean your one and only dish -cloth (wiper blade to us folks ) for say about three years..not very fresh ! (You might have a self cleaning tea towel called a dishwasher)
Or have you all been cleaning your wiper blades very regularly from day one.....have you ?did Epson warn you of the dangers of not cleaning dirty parts really regularly ? How often does Epson recommend that seals are cared for ? Were you given a training course on printer hygiene ? Or advised to have one ?
Is it accepted practice to clean soiled parts every week say by your own efforts...sorry for asking so many questions..I'm just curious really
To solve the mysteries of x900 wobbles all we need ,i think,is to do is reverse gears back to x800 for all or most of the answers..
I have not done one single print on one of my x800 printers for 8 months now.....and no clogs ( except two miserable little things not worth reporting)......the cost ...about 7 mls of ink per month per cartridge...(and when i go back to printing, i will be saving the 7 mls of ink ) and lots of shake ups for stopping pigment sludge...i wont be using any more maintenace tanks either..another saving..why did Epson advertise that the x800's were more trouble than the x900....that is simply not true...and very misleading and unfair to any of you who were basically happy with the x800 series but were led to believe that you were purchasing a better system in the x900 series...surely one is entitled to a better system when one parts with cash to acquire a better system. ..seriously why is the x800 simpler to manage than the newer models ?
All epson needs to do is go backwards now and learn from their old successes..its really that simple....but can they or will they ? Time will tell...
I am happy to say,on reflection, that an unused Epson is safer than a regularly used Epson....with the proper precautions of course...i know that there is no one out there to agree with me....but 8 months testing on a 6 year old machine is good enough for me.....i make sure that no air gets in and no pigsludge settles in the system...there is nothing more to do....absolutely nothing...its awesomely straightforward and simple too...why did that system need improving ? Why ?
Thanks
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Could be as simple as the particles stayed the same size, but the holes got smaller.
Could be all previous printhead nozzles accumulate drying ink particles just the same as new ones do, crystalizing from the sides-inward until finally the nozzle is clogged. Could be with the larger diameter nozzles this bridge the crystals form is weaker, because it's longer, so regular cleanings can break that bridge. But on the newer printheads these bridges (clogs) are stronger, because they are shorter.
I don't know, yet. And perhaps I never will. But this is getting interesting as hell. This morning I had no idea what oil immersion microscopy even was..
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You should know the x800 series printhead has 180 nozzles per inch and the x900 series 360 nozzles per inch, and the engineers and chemists at Epson *probably* :-) knew this when they formulated the inks for these printers. Smaller nozzles combined with new dithering math are directed at making prints that can be yet of higher apparent resolution and smoother tonality; as well the gamut of say a 4900 is considerably greater than that of the 3800 because of the reformulated inks and newer math. This also seems to mean that the usage and maintenance conditions of these printers are more exacting. Rate and regularity of throughput, temperature, humidity and environmental cleanliness would all affect the variability of head-cleaning that different users experience. The print quality these machines produce is stunning, but the differences between the x900 and x800 print quality are subtle. People who want ultimate quality and don't mind the extra demands of the x900s will buy one of those, while people who want still great print quality with less attention to usage and maintenance should buy x800 machines. I think this is what the choices between these options essentially boil-down to, and why Epson keeps such a variety of models on the market.
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Good questions and let me take a shot at them. I did delete the nice graphic to save space!
Thank you Alan. Great you are a chemist. Greater yet that you take the time to share your knowledgeable perspective. Please consider the following ideas:
On the subject of clearing clogs -
1 - Why do some clogs become un-clearable in time on X900s, whereas older model Epson printer clogs are virtually always clearable? As it's been pointed out earlier in this thread, some of the X900's cleaning procedures force ink through the head, while others suck ink from the head. In terminal clog cases, neither procedures are affective. In these cases of un-clearable clogs, my genius had an interesting idea the other night - "What if it's not just the very face of the nozzle that gets clogged? What if what we're really up against is something more like a bad clog in your sink - where no amount of Drian-o clears a clog simply because it can't break through all the layers of, well, clog, to get to the clog..?"
The easiest clog to clear would be one that is on the outside of the head ass fresh ink could push the clog out with a quick blast. I would assume that these types of clogs come from a dirty wiper blade. What we don't know is whether clogs result from a defect in the head membrane and I would think that these are the fatal ones. I'll need to do some patent searching to see how much Epson have disclosed regarding the print head design.
2 - If pigments are particles which group together to form crystals that measure up to 0.1-2 ums, how big do groups of dried crystals get? And how big are those groups compared to the opened holes in X900 nozzles - apparently larger..
We don't know the answer to this and I don't think just placing a drop of ink on a microscope slide will give the right answer. That does not mimic the real life spray of micro-size ink droplets onto the paper. Theoretically, the pigment particles are supposed to be kept in suspension inside the ink cartridge and line and this is an air-free environment from the design of the cartridge. If there is bad quality control in the cartridge manufacture one could attribute some of the problems there but we don't have any data and as I noted previously this is hard to come by. I'm thinking more along the lines of a head imperfection.
3 - How do you break up piles of pigment crystals (and whatever else is in our ink) using only liquid?
I think that this is possible IF the clog is on the outside and was a result of a bad wiper or capping station. There are reports of people using Windex and other similar cleaners to address this. If the clog is on the inside I'm less optimistic since this would require sucking liquid into the head. You do say this does happen for some Epson models but where would the liquid come from?
4 - What types of liquids will not harm the many various materials which make up these printheads?
Only Epson know for sure! Certainly not harsh inorganic cleaners such as lye or a strong acid! :D We do know that Epson formulates the inks with glycerol and other glycols. I think either ethyl or isopropyl alcohol might be good solvents to try. I would stay away from methanol as it may be too astringent.
5 - Where can I get my hands on a microscope powerful enough to explore the realities of these ideas on glass slides, without having to buy one for $4Gs? I'm already looking into rentals but haven't landed anything yet.
Maybe a local college or university would be a good place to try. Try to find one of the scientists there who is also a photographer and has an Epson printer.
Alan
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Thank you Alan.
On item 3 - my understanding of Epson's different cleaning procedures comes from a great post on page 40 of this thread, by chaddro - one of our elite internet information combing mercenaries. It was this post where I learned that depending on which of the many X900 cleaning cycles there are to choose from, Epson both forces ink through the head, and sucks in from the head:
If you have a stubborn "clog" (it could also be a LACK of ink), doing standard cleanings probably won't help you. the x900 series printers DON'T fire the nozzles during the cleaning processes. The cap station covers the head and SUCKS ink out ... several ml's each time. You may need to do a piezo-clean which is only accessible through the service mode.
No idea about the amount of ink used, but this "super-strong" cleaning does fire the nozzles. I've not had to do this myself.
Disclaimer: The following is given for informational purposes only. Entering the Service/Maintenance Modes is not looked upon with grace by Epson. Perform at your own risk. YOU CAN FUBAR your printer in here:
Definition of SS Cleaning:
Note that there is no paired cleaning available with this mode. I think it's much like doing a power clean on the older 9880/9800/4000 series printers.
Also, it's a good idea to do a normal image print between cleaning cycles.
Good luck. I hope this helps!
-chadd
This is a quote from Epson's service manual: "SS Cleaning has a strong ultra sonic component. The Piezo Elements internal to the Print Head are used to attempt to break up pigment particles that may be clogging the interior of the Print Head.
Use SS Cleaning when a Nozzle can not be cleared through normal cleaning."
...so you are right Alan even Epson seems to indicate that most common clogs are outside the printhead face, while the other more stubborn (read: potentially deadly) clogs are indeed inside it - which does parallel the very haunting idea behind my clogger-gremlin graphic.
As for microscopes, I am indeed possessed. My research indicates to me I need not only one, but two microscopes in order to explore this tiny world of clogs - a stereo microscope, for performing an up-close and personal autopsy on a clogged X900 printhead, and a compound microscope to explore dried pigment particle crystal dislodging. Yes I do understand that sprayed ink on paper is very different than ink dried in the face of a printhead, but when you think about it ink dried on a glass slide may by more similar to ink dried on the face of a printhead, than ink sprayed on paper. Either way I will ultimately get us all some up-close looks at both.
I have a Nikon D800E with a 200mm micro lens aimed at the face of our dead X900 printhead right now. Pics in a bit..
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First off, sincere thanks to Eric-- not only for being methodically adventurous in delving into the insides of the 7900, but also for taking a significant amount of time to post these experiences.
I've followed these adventures while having my own love-hate relationship with my 7900. I've had clogging issues way too often, but they have always been resolvable in the past. However, my light magenta channel has gotten to the point where it will either require a call to Epson/Decision One or more invasive steps into the printer. I can only speak to my own experience with this one printer (though I've owned other smaller Epsons in the past).
-Had some somewhat quirky problems under warranty and had Decision One out to take a look. (Auto check/clean is off, but prior to turning it off, the printer was running cleaning cycles even when the test pattern was fine; also roll paper was being cut automatically even when the auto-cut was turned off). Basically, D1 tried a bunch of random things and fiddled but didn't solve the problems.
-I am somewhat cyclical in how much I print. Sometimes I have weeks with a lot of printing, but can also go weeks without printing. Compared to most of the people who actually post here, I would guess I'm a low volume printer.
-For a while, I considered myself fortunate in not having overbearing clogging issues. That said, I would have periodic clogs but they were always resolvable with normal cleaning or pairs cleaning. Up to that point, I had only power cleaned a few times.
-Have had more clog problems this past year. This would occur in multiple channels but most frequently in the Light Magenta. It became a frequent annoyance -- e.g. printing fine and then the next morning would have several clogs. But, it was always resolvable. I followed these forums from afar thinking that my love/hate relationship with the 7900 was fine. Ink-wasting and annoying, but fine . . . At that point, if you had asked me, I would have said that I would still purchase another Epson. But the problems became more frequent and I would certainly be interested in seeing what Canon and HP offer now for the next time around.
Now, the Light Magenta seems to be unresolvably clogged despite multiple cleanings, running off some prints, and running cleanings from Maintenance Mode. And it has progressively gotten worse.
-Initially, it was just a small bit of two lines that didn't show up on the test pattern. But the prints, at least to my eye, looked okay. But more and more of the LM test pattern has dropped out.
-I've pulled out the wiper blade but haven't replaced it yet. It was moderately gunked up which I cleaned with a visible dust camera sensor cleaner.
I am considerably less adventurous (and less mechanically skilled) than a lot of people who post here; if I can't fix it with duct tape and epoxy then I probably can't fix it. My inclination is to make an appt with D1 and see what they do even though my appointment under warranty with them seemed like a lot of unsuccessful trial and error. If I go this route, I will post whatever details that I can as well as the cost.
-I haven't done the windex/paper towel method yet. Should I? It seems commonly written about in many forums, but I'm somewhat reluctant to put anything close to the printer heads. Am I overly cautious? Should I try this next?
-I am going to order a new wiper blade and replace it.
-I have run the SSCL and the pairs cleaning in maintenance mode. At this point, I don't plan on doing any more of this as I don't think that more of the same will be helpful.
-Other suggestions?
Thanks,
Dan
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Hi Dan. Neighbor... Sorry about your clogs. Also sorry it seems D1 didn't solve your past problems. Doesn't offer a lot of confidence about future problems. Are you still under warranty? If so tell them you need a new head. If not, you may just have joined the deadly-clog-clearing resolution queue.
I don't blame you for abandoning the endless cleanings approach, which don't ever seem to accomplish more than filling your maintenance tank with shredded hundred dollar bills. If you are responding here, you've already read what's just above your post - the best X900 cleanings info here. Not much more to add to that, other than it's a waste of time and money chasing cleaning cart solutions. I'd tell you be patient, an answer is just around the bend, but I know better by now. Best I can tell you is you are not alone. Sit tight and stay tuned, I've got microscopes showing up here mid-week. If they don't offer answers, at the very least they'll give us more to consider.
Don't sweat yourself too bad, if things go totally pear shaped on you I'm just down the road.
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Thanks Eric. Yes in SF here and I think I should head out and enjoy this weather instead of worrying about the printer but trying to solve the problem is under my skin a bit at the moment.
I am going to order a new wiper blade and replace it. But will probably call Epson on Monday. Will let you know what happens and their order of problem-solving. . . . If it is a printer head/large expense, I don't know that I would go through with it. Might look at other non-epson solutions for the first time ever for me; but hopefully it will be fixable and not too outrageous in terms of cost.
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I had a couple things to add to the wiper cleaning/replacement info above. Please forgive me if it was already mentioned somewhere in the ongoing saga.
For the serviceman routine for accessing the wiper blade note that with the 9900 there are two places where the wiper assembly will fit, one of which is probably used for the dual-cmyk setups rather than the 10 colour setup. If you put the wiper back in the same spot it came out of you'll be fine (it's the right one facing the printer) There is also a little tab that actuates the wiper and you need to have the wiper positioned correctly when you re-install it or you'll get an error (1487 IIRC). Though the error message says to turn the printer on and off to see if it clears from my experience you need to check and make sure the wiper assembly is mounted correctly in the right bay.
Note that if you close the lid on the printer it will move the print head back to the capping station! I think it also starts running through the cleaning as well --- DON'T close the cover until you have the new or cleaned wiper assembly in place and certainly don't leave anything in the path of the print head.
Also note that using the serviceman routine seems to send it in to yet another auto cleaning you can't bypass. I think with two passes it drained slightly more than 1% from all 700ml cartridges so while the wiper assembly is relatively cheap, Caesar always get's his due.... If you unplug the printer and take it apart there does not seem to be the Epson tax but it's quite a bit more work.
Good information above though. Does seem like epson went out of the way to make this machine less reliable than the prior generations -- took 2 seconds (and no ink wasted) to maintain the cleaning assembly on the 9880, but I think that was a much less gimmicky machine all around.
Doug
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Does seem like epson went out of the way to make this machine less reliable than the prior generations --
Doug
Do you REALLY believe any serious manufacturer in today's world would do such a thing?
I rather think design and design changes involve compromises. Change is *intended* to advance and improve, but at the margins some things may get knocked. They make judgments about when a product is ready for prime time. We may or may not agree, depending on our experience, which is obviously highly variable.
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Hi Mark:
I think what you are saying may have been true back in the olden days when the engineering department made the design choices but now it's the bean counters and the marketing slicks. I have been printing heavily with epson equipment for a number of years and find there are several "improvements" with the 7900/9900 that would have been better left to the consumer printers. This thread's popularity seems to support that view, at least to me.
I think this whole thread points to the fact that going from 180 to 360 nozzles may have been a mistake and seriously compromised the longevity/reliability.
I think the marketing-types decided the new line had to have the automatic loading, just like the other brands. This move added tons of bulk and complexity to the printer for no gain in my opinion. It certainly doesn't save me any time. The downside is that it made feeding small sheets either impossible (less than 8.5 x 11) or finicky and unreliable (<11x14). With all the machinations the machine goes through sometimes the overall throughput is slower than the previous generation, even given the faster print speed. Personally I've never seen roll media that could be printed to the bitter end so I don't see the point of wasting good media to mark the rolls.
Despite Epson's claims to the contrary I do not see any less clogging with this model compared to prior ones and in fact it seems to suffer more from single nozzle clogs and deflections. Compared to the prior generations it seems to use about half again as much ink and even a single nozzle clog can cause a print wrecking drips. I'm hoping the information in this thread will cut down on the last problem.
Here's where the bean counters come in -- from a cost of ownership perspective any savings in ink cost per ml seem to be overshadowed by more cleanings and more ink per square foot. The only thing I ever needed to replace in four years of daily use with the 9880 was the paper cutter and now we're looking at very roughly $500/year if you diy the maintenance. Since epson's guy is 10 hours round trip from me diy is the only option here. Never needed him for the four other epson wide format I've had.
I'm still trying to figure out what the green ink is for. The Orange makes a small visible difference in fall-type pictures but the green seems totally useless. From the Y and C usage I have to believe that most of the green tones are still made by mixing cyan and yellow. Why not Blue where the printers are weakest? I would love to take out the green and try white if I can't have a real blue.
At any rate the printer does the job but I wish they had taken the 8 inches of extra length and 100+ extra pounds, chucked the auto feed, and made it a 50 inch wide printer for the same price.
I am glad I found this thread though since my 9900 had started wrecking numerous prints with ink drops at exactly 3 weeks past the end of the warranty. Wiper seems to be the culprit but the Cap and pump assembly to be replaced as soon as I can get the parts.
My two cents worth of whining...
Doug
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... took 2 seconds (and no ink wasted) to maintain the cleaning assembly on the 9880...
Doug
Very interesting posts Doug, thanks for stepping up. A lot of what you wrote makes me think but I have one particular question I want to ask - what cleaning assembly maintenance are you referring to on your 9880? And what do you do, if anything, along the same lines with your 9900?
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Doug
Well done man !
You are right on the button....so sweet to see it so lucidly and pragmatically explained...congratulations for turning on the lights ....wow
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Hi Eric and thanks very much for documenting this journey for us...
With the old printers selecting cutter replacement from the regular-person menu would send the printhead out to the centre of the carriage. Since the wiper and cleaning station was much simpler and didn't play hide and seek like it does on the 7900/9900 it could be easily cleaned with a lint free cloth soaked in distilled water or even (dare I say it) windex. The wiper was beside the flushing box and went the width of the printhead (iirc). A few wipes and a good soaking of the flushing pad once in a while would remove all the gunk that had built up. I used the blue "paper" shop towels since they seemed to have much less lint than a regular paper towel.
If a cleaning didn't work after 2 or 3 tries I'd clean the printhead itself by simply folding up a blue shop towel so it was three layers thick, soaking it in distilled water and sliding the print head over it for an hour or so -- couple passes back and forth to remove anything sticking to it, another cleaning for luck and that was usually it. Good for a week or two.
With the 9900 the clogging has been different and I have only tried the regular user-mode machine clean cycles. There are fewer big clogs and a lot of single nozzle ones compared to the 9880. I'm sure I've averaged a single-nozzle clog almost daily over the last 15 months. Usually they clear after a pair cleaning but many times I've tried once or twice with the pairs and had to resort to a full clean. I have only tried the heavy-duty pair cleaning a couple times and it didn't seem to make a difference. The 9900 seems much more prone to dripping ink on the prints with even one nozzle deflected so I try to keep the pattern completely clear. I do print large prints though so compared to smaller prints the ink has more chance to build up to a drip.
I should note that until I found this thread a week a go the only method I had heard to get at the print head and capping station was to turn the printer off while the printhead was off it's station. This did not sound like a good plan to me so I did not try it!
I have been much more careful with the humidity with the new machine than I ever was with the old and actually bought a 2nd humidifier to try and keep the humidity up to 40 or better. I would print below 20% with the 9880 though it seemed to get cagey when that low. Where we live it has to be pouring rain to get much above 60%.
As an example today I printed 8 prints ranging in size from 20x30 up to about 24 x 60 and had to clear single nozzle clogs twice. But this is after doing a check of the wiper blade earlier that seemed to force a major cleaning. See my other post for why I had to check it;(
That's my experience at any rate...
Doug
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Monday a.m. called Epson at 562-276-1305. (the Website leads you to local service center referral for out of warranty issues. However, this gave me the names of several places that got truly horrible yelp reviews and more importantly didn't look to have any experience with the Epson Pro printers). They are having Decision One call me this afternoon. I had pretty mixed experiences with them under warranty but it seems like they are a better option than the other three local shops referred to on the epson website.
Epson help said Decision One should call me this afternoon with an estimate. I asked how they could provide an estimate without knowing what the problem is-- he said their estimate will be for parts and labor for the print head, wiper blade, and pump cap assembly. So it sounds like they will call back with a max estimate. ( I have a partially blocked light magenta channel that won't respond to any type of cleaning (normal, pairs, SSCL, service mode etc). I will get a full breakdown of costs/parts/labor. Epson said the parts will be sent directly to my house and the appointment will happen after the parts arrive.
I already ordered two wiper blades at $13.00 each from Encompass in Oregon. $26.00 for the two parts and $28.00 for two day shipping from OR to CA!
Should I order the pump cap assembly and is it difficult to change myself for someone generally not going the do-it-yourself route? Is there a reasonable probability that this will help at all?
Btw, I had parts of two lines dropped out of the LM channel test print but when I compare those prints to current ones, there was no banding and I can't see any noticeable effect on the prints. Even though the test prints showed portions of dropped lines out of the test print, did I really have a clog? Now there are many more missing parts of lines from the LM portion of the test print and the banding is very visible up close. I had such constant clogs (daily in LM and slightly less often in LLK) as reported by the test print, I think it was only a matter of time before I had unresolvable issues; still, it makes me wonder if I made the problem with the constant cleaning. It's perhaps somewhat analogous to a photographer using a loupe and light and seeing a tiny speck on their dslr sensor that doesn't appear in their photos and then obsessing over cleaning it and making the problem worse. Except of course there's no manual contact in running print cycles and it is the prescribed method of resolution.
Will report back with costs etc in the event that helps anyone make a decision here between the DIY route vs D1.
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Also, I stumbled upon this:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=FAQ&oid=60322&prodoid=55197367&foid=76588
This gives instructions for cleaning of the wiper blade, pump cap, and assembly for the Epson x800 series. Obviously this is a different printer, but I didn't realize these things were officially user cleanable in the eyes of Epson for any of their pro printers.
Separately, I'm trying not to guess on what the D1 estimate will be but I can't help it. Adding up the cost for the parts plus a guess at labor puts it not too far off from the price of a new 7900. If D1's estimate is indeed that high, that would be an interesting dilemma. Also I think I'd have to be open to looking at the new Canon printers with their rebates and trade-ins.
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Got a call back from D1. If anyone is interested or in the same boat, the costs are as follows:
$100 travel charge to come to my house in San Francisco
$175/ hour with a 1 hour minimum
Parts:
Print head: $1132
Pump Cap Assembly: $231
Wiper: $13
Selector Unit: $173.60
AID sub board $162
I don't know what the last two items are. I gave them my cc and am having a local tech call me to set up an appointment. But I'm debating what to do. The total cost if I require all of the above is just about $2000 (and that is with only one hour of service time). New 7900s are generically advertised now with the rebate at $2500 and I might be able to do a little better. The new Canons are advertising good deals right now as well. What if I fix it and the next thing is the LLK which has had a lot of problems (is the print head for all of the different color channels?). Wouldn't I be better off getting a new printer with a warranty for the same price.
Not sure what to do but in the meantime, I'll probably look at trying to do more myself.
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That's exactly your (all out of warranty X900 users) dilemma, sfblue. That's why this thread. That's why I just spent my new-puppy savings account on microscope(s). Basically, as things stand today, when you follow Epson's out of warranty repair protocol, once your print-head drops out your printer is worthless. You are not far off at all on your potential repair estimate. I get emails all the time about this from X900 users. We're like one big family. It's pretty typical to hear about repair numbers in the $2,500 range. Actually this very morning another previous contributor to this thread is opening his door to a D1 house call over in Oklahoma, for the very same procedure you are considering. Only difference is his machine is an 11880 (also X900-based head). His estimate was closer to $3,000. He texted me jokingly yesterday while I was riding in the mountains "maybe I should set up a video camera and film my D1 experience!".
Sounds like we are laughing about all this, which I do choose to do - rather than to cry. At B&H's current price, and offer for free delivery, and the brand new warranty you would get with the purchase - you are exactly right. Following standard Epson/D1 repair protocol once you're out of warranty, makes no sense at all. Add to that the fact that I recently saw a special at B&H for the 7900 at just under $2,000 and it's about enough to make a guy nauseous.
It could very well be that these "un-clearable X900 clogs" are indeed a death sentence for your Epson Stylus Pro Printer. So, maybe I am a fool for continuing my search for answers to questions we all have, and solutions we all need. Won't be the first time I have failed. Won't be the last time I try not to.
I'm sorry, sfblue. Things seem grim I know. So I offer you this personal story of inspiration - maybe you'll see hope too:
(my apologies, some might find this inappropriate)
September 2, 2012. Sonoma California. I am 46, racing an underpowered bike on barely a budget against guys not even born when my racing career began. It's a good year, we're leading the championship, I'm riding all season like I wish I could have two decades ago - today would be different if I had. Then mid-way through third practice, in an unsuspecting turn, for no reason anyone has made sense of yet, all hell breaks loose at over 100mph. I fight to wrestle the bike back to shape but I lose the match. I am thrown to the pavement - head and shoulders first like you might treat something you sincerely despise. I hit my head, I smash my hand, I tare my Rotator Cuff - can't lift my left arm past my ribs.
And our bike is destroyed..
(http://gotagteam.com/KTM_Days/images/racing_2012/afm_round-6_2012/IMG_5259-2.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/KTM_Days/images/racing_2012/afm_round-6_2012/IMG_5262_1.jpg)
...is any of this feeling familiar to anyone with a clogged X900 yet?
Sometimes you get your lights knocked out. We all do. But that doesn't define you. What you do next does.
(http://gotagteam.com/KTM_Days/images/racing_2012/afm_round-6_2012/_80E1343.jpg)
The boys stared straight back at hopelessness and told it to piss-off. They worked all night rebuilding our trusty steed and by mid-morning it had two wheels again. An hour later with a numb shoulder, a bike held together with bailing wire and duct tape, and basically one hand we led the race to the half-way mark. Just then, like we hadn't overcome enough already, our bike began to shake the earth around it like a scene from "The Who" playing Woodstock. The exhaust on our 1190cc twin had broke. It hung from the right side of the bike at just the right angle to cantilever both me and bike into the air on the next right hander, once we got to full lean. Sometimes you've just got to say, "What, the, hell..."
This is the point where this story is supposed to inspire anyone facing un-clearable X900 clogs, to cling to hope. I wrestled us back into shape, we went on to take the loudest second place ever recorded by man, and we won the Championship.
If it is possible to clear a clogged X900 head, we (meaning everyone here) will find the way.
.
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Thanks for the inspiring metaphor Eric.
On my 7900 I have spent 5 weeks and roughly $1800 - 4 maintenance tanks, a complete line of 375ml inks and only one commercial print to show for it. Nozzle check will not clear two guns PK and LG. I cleared the LG but the PK was stubborn. Did a power pair clean than the CYAN dropped out entirely. I am giving up. (I've tried the windex on a 5x7 ply, all kinds of prints and tests, but nothing is working.)
Called EPSON and went straight to customer relations.
"I'm out of warrantee, spent $1800 in inks, cannot clear the clog and want to know if you have a program to give me credit for another machine."
"We have never heard about nozzle clogging on the 7900."
I pointed out there is a good number of owners on the luminous-landscape blog with this issue, and am put on hold for ten minutes and sent back to technical maintenance. No one wants to solve this, and Epson seems not to have a clue. Maybe a class action litigation will wake them up.
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Love the moto photos and story! I have a feeling, Eric, that there is probably one degree of separation or so between us somehow.
Back to printers, so if I take that last photo to heart, all I have to do is take a crowbar to my 7900 and I'll be all set?
Two questions and I apologize if they were answered earlier in the forum but I've read so many different things, I can't remember what references came from each site.
-If I order the pump cap and assembly and replace it myself, any updated view on a place that ships out pretty quickly? I ordered the wiper blades from Encompass but found even normal shipping a bit expensive.
-Does anyone have any experience with these guys: http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/Unclogging_print_head_nozzles.html
I may give them a call-- not sure if I am just desperately looking for solutions that don't cost $2000 . . .
Also, Eric, BH had the 7900 listed recently below 2k? That's enticing even though after this experience I don't know if I can go Epson again . . .
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Yes sfblue, right now they have a decent price listed. Sometimes they have ridiculous prices listed. It seems unpredictable at best.
Yes I have experience with americaninkjetsystems (the way my browsers break that page up on scrolling really brings back bad memories..). Also others that advertise head cleaning services. Also plenty of other options (paths, even journeys) to partake in considering printhead clog clearing (including re-fillable cleaning carts, solutions, wet paper towel techniques, all configurations of menu settings cleanings, service mode cleanings, shaking the machine, even throwing it off a cliff - which I tried once but the clogs never budged).. You will find, as did the rest of us, that none of these work. You will also find that all lines of communication go blank once you mention to these printhead cleaning websites that it's a "4900/7900/9900". I even shipped our X900 printhead to Canada where one specialist machined brackets to fit our heads to his ultrasonic cleaning machines so he could break up the clogs. Three months later our head came back as a very shiny paperweight. So far, best I know, we are on our own. But there is hope. Research is forging us ahead into a new realm of understanding. Soon enough we will have a far better grip on exactly what we are up against.
To answer your previous question, all channels are handled by the same printhead - there is just one. You fix one channel, you fix them all. Unfortunately, you break one channel, you break them all.
If you get cornered I'll change your head. Hell I came about a minute from flying to Oklahoma last week for one of our other family members. Problem was we couldn't find him a head for under two grand, so flights ended up making it not worth while. 11880s are more expensive. You challenge is your head most likely, not your pump and cap assy. Changing the pump and cap to clear a clog is like Left Eye singing about chasing waterfalls. Depending on how many prints you've run, which in your case sounds minimal, it's better to clean the pump and cap, but replace the head. My two cents anyway. The parts changing procedures are completely separate. Left side of the machine comes apart to swap the head, right side of the machine comes apart to change the pump and cap assy.
And no, your D1 serviceman will not be able to change both parts in one hour. More like three, and that's if he's on the ball.
Glad you like the story. Hesitated to tell it here.
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Admittedly, I had to google "Left Eye." :)
Still no call from a local D1 tech, but if three hours is optimistic for the service time, then at a minimum it is $2336.00 unless it's something more minor and the print head doesn't need to be changed. I just did a cursory check and a local store has the 7900 for $2400 and said Epson deals vary month to month and next month it could be higher or lower. I guess that is what accounts for the recent BH price of below $2000.
Has anyone had experience with a Canon using the Lucia EX inks? I know it is too new for reviews on the x400 series, but the x300 reviews I've seen say that color printing is neck and neck with Epson, but I can't seem to find anything about the black and white printing which is something I care about quite a bit. The price for the new Canon 24 inch 6400 seems to be a little under $2000. It's frustrating though as I already know all of the little quirks and workflow with the Epsons.
Random questions: the windex/paper towel thing. If I release the carriage through the service manual and then try this-- it is not actually in contact with the print head, correct? It seems like it would be in contact with the back of the ?flushing box?. My printer anatomy isn't very good, but I noticed that the carriage release seems to take the flushing box with the carriage as opposed to doing the wiper assembly change procedure. I guess it is good that it isn't touching the print head, but in this case is it even doing anything at all to soften up the clog in theory? That American Inkjet thing said to put their solution on the capping station. Is it worth trying something else there on the LM channel? I only ask because the permanent clog is relatively recent so maybe there is some hope? (and has gotten worse with cleaning cycles (this is after months of daily clogs)) and . . . well, I'm clinging to hope . . . .
I started out on the very cautious side-- not wanting to try anything invasive. But I'm more willing to DIY now that the likely alternatives are either a new printer or a service call of roughly the same dollar amount.
-Dan
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Just got a flurry of texts from Oklahoma. Cost our brother $3,000 for the same D1 service you are considering, sfblue. Took his tech three hours. Machine is up and running fine. I should add that since he used D1 to do his head install, he now has a 90 day printhead installation related warranty, which is definitely something you don't get when you do it yourself.
Depending on how many times you fold the cloth over on itself, the wet towel will touch the head. It takes a bit of finagling but it IS possible to run your machine with the door open. Once you accomplish this completely unnecessary task, you get a better idea of what moves where during different operations. Don't do it though, just watch this video instead (http://gotagteam.com/epson/Epson_7900-Wiperblade_change.html):
When you release the head the capping station actually draws itself back into it's cave and the flush box moves down into place along with the wiper blade. Chances are more likely you'll put the wet towel under the head somewhere on the carriage run, rather than over the flush box. That's what I did anyway. Fingers crossed it works!
and by the way, D1 takes your old head back with them - you don't own it apparently, even though you bought it. So don't sweat nicking it up. You should see the face of the head that came with the 7900 I bought used. Up close the thing looks like someone scraped it's face with 80 grit sandpaper. I doubt wet paper towels will hurt as bad the fine art paper used on my machine before I got it.
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Hi, sfblue,
When you say "It's frustrating though as I already know all of the little quirks and workflow with the Epsons." perhaps many of the machine-related quirks are eliminated when using Canon, and overall fidling is greatly reduced.
It seems that the only downside that folks often mention is the very infreqent replacement of a Canon print head. It is simple to do and is designed to be done by the consumer. Just look at the print head price per print and its $400 cost will seem insignificant.
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Hi Eric,
I'm getting ready to replace my print head (7900). I have a little used printer that is 2 years old with a fatal print head error after many cleaning attempts. Is there anything you recommend I should do after I remove the old print head and before I install the new one?
Thanks,
Bob DeBellis
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Hi Bob I just replied to this question in your email. Didn't see this till after. It's interesting how you now have fatal printhead error messages after so many cleanings. Were they power cleanings I assume? If so this gets way back into an exchange we had with ernst about eight months ago, about the possibilities of overheating piexoelectric nozzles by firing them repeatedly when they are all blocked up. I assume, and so do others I expect, that the ink passing through the nozzles helps cool them. So perhaps your head went dead this way - repeated firing/no ink flow/no cooling/fried head.
As far as what else to do along with your head change, there are many variables to consider. How old is the machine, how many prints on it, how long it's been since ink's been running through it, what was working/wasn't working that set you into multiple cleanings attack mode (which we've all been through so don't feel bad).
I get a lot of emails about D1 calls and experiences on X900 machines. Oddly, not everyone I know who has followed the Epson/D1 clogged printhead repair path has gotten the same, or even similar advice or estimates. This past Friday a clogged X900 estimate was shared with me and it included printhead replacement, pump and cap replacement, wiper blade replacement. Yesterday a clogged X900 estimate was shared with me and it included the print head, pump cap assembly, wiper blade, selector unit, and AID sub board. What's that like $1,800 in parts plus six hours of work at a hundred and how many dollars per hour? ...that's not very friendly
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Hi Bob, please let us know how it turns out, level of difficulty, and total time. I'm in the same boat.
For those who don't know, you can order the print head directly from Epson at 562-276-1305 (there might be a better number as they will help you and transfer you to the warehouse). The print head is the only part which Epson sells directly and they charge $1299 for it (if you have D1 do the work, the parts cost is stated as $1132.
My options are:
a) have D1 do the work which according to their estimate and time involved this will likely run $2500+
b) buy a new 7900 at $2400, get a fresh start and a new warranty (and an option on the extended)
c) after four Epsons, move to Canon and get their new 6400 for slightly under $2000.
d) buy the $1300 print head, cross my fingers, and break out the swiss army knife and duct tape . . .
Clearly, D1 makes the least sense unless they can somehow solve the clog without replacing the print head. I'm leaning towards DIY option "d" or checking out the new Canons. enduser, you may be right about the Canons and if you have one, I'd like to hear your thoughts. I've had several Epsons before this and I've always had this notion that the ink wasting routines were part of the package deal for Epson's superior print quality; but by now it seems like that gap may have narrowed or disappeared and it's worth taking a look at the Canons. I've read good reviews but I can't find anything comparing black and white between the Canons and Epsons and that is what I'm looking for. I went down to the local Calumet yesterday as they used to have example prints from both printers, but they no longer do.
I spoke with an Epson dealer yesterday who said that Epson had "improved the process" and I was less likely to have the clog problem now than with one of the very early x900s. I'm not sure how that makes sense at all if they are the same printer with the same manufacturing process. And in searching for more info on the Canon printers, I keep stumbling upon more anecdotes of people with the same problem from the Epson x900s. I try to be balanced and take all of these anecdotes with a grain of salt. I realize that it is sort of like Yelp reviews of a restaurant-- the one star and the five star reviewers have incentive to post a review whereas the people who have a decent experience are not likely to take the time. Still, trying to take this into account, there sure are a lot of accounts of print heads failing, even between one and two years old, thus rendering the printer useless.
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Hi Eric,
The printer has a total count of 93 prints. Of course I've done many nozzle checks as well. The clog was solid in the CY channel. When I called Epson Service I was told to keep doing cleanings. So every day I would do several nozzle checks and a single regular cleaning as well as a print of a color wheel and sometimes of my own prints as a test. It was printing fine but would indicate a cleaning was ecessary.The power cleanings were kept to a minimum and once I saw they didn't change anything and simply used up my ink, I only did normal cleanings. So I was nursing it every day while communicating with you and exploring my options. And then one day 3 months back during a normal cleaning it came up with the fatal error 1A39.
The reason I'm concerned is because it's been sitting so long (3 mths) and I'm suspicious the new head will get gummed up. I'm am good at following procedure and mechanically inclined, have tools, etc. I also have the repair guides and software. I purchased some spray on wipe type cleaning solutions from one of the ink suppliers.
I probably should wait for your video, yes?
Have you considered started a new career servicing or providing advice for the epson printer maintenance? Obviously you are providing a needed service.
Thanks,
Bob DeBellis
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Hi Eric,
Something else I thought of. Should have some particular cleaner/solvent on hand?
Thanks
Bob
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FWIW, here is one of the early Epson patents (http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=05984459&SectionNum=1&IDKey=E36E046B55BF&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1%2526Sect2=HITOFF%2526p=1%2526u=%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r=1%2526f=G%2526l=50%2526d=PALL%2526S1=5984459.PN.%2526OS=PN/5984459%2526RS=PN/5984459) for a piezoelectric head printer. I don't know if this is the first one or not as I'm not terribly expert in searching the US patent database. You can use the menu on the left side to look at the drawings, specifications and claims respectively. I'm sure that there are later patents as well.
I'm going through it to see if I can better understand how the printers work.
Alan
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The best place to see Canon discussion is http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/ The lessons I've learned over 5 years use of ipf6100 is not to continue printing when it says a head is going bad. Newer firmware prevents that anyway and doesn't let you "Press online to clear error". It used to burn-out pc boards. Otherwise read the blog.
Perhaps what the wiki thing doesn't make clear is that Canon has two heads with an enormous number of nozzles. The machine constantly checks to see if any block and if they do the nozzle mapping can use other nozzles to take over the job of the blocked ones. After a long time no spare nozzles exist and you are prompted to change a head. After 5 years of weekly use I'm about to change a second head.
Another neat thing it does when let go into sleep mode is to wake up every so often and agitate the inks, at another time it might do a nozzle check and light clean if needed, and it also wakes up and checks temperature and humidity. I think Canon owners are always surprised that Epson owners do a nozzle check before printing - that just isn't needed with the Canon.
There is some debate about image quality which by reading what I can find seems to go about 53 to 47 in Epson's favor.
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Hi Bob, if you're not desperate to swap your head, wait. My genius and I are working on a video which will show the whole head swapping process. No special solvents necessary. Couple things you'll need, the most particular being a long handle/small tip/magnetic/philips screwdriver. Other than that a pc (not mac, sorry for me..), good lights, a flashlight, a regular sized philips (I use a screw gun, there are a good number of screws), tape (I like taping screws near where they came out of, and a couple of small boxes or trays so you can keep things organized. Sounds intimidating, don't let it be. One, step, at a time and you'll be fine.
Thank you Alan!
boy the Canon self-monitoring practices sound so sensible (and effective). Almost like there's a design & development team dedicated solely to improving the user experience "post purchase". Like Nanny always said, you've got to give credit where credit is due. That's fantastic.
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I've read good reviews but I can't find anything comparing black and white between the Canons and Epsons and that is what I'm looking for. I went down to the local Calumet yesterday as they used to have example prints from both printers, but they no longer do.
Check John Dean's comment on that:
http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/message/4259
Comments are more than a year old but I think he is still happy with the Canon iPF8300. The iPF8400 did not change much compared to the iPF8300.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
500+ inkjet paper white spectral plots, November 2012:
rearranged categories, Sihl Masterclass papers added.
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Ernst and enduser-- thanks for the references to info about the Canons. I have dug through the wiki and separately, Ernst-- that is a very informative note comparing the various b/w printing methods; thanks very much for digging that up. Also, I have always wondered about the Cone piezography options so it's interesting to have that comparison in there as well.
Eric, I'm still undecided, but in evaluating the options: a quick question:
-where does one find the servprog.exe file? And, is it a simple matter of finding a Windows machine and hooking it up via usb to run the utility?
Even if I decide not to go the DIY route-- I'm looking forward to seeing your video and how involved the process is.
Finally, are there any coders out there familiar with Applescripts and how hard it would be to run a test print every morning at a set time for what you guys previously called a "holiday mode" for the Epsons? It seems doable, but not sure how you get around the machine being asleep other than just setting it to be on the whole time you are gone . . . (and would it have to somehow switch PK and matte blacks periodically to make the channel not being used doesn't clog?)
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Are the deadhead 7900 printers worth anything as parts? I will not fix mine, but kind of feel funny about tossing it out as trash.Is anyone buying the carcasses in order to fix and resell? I am in Iowa so I assume any shipping costs make the value pretty low.
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Just got a call from Epson tech support. (I still have not gotten a call from D1 but in the intervening time I've decided it's too expensive to go with them anyway).
Anyway, from tech support:
-if you have missing portions of the lines on the test print and those missing portions move around, it tends to be worthwhile to replace the pump cap assembly first. If they don't move at all, it is usually the print head.
-The only recommended action from him was to go into maintenance mode, release the carriage assembly via the IM Sensor Gap command, and slide the carriage to the left exposing the pump cap assembly. He recommended taking a paper towel with water and moistening each of the five sponge pads there. I asked if there were other sponges, i.e. one for each ink, and there are not. Those five are it. He did not know which pad corresponds to which colors. After moistening each of the sponges, recap the print head and let it sit there for a half hour to an hour. Then run a cleaning cycle and try a test print again.
While he was not optimistic about this procedure given that my LM test print is missing the same portions of the lines consistently, he said to try it as there it couldn't hurt. Next step is to go to D1. I asked him if D1 tried to replace all other parts before the printhead and he said he thought so, but I would have to ask them and it could vary.
I asked him about other things including a "holiday mode" as even in a production environment, it's unrealistic that these printers will be used every single day for most users. He said that tech support had already made that suggestion to the powers that be, but that it's not up to their division unfortunately.
(I also suggested that given that there seems to be a nontrivial failure rate, offering something . . . anything, e.g. a discount on the print head would help engender good will among long-time Epson users.)
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Hi Eric,
I've got all the tools needed as well as the patience required buddy. I will anxiously wait for the wisdom pouring forth from the genius' video :) If can assist in any manner I would be more than happy too.
An additional possible hazard for DIY I fear is that Epson may modify the firmware to lock out the software version we are currently using to perform the counter resets and other functions.
SFBLUE: I agree with your contention that Epson should in fairness do something for us suffering victims..eh... customers. We bought a tool and vast quantities of expensive ink to do a job for us. It shouldn't be giving us fits and costing us a ton of extra moola on a continual basis and terror if we should leave on a trip. I am friends with a local gallery owner/pro photographer who owns an Epson 9900 that is also giving him fits. He said he can't afford to maintain the printer.
whitedogphotos: I read somewhere that the used Epson printer is not worth much for parts.
Bob DeBellis
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Bob, I ended up writing this person:
Rand Rozar the Director of Service and Support via the following web site form:
https://epson.custhelp.com/app/ask/p_webform/ContactRand
He had been mentioned earlier in this thread. I figured it couldn't hurt. If others feel like writing to him as well, it can't hurt for him to hear from multiple Epson users with this problem. But . . .they forward you to a customer service person who then forwards your number to tech support-- that's who called me today. They must have also gotten on the D1 person because he finally called me.
The D1 tech said he would change the pump cap assembly first, because if it's weak it might not be sucking the ink clog from the head. I told him that Epson tech support had told me that if the dropped nozzle positions on the test print don't move, it's likely to be the head and not the pump cap assembly. He quickly agreed and said we could just change the print head. (I wonder what happens if you don't have a little info-- if they just go through and change everything randomly?)).
Anyway, the best the Epson customer service person said was that maybe they could "help with some ink." I don't know what that means and she was noncommittal about it. Both the customer service person and the tech asked if I printed every single day and said these are production printers and meant to be printing every single day.
Whitedog-- I agree. Environmentally, it feels bad to throw away a machine with one clogged ink channel just because the cost to fix it could be greater than the cost of a new printer.
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Just happened upon this topic while surfing the net had to register and post. I got an Epson 4800 from a friend that wasn't working for $130. Same problem as your 7900 the head was clogged. I downloaded the service manual, the adjustment program and did a lot of research. The one bad decision I made was to spend $200 on cartridges filled with 'Print Head Clog Buster'. Those carts sat in the printer for three weeks and did nothing to unclog the head but maybe they did clean the tubes and everything else. I replaced all the dampers ($71), cleaned the capping station, reset the waste tank with a chip re-setter and put a whole roll of toilet paper minus the cardboard roll in it, got all new ink carts and of course replaced the print head ($499 from Epson online the cheapest one I saw was $750). I didn't follow the steps in the Epson Service Manual to replace the print head because it was an unduly complicated procedure requiring special tools (they really want those service call charges!). Oh I saw some tiny air bubbles in one or two of the ink lines so disconnected them at the damper sucked the bubbles out with a syringe. The printer is now printing beautifully. My friend hadn't used the printer in two years and when he turned it on the print head was done. His junk is my treasure.
I thought about what might have happened to your 7900 since it was working in Pa but not after being delivered. My conclusion based on all I have read is that the humidity may have played a role in drying out the print head during transport. Inside that humidity may have been well above 50% but once in the truck in late Fall the outside humidity could have fallen very low due to the dry cold air.
Bottom line is that very rarely can a printer head be saved once it is severely clogged! Maintenance is the key to happiness with these expensive printers!
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Here and there in this thread are comments on the remote nature of the manufacturer from their consumers. This isn't unusual for a multinational like Epson and Canon. I remember years ago reading about the design team at HP who were based in Spain. I even saw the email addresses of a couple of the development engineers of the design Jet series. So it can be different.
It's a lot harder with Asian countries because of the cultural differences. The local distributor I talk to tells me he asks Canon here (In Australia) to reduce their ink prices because almost no users of ipf printers buy here. They buy overseas at half the price. The Canon guys tell him that all over the world where Canon are, a non-local is at the top. This gentleman, when asked if prices can be adjusted down just says no! No discussion or argument allowed.
So it might take someone with current colloquial Japanese language skills to make contact with the manufacturers through their Japanese entry points to get a discussion going.
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sfblue, I believe the pk and mk channel are the same channel. What changes from ink to ink is an element of the damper unit, which is right behind the head on the same carriage. This is why we waste such little ink swapping between the two - only the ink from the dampers to the face of the head gets flushed - it's just inches, whereas with older models the ink change happens back at the carts, so the whole line gets flushed. Far as your other question, google is your friend.
ChrisMax - funny I brought two 4800s back from the dead myself. Both lost in piles of dust for years. It is definitely a different world now with these X900s, unfortunately..
enduser, I appreciate what you are saying. Sometimes it's not what you know, but who..
Things broke between me and this great girl one day. Forever I tried to fix it, to get her back. I called, spent money, wrote poems, worked out, talked and talked - until finally one day I realized "If she she really wanted this it wouldn't be so hard". I think of that lesson now. Not saying Epson doesn't want us happy, of course they do. Just maybe it doesn't have to be this hard. Maybe there's a more effective way to reach them, to catalyze their interest. Finding this way should be at the forefront of our plan B - "The clog prevention initiative". Unfortunately I've got the focus of a laser beam, and right now my laser is diligently focused on our plan A - "The clog demolishing initiative". Trust me this thread is about to go where no man has gone before. If I am able to realize half of what I have in mind over the next two weeks, this journey will have only just begun.
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Regarding an email/complaint to "Rand" I received a nice reply from someone else who stated :We regret that your Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printer failed. However, Epson does offer Extended Service Agreements for the products because we understand that repair costs for high end electronics outside of the warranty can be costly at times.
Should you decide to purchase another Epson printer, there are rebates available on various Pro Graphics printers at:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Pro/Promotions.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes#t_printerpromosup
Please contact us if we can be of further assistance.
Thank you,
Colleen W.
So, if I had purchased the 11-1200$ warranty I would still be out of warranty as well as the money for the warranty. If these are devices that cannot last past the warranty, the real cost is hidden. If they must be used as daily production printers to keep them working, then that should be disclosed. If there is maintenance that should be done that should be disclosed, not hidden in a secret manual. I was very happy with the print quality and I got a lot of good prints in the last 3+ years.Those prints just cost way more than expected in the way of wasted ink/paper/printer than I thought based on my experience with a 2200,4000,3800 i had in the past. Sorry just ranting now-not too helpful to the project at hand.
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Ya know, a common cause for a clogged printer in the older series 4000/78/9800 series printer was a clogged or failing DAMPER...
The dampers in the 9900 have a much smaller filter screen in them and one damper hadles two colors... I'm wondering if damper failure isn't a cause for some of these so called clogs. On a site that discusses Rolands (with Epson heads) they recommend replacing the dampers annually!!!
A common recommendation when you had a channel drop out on a 7800/9800 was to replace the damper... really make me wonder
-chadd
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Chadd,
Do you think changing out the dampers after the fact will help a clog? Or is it something that needs to be done regularly to prevent clogs, but once you have one, there's nothing you can do?
I am still learning my printer anatomy, but I found another interesting LuLa thread about dampers here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=53578.5;wap2
I'm trying to learn what is the best probability bet-- if it's worth it at this point to try to change out the damper.
White Dog, I empathize and I think many people do. You would think Epson would care about longtime customers but I think it's probably a combination of just being such a large company as well as having a dominant spot in the market and not caring too much about losing a few customers here and there. Also, I wonder if they worry that offering a discount of some sort on print heads or repair would be tantamount to admitting there is a problem. Separately, I also think they should communicate maintenance to customers if that helps prevent the fatal print head problems (replace dampers, wiper blades, agitate inks, print every x days, create a holiday mode, etc) Regardless, the end result is the same and a lot of us have big paperweights. I just want to print.
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heya sfblue,
on the 9900's? I don't know. Eric can chime in here... he's has hands on experience with dampers. My point was that in the earlier printers a dropped channel most certainly meant a failed damper and easily fixed with a damper replacement. Experienced people doing it in 20 minutes (if memory serves me).
what causes a damper to fail? not sure. but if the filter screen becomes clogged, there is no way for ink to make it's way to the print head.
also... the suggestion above that the pump-cap could not be sucking hard enough (that's what is does, sucks gobs of ink into the waste tank) is also enlightening.
I also wonder if the pressurization system in the 9900's couldn't also have a partial failure... either not pressurizing the failed channel, or not providing ENOUGH pressure so that ink makes it to the head at the needed rate.
There is no pump-cap on the older printers.
I had this analogy in mind ... the old printers could generate LOTS of ink pressure. HAD to in order to charge the ink lines. Kind of like the sump pump in your basement... able to really move some water.
The new 9900's are more akin to your aquarium pump since they depend on the pump cap to do all the sucking.
Gee wiz, here's a thought. What if the pump cap isn't capping your head properly and all the so called sucking action isn't doing anything?
Now, Eric can chime in again on how to do this (it's not that hard). But if you took your rights side cover off and watched what happens under the covers, so to speak, you'd know if you were getting any action at all.
I know this myself from when MY pump cap was replaced (along with the AID board, and MAIN board - apparently, just a a preventative measure). It was enlightening to see all that ink get sucked out of the head.
Oh, and one other thing. One of the laws of fluid dynamics is that a fluid will always flow into the path of least resistance. The 9900 DON'T fire the nozzles in standard cleaning so if you HAVE A REAL CLOG, there is a chance that all that sucked ink is just coming out of the unclogged nozzles.
This may also explain why once you have a dropped nozzle, they don't self clear with use like the older printers could, and why you can do a nozzle check, make a print big 40x60 and again check the nozzle to find missing nozzles... the old printers didn't do that. Once they had a good nozzle check, you could print confidently and not worry about dropped nozzle. Not my 9890. It can drop nozzles even after doing a big print.
Most pointedly to me is when I switch between Pk and MK (or back). I almost always have lost the entire channel until I do a paired cleaning.
Sorry for all the 'sucking' ... been watch old episodes of Buffy :p
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Last night I got our first real glimpses, under a microscope, of exactly what so many of us (me included) have been theorizing about since our first experiences with X900 printhead clogs. I also ordered a camera mount for this microscope, which won't arrive here for a few more days yet. Until that time unfortunately I can't share the images which blanketed my mind as I fell asleep last night. But I can share this; I can see nozzle openings, and into nozzle openings, but not yet the piezoelectric makeup of an actual X900 nozzle. I can tell you that comparing the size of the gaping scratches that a crusty wiper blade leaves behind it on our printhead's face, to the ever so delicate size of our nozzle holes which are also on our printhead's face, is more than alarming. Imagining what our crusty muck covered wiper blade looked like when I took it out, while ever so slowly combing my way over our old printhead's face microscopically, made my kidneys growl.
Yes, this is science. And yes, this is seriously complicated stuff we are theorizing about. But I have to share my last night's post-exploration gut impressions. This could very well be a LOT less complicated than we realize. If a picture says a thousand words then picture this next time you think your wiper blade "may need replacing" - an overgrown crooked one eyed hairy cyclops using a coal shovel to clean your mom's reading glasses.
Honestly, these nozzles are tiny. One tiny piece of lint stretches across twenty of them. I thought this in the beginning and I think it again now - this could be our worst problem. It could also explain why clogs occur more over time, more after cleanings sometimes, more regardless of new ink or old or how many prints on your machine. Maybe what we should be counting is cleanings rather than prints..
As for the damper theory considering sfblue, could be but I'm not so sure. To me a clogged damper would knock out a whole channel, or parts of a channel inconsistently. It would cause drop-outs mid print as well. sfblue reports neither of those. His clogs seem to be specific to particular nozzles, which aims me at his head.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/x900_ink_flow.jpg)
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Interesting! I can't wait to read more about this, Eric. In the mean time, I was going to change the damper assembly as I found the part on ebay for $120 and it seemed like not that big of a deal. I was also suspecting it because I had read this: "the most common damper problem is a pinhole that allows minute amounts of air to seep into the ink line, resulting in a bad nozzle check that can be temporarily alleviated with cleanings but will return shortly after." However, upon reading more, it sounds like if this were the issue, the positioning of the dropped nozzles on the test print would still move around which is not the case for me. So, I'm back to the print head.
Btw, if anyone cares, looks like Epson extended their rebates for December. I'm leaning towards the new Canon 24 inch ipf6400. Adorama is out of stock but has them for effectively $1800 post rebates (no sales tax for me and free delivery). Given what I've been reading, it seems like it is worth a try despite always having been an Epson person.
Also . . . Eric, love the pic of the nozzles; that must have been taken directly from the Epson manual!
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Sorry guys the USPS let us down yesterday. Microscope "camera mount" was marked as "out for delivery" yesterday but it never arrived here. I want to share with you here what me and my genius saw yesterday. I will in time I promise. What did happen yesterday is very interesting..
This 9900 I picked up from Edward The Juggler, in August of this year. I drove to Colorado to meet him in-between race weekends. Once I got the machine back here my focus went straight back to work and racing. The first time I even plugged this machine into a wall socket was yesterday morning. So naturally I figured it's printhead would be wiped out dead. Edward did a lot of work, made a lot of phone calls, and wasted a TON of ink performing every cleaning cycle these X900s have. Nothing he did, or that Epson recommended, cleared his green channel clogs. But every other channel was fine. Now here it is three whole months later and after a week long journey in the back of my van (no air conditioning) through the Mojave Desert (read; hotter than hell - 110degrees, dryer than hell - less than 40% humidity, and dustier than the Peanuts Character "Pig Pen") and then three months of not only neglect but total disrespect (never even powered up), and now you too might expect this head to fire only blanks once we ran a nozzle pattern. Well you'd be wrong..
Two channels, LLK and VLM were both 100% clear on the first test print. All other channels took only one pairs cleanings to wake back up, with the exception of CY which took three to fire 100% clear. However the green channel, which was the reason Edward the juggler contacted me about his machine in the first place, never did come clear - just like he said. In fact in the box of extra parts that Edward left me with in the desert there was one nozzle pattern printed. When I compared his last pattern with our best pattern, there was no difference. WTF? After all that abuse NOT ONE MORE UNCLEARABLE CLOG?? How can that be?
If you think that is bad, how about this - once me and the genius removed this 9900's printhead the first thing we did was take it over to our trusty new stereo microscope to examine every nozzle face of the green channel. For sure we expected, even hoped to see piles of dried ink particles caked inside the openings of the nozzles. Nothing doing though. There is no discernible difference between the outside face of this X900's clear green nozzles when compared to it's clogged green nozzles. For sure that is a blow to my inspiration. My hope was this was a surface problem. Apparently it is not. If these are indeed "clogs", they are inside the head. Could be they are deep inside, could be they are just inside - either way they are not visible from our Lunar Module.
I say Lunar Module because combing your way over the face of our X900s printheads under 180X magnification is quite a lot like being in space ( I imagine). You see things unimaginable. Take for instance the very common paranoia about printhead strikes (paper striking the printhead during prints). Well let me tell you, the printhead that came with our printer (the 7900 that this thread was originally based on) must have experienced multiple head strikes. The steel framework that protects the printhead's actual face is so scratched up you might think some kid dragged it behind his bicycle. This is both alarming and comforting. I have another head here from an older model Epson which does not have any framework protecting it. For sure if this old head endured half of what our protected head did, it would have been damaged. So with the bad news comes good news too. Our heads are well protected from strikes (and the strong possibility of heavy matte paper making contact with it's delicate surface). You will understand more when I am able to share images from our explorations through the Epson Piezo Galaxy.
...more to come
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Oh my God. It's 11pm December 2nd, 2012. I just dove straight through one of the holes that I used to think was the outer-face of a nozzle, but I now understand was simply a hole in the very thin gold foil face of an X900 printhead. Forget the plumbing metaphors, our heads work nothing like the pipes under your sink. What I expected might be pipes, or possibly tiny portholes surrounded with some type of piezoelectrical particles ready to flex once charged, is actually something wholly different. Instead what I explored my way through is more like an incredibly tiny city filled with honey comb-like structures with beautifully intricate mazes of hysterically tiny gold colored wires, circuit boards, channels, membranes, silicone suspended wire hubs, and ink filled tunnels going places hard to even figure.
You know those messages on side view mirrors - "objects are closer than they appear"? Well so are the answers to our X900 mysteries...
If all goes well we'll have images to share tomorrow night. This is fascinating
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This is your X900 printhead:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E4326.jpg)
This is your X900 printhead on drugs:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E4022.jpg)
This is your X900 printhead after someone on drugs took it apart:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_head-3_layers.jpg)
These are NOT your piezoelectric nozzles:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_head-3_layers-2.jpg)
These are:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_head-3_layers-1.jpg)
You've already seen this but take another look - the blueish segment in the center is a "channel":
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_head-3_layers.jpg)
Before you think a channel looks cool check it out upside down:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/under_channel.jpg)
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/under_channel_crp.jpg)
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/under_channel_crp2.jpg)
This is the steel cage that protects your head from strikes:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_angle-head_face.jpg)
There's a lot more to all this which I will share tomorrow. You can't fix something until you understand it. I am not even close to understanding this tiny world of martian electronics. Hell I can't even trace the path of our ink yet, but I will.
Quick question - who else is in shock right now about what our nozzles look like?
WTF?
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Eric
Simply amazing....be careful in there ! Well done for all of us...THANKS a thousand times over.........
It looks from the "printhead on drugs " shot that the steel casing on the outside of the head has been gouged or scratched into producing steel "finings" and if so can you find those finings lodged anywhere inside the head....i talked about importing dried resins back up into the mouth of the head before in this thread but never visualised that you could also have pieces of steel mixed into the soup as well..hard to imagine that this has not happened when i look at the clarity of your photographic work ! Do you agree ?
You did yourself describe your wiper blade apparatus as being involved in some "concrete" tangles with its blade cleaner earlier on in this thread and now we seem to be looking at some steel shifting about as well....
To repeat,I am very grateful to you for all your work which is bearing fruit now...
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Yes blue moon, amazing I agree. The printhead on drugs photo is of the head that was on our 7900 when we first got it. This head had clogs from the first nozzle check - on. I do not know the history of this head, I only know what I was told - it had just under 1000 prints, some (?) of which were on canvas, and it rarely if ever clogged. Interesting theory about the metal fragments. I am assuming these scratches are from printing on canvas.
The microscope that I am using gets much closer than these photos show. I am very limited by this $79 DLSR camera mount, which has at least two glass elements in it. Very poor quality. Zooming in gives horrid images. These shots are about a mile from the surface of the moon. I will try to do better. Wish Zeiss made a dslr-to-microscope mount..
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[I will try to do better..
[/quote]
You have gone where no one else has ever been..........
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Are the deadhead 7900 printers worth anything as parts? I will not fix mine, but kind of feel funny about tossing it out as trash...
Interesting question whitedogphotos. I can only give you my answer (late, as usual). 9900s and 7900s are basically the same machines, only the 9900s cost more. Heads cost the same. So buying a dead 9900 makes sense because someone could re-sell it once running. At least I think someone could. But buying a dead 7900 to repair/re-sell doesn't make sense. Problem is even if someone can do the head replacement entirely themselves, the head is still $1,300 (two months ago it was $1,100 - but whatever..). The problem THEN is, if the head is dead it may also be a good time to replace the pump and cap assy, plus the damper unit. I haven't priced either in a while but now that person is looking at @ $1,700 with shipping? So they spend the money and they do the work, but now they've got to charge the system with ink. Maybe the guy who sold them the machine put five old 720 carts he bought off ebay in it from back when Carter was president, you just don't know. Maybe he just doesn't print that much (which is why the head is dead in the first place) so all the ink in his machine is muck? Either way the new owner/seller has to ask himself, does he really want to run bad ink through his "new machine"? I don't think - so now he's buying new ink, a lot of which is destine for the sewer once he charges the lines. So what are we up to now, maybe just over $2,000? And while in the end you and I both know this guy now has a new machine, Epson doesn't, so no warranty comes with it. And then the machine has to be shipped.. The list goes on and on. Compared to special sales I've seen as low as $2,000, or regular everyday sales at $2,500 with free shipping and either a free one year warranty, or the option to buy into a 3 year warranty for just $300 more - holy buzz kill. Buying broken 7900s to repair/re-sell is a pretty grim looking business to consider. In fact even owning a 7900 out of warranty is a pretty grim looking proposition for some..
....which is exactly why I still contribute to this thread. I know I am not the only one facing this inappropriate reality.
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HELP?
My hope here, my inspiration actually, is to change the currently broken situation for every clog-riddled X900 user out there. Chances are stacked against us. I realize this. But I have to admit a few key points keep my interest peaked - including one I will share here - why do they take the heads we clearly own, and paid for, after a head-swapping service (performed under warranty or not)? If the answer to that question is they don't want their pieaoelectric printhead secrets shared, well I'm about to wake up next to a dead horse-head because my explorations here have only just begun. and I'm crap at keeping secrets
Before anyone tosses their deadhead X900 in the bin, please consider donating it, or it's printhead, to science-fiction. I have one X900 printhead which has been ultrasonically destroyed. For experimentation purposes this head is useless. For any purposes this head is useless. I have one confirmed "unclear-ably clogged" X900 printhead here which I plan to very carefully experiment with, all the while keeping it in tact. This head I intend to try my best to revive, it is my crash test dummy, so I cannot take it apart. At this point what I do NOT have is a confirmed "unclear-ably clogged" X900 printhead, which I CAN take apart, so that I can identify the difference between a clear X900 piezoelectric nozzle, and a clogged one. So far I have only explored functioning piezoelectric nozzles. I need to see a clogged one.
So this is a shout-out for help. Also an offer, if anyone wants to explore for yourself feel free to join me at the lab.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/jacques_cousteau.jpg)
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_DSC5778.jpg)
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"well I'm about to wake up next to a dead horse-head . . . ." ha!
First off, really interesting stuff and interesting images.
Second, even if I try to replace the printhead myself, I will give you the old printhead when it comes out of the machine. You raise an interesting point: why does Epson make people give the old printhead back after what amounts to a $3000 service including D1 labor. One would think that in buying a new printhead from them, you would get to keep the old one. I doubt it is to guard secrets about their printhead technology as Canon or HP could just yank one from a new printer. The only thing that I can think of is maybe someone looks at them to learn about how printheads clog on average or (unlikely given how damaged yours looks to be under the microscope) maybe there is a way for Epson to refurbish some of them if not too damaged.
I think most of us are after an understanding of the printhead that might give us a shot of manually unclogging the printhead once it is removed from the machine. But in viewing your photos, it seems like they are such fine and complex devices that this is a long shot. But then again, I have so little understanding of how they work.
Btw, I'm 98% decided to get a Canon. I've had such a bias for years that epson was the only way. Part of it is just habit, I guess. But I've read enough about Canon print quality to be comfortable with trying out one of the new printers. And the prices are pretty compelling right now and ultimately you vote with your dollars. I still haven't decided about the DIY printhead repair on the 7900, but I think the Canon will get me back up and printing in the meantime. Will let you know either way though on my 7900.
Unrelated, I have a question about the cut sheet paper feed path on the Canon 8400 vs the 6400 (or 8300 vs 6300), but I will ask in a new forum topic.
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I doubt it is to guard secrets about their printhead technology as Canon or HP could just yank one from a new printer. The only thing that I can think of is maybe someone looks at them to learn about how printheads clog on average or (unlikely given how damaged yours looks to be under the microscope) maybe there is a way for Epson to refurbish some of them if not too damaged.
Your correct anyone could buy a x900 and pull the head to reverse engineer it ... At Area 51
It is more likely that D1 needs to prove that they in fact replaced the head ,because they may get monitary compensation (a rebate), offsetting their parts purchase costs, by returning the bad one. A head for a head, so to speak.
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thanks sfblue. We all share a common hope then. My train of thought is as follows:
1 - understand the head
2 - understand the ink
3 - understand what an unclearable clog actually is
4 - understand if it might be clearable
5 - clear it
6 - go someplace far away with my camera, and shoot
Never surrender, right? That's our motto? Tonight I said to hell with the $89 DSLR microscope mount. I threw it in the sink, set my camera up on my tripod, facing straight down, mounted my 200mm micro and aimed it straight down the periscope, then went exploring. These images are better. You don't HAVE to love Nikon if you don't want to. I'm just saying..
The view from space
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E4499.jpg)
These may look like nozzles but they are NOT lined up just under the nozzle openings in the face of your head
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/porthole.jpg)
I tore away half of a channel face. THIS is what's lined up just under the nozzle openings
FYI - that's the end of a small (1") paper clip in there for size reference
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/piezoworld-sml.jpg)
same image at 100%
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/nozzle-alignment_crp.jpg)
Sorry my focus stacking skills are not yet honed. At this crazy stupid magnification, fifteen shots up the face of the paper clip wasn't enough..
Count em, that's 12 nozzles Epson put inside the span of one tiny paper clip.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/paperclip-face.jpg)
that's tiny..
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/paperclip-piezo.jpg)
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I've got to say Eric, this work you are doing is amazing. I'm glad there are other people out there as stubborn as I am about not paying out the ass for "dumb parts replacement" and more to the point, with just a general obsessive thirst for knowledge!
I too have had some pretty absurd experiences with epson print heads, and I am now also experiencing a clogging problem with a 9900.
My first experience with head removal was with a 4880 which was completely missing a Lk channel. (very) long story short, after all sorts of soaking and pulling solutions through the nozzles, the problem ended up being with the motherboard of the printer, and it ended up needing to be replaced. In this instance however, the tech that ended up working on it caused so much more damage to the printer before finally fixing the thing, that we didnt end up getting charged at all for the repair! A very uncommon occurrence indeed, but maybe the only case of things actually working out positively in the end that I've heard of thus far.
My next experience was a clogged yellow channel in an 11880. This one was serious. I went through every imaginable procedure for attempting to clean it, including basically disassembling the entire printer. Every day I was covered in ink, cleaning flushing boxes, puddling the head on the capping station, and eventually removing the head entirely to soak it. This is where the real trouble started. Somehow somewhere in removing the head, soaking it and replacing it, something got corrupted in the firmware. When I finally replaced the head It would give me an error about the head temperature being too high to run, but it wouldn't let me power-clean, or do anything else that would otherwise charge the head with ink to cool it off. A couple times I was able to get around this error by injecting a bit of ink manually into the top of the head, but something else remained the problem.
After weeks of fruitless messing around, eventually a tech needed to be called in (I work for a company that needed to get back up and running, so time was an issue) and of course the tech immediately wants to just replace the head. He does this, and..... nothing. Same problem-- can't charge it. After talking on the phone for hours, and coming back day in and day out he says nobody knows what this error code means (SOMEBODY knows....) and he needs to replace the main board. He replaces the board, and viola! things are back up and running. Then, for some idiotic reason, he decides to flash the new board with the settings from our old one, which brings back the corrupted data, and stops it from working again. This whole time I'm seething over the fact that they can't simply re-flash fresh information instead of replacing the whole f'ing board, since obviously its a firmware issue at this point. So FINALLY, a third main board installed, a new print head, and the tech now sitting there for about 6 hours printing auto head alignment patterns on an unnecessarily wide roll of paper, and we are back up and running.
Never did I get to find out if my soaking of the head cleared out the problem, and we ended up having to pay for a new main board as well as the head, AND the time of this tech who knew less than I did. Out of the goodness of their hearts, the repair company capped our cost at $5000. So theres that. I think a new 11880 at the time would have cost $7000. So theres my horror story-- basically, just be ridiculously careful that you have everything off and the capacitors discharged (switching the printer back on once unplugged) before you go pulling the head in and out---
My current issue is our 9900 began experiencing a nozzle deflection problem in the orange channel. A nozzle check showed all the nozzles firing, but some oranges were bent over to the right-- this was causing banding in our dark grey areas (go figure). Our company has a RIP, so my initial idea (after trying to clear this clog) was to simply set up a new printing linearization that doesn't use the orange (or green) ink. BUT of course, in my attempts to clear the orange issue first (the idea of not having a 100% working print head scared me too much to simply ignore it, lest more problems arise because of it) now i'm missing nozzles all over the place. I puddled the cap with windex, with isopropyl alcohol, with lighter fluid, and what I'm really kicking myself about now, I used a tiny bit of goo gone. I'm really thinking that last one may have contributed to my new problems, and now i'm letting it sit with windex in the caps for 5 days turned off in hopes that something miraculous may happen, but if not, it looks like I may be popping off my print head too.
Anyway, I do have a question, and forgive me if you mentioned this in detail already, but when soaking your head, what solution did you use? Have you used any of the ones from americaninkjetsystems? I was considering buying some of theirs to try out on this problem before i get too dirty from it. My real concern now is whether or not the solutions I submitted my head to somehow could have permanently damaged it (melting some plastics?) or if it was simply all the power cleanings, initial fills, and normal cleanings that caused these extra clogs.
anyway, I'm here willing to help, i'm a bit reckless (as you can no doubt tell) but I have a stubborn persistance that when paired with someone a little more levelheaded could really get us all somewhere....
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Good work. Now find a way to let an OS task scheduler do the rest, firing up QTR etc. A roll of cheap paper on the printer. PC wake up on schedule is possible too.
I just posted a batch file here (http://lucbusquin.com/content/purge-all-epson-x900-ink-channels) that can be scheduled to run every day or so with Windows Task Scheduler or similar. (It prints a 2" strip that runs all channels at 100%. QTR needs to be installed but does not need to be running.)
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AWESOME cybis. Thanks for being generous with your work and knowledge.
of course now I need a dam pc :)
Lessbones, what stories - I thought I was bad. I can hardly believe what you've endured. I would have thrown my printer out the window at the tech's car as he drove away. That's disastrous. I hope we can find some resolution here soon. It'd be great if we can get you avoiding that type of service again..
On the subject of people stepping up to help this endeavor, I think we just found our ace in the hole. Whitedogphotos emailed me direct today. He is donating his broken 7900 to the cause. We will use his head as the sacrificial "clog autopsy" lamb. I was in shock when he offered what he did. Told him I don't know what to say. I sure hope all this effort produces something useful for all of us. A solution or an exacting understanding of what in the hell goes on with these heads. Either would be fine, both would be great.
Thank you whitedogphotos!
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Not sure how effective a class-action lawsuit would be without better awareness of how many failures there were compared to non-failures.
Since Epson is publicly oblivious, raising public awareness might be more effective, such as:
- Better Business Bureau complaints, including links back to this forum
- A Facebook group that links back to this forum
- YouTube videos, with links back to this forum
- A Twitter feed that links back to this forum
- Picketing an Epson exhibit at a trade show
Compared to class-action suits, many small claims suits might be more effective at getting Epson's attention.
From working in the tech industry for two decades, my guess is that these problems may have their origins in an engineering or manufacturing defect, perhaps with the " ink-repelling coating" wearing off or being inconsistently applied. Moreover, there are probably multiple layers of Epson management -- from Engineering to Product Management -- whose bonuses are at risk if they acknowledge a problem. It's not impossible to get their attention, but it takes some work to overcome their preference to ignore unhappy customers.
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On the subject of people stepping up to help this endeavor, I think we just found our ace in the hole. Whitedogphotos emailed me direct today. He is donating his broken 7900 to the cause. We will use his head as the sacrificial "clog autopsy" lamb. I was in shock when he offered what he did. Told him I don't know what to say. I sure hope all this effort produces something useful for all of us. A solution or an exacting understanding of what in the hell goes on with these heads. Either would be fine, both would be great.
Thank you whitedogphotos!
Wow this is amazing news-- Can't wait to see some super close ups of the inside of this thing
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[@Blue Moon - I'm still skeptical of the 'warning' not to use Vivid Magenta on x800 printers. I don't think it's a matter of the chemistry of the new ink versus the old ink and somehow this burns out print heads but rather a more simple explanation in that Epson would have to come up with all new drivers for the x800 printers using Vivid Magenta instead of the older version since one would presume that there would be color shifts if the older driver would be used. This would cause problems for Epson in that they now have to support two different drivers for the same printer and might cause headaches in terms of user support. In addition, when the user makes the shift to Vivid Magenta, the ink line must be completely purged of the older ink in order to get the correct results another headache for Epson support.]
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There is a way to use Vivid Magenta in x800 machines. You can download the x880 driver and use the new driver for the x800. There is a few configurations that you need to make in the printer property in order to make it work. No color shift in this method.
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Eric, two questions regarding the x900.
1) Is there a trick to getting the top cover off? I've removed the left and right covers and am through page 79 (removing the six screws). On p 81, I can't lift up on the top of the front cover to remove it. The whole thing is loose, but feels like it is still caught somewhere and I am afraid to use any force at all. Does the top cover come up with the dark plastic flip-up cover on the front all as one piece? Do you pull more on the dark plastic piece or on the metal?
2) Did you drain your inks before all of this? If so, did you order 11 of the Epson draining cartridges part 1500853? I can't find them listed at Compass Micro or anywhere else. Also, for draining, I'm guessing that I could buy cheaper third part draining cartridges and it wouldn't matter. Any suggestions? Looking for the cheapest/easiest way to do this though I know the cheapest way is usually not the easiest. . . .
Btw, I am just tinkering as curiosity has gotten the best of me. I am still planning to buy a new Canon printer. I am just curious to see the innards of the machine and also to see if I could change the printhead myself if I tried (trust me, I don't have your skills!). I have not yet bought a $1300 printhead from Epson as I'm unsure I can replace it myself and worried that it is throwing good money after bad, so to speak as I could end up with the same problem.
(Even if the printhead transplant is successful, do you then go ahead and change the pump cap assembly and damper as a preventative measure (at which point you're getting closer to the cost of a new printer with a warranty). I'm still trying to better understand when/how the fatal clog happens. I know that people without the clogs say that your humidity is too high or too low, or you didn't print enough, or you printed too much matte paper with dust or cut too much canvas etc, but I think there is also some random outcome to the process as I had some problems early on with my printer as well . ..)
Finally, to anyone else who is trying this themselves-- remove the maintenance tank and have a sealable bag ready before sliding off the right cover. This might be kind of obvious, but just in case . . .
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I sincerely HOPE he didn't drain all the ink out, as its completely unnecessary unless you suspect that the problem might be being caused somewhere besides the head itself. The Ink shouldn't dry out in the lines for a decent while-- Its really the head you need to worry about keeping moist/lubricated once its out of the printer. It might not be a bad idea to put some tape over the ends of the dampers or ink lines (depending on where you separate the head from the lines) to make doubly sure they don't dry out-- But once removed, the head becomes especially susceptible to drying out and clogging. However if you're talking about actually replacing the head, then this doesn't matter at all-- just follow the procedure in the service manual (i think it was remove 1 ink to depressurize the system, but thats about it). Otherwise you're wasting a TON of ink.
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holy $%*(! DO NOT DRAIN YOUR INK sfbule. We've all done enough of that by now, no need for more wasting. No issues with the maintenance tanks either, they just slide out like normal during the removal. I really need to get this head swapping video up. Sorry. Listen sfblue if you're having trouble taking the black plastic covers off the top of the machine, it's only going to get more challenging later. Maybe pause a bit. I wouldn't take the head off, or the damper unit, or the lines, until you have the new head right there to put in. You would need to cap off the damper unit if you intended to let it sit for long. I think you're better off completing the job the same day you start it (unless you're like me and you're exploring parts like an astronaut in space). The pump and cap is up to you. Old machine I say yes, newer with less miles I say no need. Definitely the wiper. Changing your head should waste surprisingly little ink. After all both the dampers and the head are in the carriage, at the end of the lines.
My guess is you missed the third screw on the top plastic pieces. Two are obvious, one is hidden, all are necessary to take off.
I'm not against driving up to help brother.
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ahh, got it. No worries-- I did not drain the ink. I have some paranoia about putting in a new printhead and having the same issue, so part of me wants to start with new ink as by now the ink in the tubes has been sitting around for a while and I'm trying to eliminate reasons for instant re-clogging. But . . . I won't drain the inks.
And the top cover came off. It was just stuck for some reason and took a little shake in the right direction.
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There is a way to use Vivid Magenta in x800 machines. You can download the x880 driver and use the new driver for the x800. There is a few configurations that you need to make in the printer property in order to make it work. No color shift in this method.
Thanks
Will download a driver ...
I have two 220mls so you done me a lot of good ;D
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I just bought my 2 year extended warrantee today!
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Whitedogphotos came through. His terminally clogged 7900 head just arrived at my place, in it's casket.
Thank you brother.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!
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I just bought my 2 year extended warrantee today!
I didn't buy an extended warranty (7600 and 7800 worked well) and boy do I regret it now with one of the now infamous head replacing clogs. I would now consider an extended warranty a given with the newer printers.
Jim
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We need to start compiling a deadheads list. Who, where, how, and after how long. I think that'd be useful. I can name ten deadheads off the top of my head (sorry).
For what it's worth our 7900 had abandoned it's typical "clog every other day" routine at just about the same time the rainy season started here. I did buy a gauge, it's been hovering around 80% humidity and 58-67F around the machine for weeks now. Not ONE clog. ...until my genius came over and decided to print a bit on William Turner matte. Soon as he swapped from PK to MK, and then back again only thirty minutes later, all things became different again. Or, should I say "the same again".
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For what it's worth our 7900 had abandoned it's typical "clog every other day" routine at just about the same time the rainy season started here. I did buy a gauge, it's been hovering around 80% humidity and 58-67F around the machine for weeks now.
I was about to post the same thing. Had many small clogs that would clean out okay. Recently though, now that the temp has dropped and the humidity is up, there have been no clogs. This 7900 is about 1 year old and still on the startup cartridges for most inks and they are sitting around 5-9% and shows how low the usage has been.
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I'm one of the clan (sorry to say), a 7900 cloghead. Just discovered this thread, spent a few hours reading and still didn't reach the end. What a stalwart band of brothers (and sister) you've become since January. I'm a bit ecstatic to discover that there are actually possibilities of resurrecting my 7900. Eric, you're amazing. I'm plenty techy enough to tackle the viscera of the unit. However I just Googled 7900sm.pdf as suggested, only to read, "This account has been suspended." Makes one wonder if they're actually working against us. Anyway, if anyone was able to download the pdf before it disappeared, I'd be mighty beholding if you'd send me a copy. bill@billellzey.com
Sleeves rolled up, scrubbed and sterile, waiting for operating instructions. Gracias.
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A quick scan of the literature in the post above is interesting to me, because, given the large list of early research by many companies, it's surprising how few now produce professional wide format photographic machines.
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We need to start compiling a deadheads list. Who, where, how, and after how long. I think that'd be useful. I can name ten deadheads off the top of my head (sorry).
Have to wonder how many of the heads have already been replaced that should have been added to such a list.
Jim
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Anybody have a copy of 7900sm.pdf that you could send me? bill@billellzey.com
Someone has pulled if from the web.
Thanks much,
Bill
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Anybody have a copy of 7900sm.pdf that you could send me? bill@billellzey.com
Someone has pulled if from the web.
Thanks much,
Bill
If it's the service manual you are looking for, it's quite easy to find by simply googling "epson 7900 service manual"
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So back to QTR, does it give you the ability to fire individual jets? If so, it would be great to concentrate on just firing those jets that are plugged and hopefully wasting less ink.
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So back to QTR, does it give you the ability to fire individual jets? If so, it would be great to concentrate on just firing those jets that are plugged and hopefully wasting less ink.
Qtr allows you to fire individual channels but not individual nozzles.
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I apologize for the silence. Christmas has me bonkers. Chris I love you for sending us this paper on print head technology. I am up to my ears in it right now. What a gem.
Anyone need specific help email me directly.
Anyone looking into DIY X900 printhead soaking routines consider this textual dissection of your printhead:
1 - outer most element = cage protecting your printhead face from paper strikes
2 - next level = printhead face - thin foil-like sheet with holes for each nozzle
2 - next level = channel pair module - each module has two channels. Each module draws ink from two chambers just below it, one for each color. (each module has layers of micro mechanical intricacy going on inside it, which I will get into later)
3 - next level = ink path chambers/tunnels (how ink gets to channel pair modules)
4 - next level = ink intake ports (where ink enters chambers/tunnels)
5 - next level = ink line receiver plate (removable plastic nipple plate which connects ink lines to intake ports)
6 - next level = ink lines
I made all these names up, to protect the innocent. They are appropriate.
Everything about these X900 printheads is standard technology, barring the channel pair modules. I have yet to dissect a terminally clogged printhead with Santa's Elves tugging at my cape. But don't think I haven't been dreaming about it. One key discovery happened at level 5. The ink line receiver plates are removable. The removal of these plates creates greater/easier access to the undersea world of your channel pair modules. Before you remove these plates you can only get about 3/4 of an inch from the ink behind the modules, and that has to be through the nipple fittings of the receiver plate. Once this plate is removed though, you are far closer. Why does this matter? Now you can soak the vital clog-prone parts without jeopardizing the liquid sensitive electronics portions of the head.
The Piezoelectric elements of the head need current in order to fire (flex). That's what the thin, wide, ribbon connectors carry to the head - current. And lots of it. Think of all the nozzles there are in there (math help please..). All of these tiny lines of current come from the ribbon cable, connect to the head at what could be referred to as a junction box connector. Bad name, I get it, but stay with me here. All of this junction box connector is un-sealed, right out in the open so you can jam the ribbon cable into it, then it all dives into plastic land inside the top wall of the head framework. Somewhere inside this wall, still at least an inch from level 3, the junction box now sends hundreds of tiny power lines to all the different channel pair modules. Also somewhere inside this wall all these lines turn from being open to outside air, to being encased in a clear silicone-like substance. I will upload images when I have more time but for now just understand that all electronics from the junction box all the way to the channel pair modules, is waterproof. That is enough information for me to understand that you can safely soak more than just the very face of your printhead while attempting to clear a deadly clog.
Up until recently I had visions of adapting hoses to the level 5 ink line receiver plates, in order to massage fluid past dried clogs to loosen them up. One concern here is an unknown pressure tolerance that the piezoelectrics can endure. For sure some pressure, because the printer itself sucks ink through the printhead face during some cleanings, but I don't know how much - which is scary. But now that I understand the level 5 ink line receiver plate comes off, and the electrics are waterproof (inkproof actually), I have abandoned my plan to force fluid anywhere. Simple soaking is my intent. At least the first go around.
Sorry if this is hard to follow, pet names and all. You should try it under a microscope..
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Hi Eric,
Looks like you've been having some fun with the printhead. Thanks for posting the pics! I'm attaching a document that should help understanding the inner workings of what you're seeing. Also, here is a link for you which should be a good read if you're curious. http://doc.utwente.nl/58366/1/thesis_Wijshoff.pdf Granted, they are a little dated... :)
All the best,
Chris
Hi Chris
Thanks for info on printer head.....huge research going on about making the head more efficient...
When the nozzles were doubled in the x900 series....it appears that the piezo unit itself had to be made much more flexible to deliver power for printing....this extra flexibility meant that the materials used became much thinner and i suppose more brittle and prone to damage faster...
Also what i found interesting in the thesis was the ability of the printhead to suck back air bubbles into the head when there is an accumulation of excess ink or stale ink "pooling " on the head surface at the nozzles...where is our wiper blade system and why does it not prevent "pooling" ?
I have removed air successfully by power cleaning....i have seen the air bubbles in the cleaning solution after the power clean...but not for individual nozzles..(that is if it is air in the individual nozzles )
What i was surprised at was there was no mention in the thesis of the ink waste disposal method and how effective this method is in preventing stale ink or air bubbles getting back into the head itself..
It just seems that all the research is going into the head itself and very little thought is going into the problem of disposing of waste ink intelligently ..
Dirt was also mentioned as a reason for nozzle blocking ...possibly good hygiene habits is the only way to keep the dirt problem at bay and i guess check and replace dampers too..
Eric ..you mentioned pumping pressure worries...in another world i know that putting water into a house (i am involved in a rural water scheme project ) at greater that 3 bar pressure is looking for trouble....i seem to remember that the pressure used to flush out your piezo head was 5 bar which sounds strong..
Possibly a pressure somewhat similar to the pressure Epson use to move ink through the head would be the max to go for....is that information out there ? Anyway you are going the " soak "route
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I thought these articles from Jon Cone are helpful tips on printer maintenance: http://www.inkjetmall.com/wordpress/category/maintenance/
...notably on humidity, infrequent printer use, and head strikes.
I haven't had any problems with my 9900, but I also use my 9900 very regularly and humidity levels are kept fairly constant in studio...
ken
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Here comes the New Year - here comes new X900 printhead discoveries..
HUMIDITY: I mentioned a few weeks ago that since the rainy season began we have been seeing fewer clogs. Much fewer clogs. I hoped we were out of the woods, at least for winter. I was wrong. The clogs came back pretty regular again. It got colder, I turned up the heat, the heat dried out the air, the clogs came back. This is not my news. My news (part of my news) is I recorded what changed, when, and why. Epson suggests keeping your X900 in an environment with 40-60% relative humidity. I bought a gauge and have monitored the regularity of clogging during the varying states of the environment around our 7900. 40-60% humidity does not work for me, it seems I need more humidity. When my gauge reads 80% our 7900 is virtually clog-free. A few of you have emailed me with details about your X900 clogging results in your own varying environments, the most successful stories also being in the neighborhood of 80%. The problem one user had with keeping his studio (room in house) this humid was he got mold - then the humidifier got excommunicated to a dusty corner in the garage. Once back to a more human-friendly environment, he was again back to clogging. I've read about humidifiers but not tried one. Apparently they take a lot of work to run - sometimes needing to be filled with water (one gallon) four times in one day. For me this is not possible. But all this new relative humidity data and how it specifically relates to our 7900 clogging, did get me to thinking (re-thinking actually) about an old idea I had months ago to enclose our 7900 in it's own micro-environment. So I broke out my old high school graduation present, a Singer Sewing Machine (no comment), and fabricated a prototype cover out of some 6ml poly I had left over from a staining job. I took two cookie sheets, filled them with water and set them on the floor inside the cover/under the printer. I put two gauges on top of the machine - one inside the cover in the micro-climate, the other outside the cover. The two gauges are only six inches apart. So far (two days) I see @12% difference in humidity from inside the cover to outside the cover. When the room is 65%, the machine is 80%. So the idea has potential. It's a pretty sloppy prototype too - doesn't reach the floor in the back in some areas. I am confident this idea can produce better results.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_DSC5981.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_DSC5983.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_DSC5988.jpg)
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Hi Eric,
Nice handiwork! ;D
Be aware that hygrometers can be "inaccurate" with regard to actual measurements, but as you've found, the key point here is to just find a level on the gauge at which your printer is "happy"---so although actual humidity may only be 55% and your gauge reads 80%----it really doesn't matter as long as you've found that happy printer humidity level to maintain.
Carmel humidity levels are constant, and only turning on the heat (which I don't) dries out the air. I've got an extra humidifier if you'd like to give it a try; it's a lot less work than you think.
ken
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Discovery number 2:
About mid-way through this journey I sent our Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printhead to Canada, after me and my genius buddy decided we could do no more to help clear it on our own. Once in Canada our head was subject to both an ultrasonic cleaning, and also a flushing. When we got the head back into our 7900, all it produced were fatal error messages. Our goose (printhead) was cooked.
In the many months since experiencing this disaster, I have done a lot more learning - thanks in great part to other (more intelligent/better educated/and vastly more experienced) users right here on Luminous Landscape. I have also done a lot more thinking. And, finally, I have done quite a lot of poking around INSIDE the very printheads which we have all grown to enjoy a love (beautiful prints) hate (ink-time-money-printer-destroying-clogs) relationship with. While I do still have hope that we can find a cure for X900 clogs, for quite some time now I have quietly hidden my greatest fear - that terminal clogs are not clogs at all. After all, the wonderful world of Piezoelectrics is not only amazingly tiny, but it is also amazingly fragile. For sure with all of the aggressive Power Cleanings we are forced to resort to in order to combat the most tenacious clogs; the sucking, the smearing, the pressures of ink being forced through the printhead's internals - it is quite possible that we all walk a fine line between helping our printheads with cleanings, and hurting our printheads with cleanings. So for quite some time my greatest fear has been a discovery that terminal clogs are actually damaged Piezoelectrics, rather than simply clogs.
Since this very point is such a vital element of our journey, late last night I finally gathered the courage to act on finding our answer. I performed an autopsy on our "Oh Canada" X900 Printhead. Remember, before we shipped it to Canada it simply had un-clearable clogs. It returned with "terminal errors". While this is a tragedy, it is also an opportunity. If the piezoelectrics in this Oh Canada head are damaged, well then here would be our answer - damaged piezos = fatal errors, dropouts = clogs. Anyone else curious what I found?
It WAS too much fluid pressure that killed our Oh Canada head. I feel confident in this assessment due to the fact that both channel pairs show damage exactly at the source of where the pressurized fluid would have entered from - which is the same place where ink enters from. Take a look for yourself.
The following images line up/stack:
1 - healthy piezoelectric printhead (minus it's missing face, plus some microscopic garbage here and there)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_halthy_piezoelectrics.jpg)
2 - Partial workings of an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printhead identified
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/7900_halthy_piezoelectrics-indicators.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E5383-ocanada-intakes.jpg)
2 - Damaged "Oh Canada" printhead
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E5383-ocanada.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E5383-ocanada-problems.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E5383-ocanada-indicators.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E5361.jpg)
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Thanks for this tip Ken, I have little experience or knowledge about hygrometers (especially spelling). How people can sell a product with such inaccurate tolerances/performance baffles me. My world is so much simpler - you build it nice you get paid. You build it crooked you don't.
...by the way it's hygrometers I'm referring to here.
Hi Eric,
Nice handiwork! ;D
Be aware that hygrometers can be "inaccurate" with regard to actual measurements, but as you've found, the key point here is to just find a level on the gauge at which your printer is "happy"---so although actual humidity may only be 55% and your gauge reads 80%----it really doesn't matter as long as you've found that happy printer humidity level to maintain.
Carmel humidity levels are constant, and only turning on the heat (which I don't) dries out the air. I've got an extra humidifier if you'd like to give it a try; it's a lot less work than you think.
ken
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I call my buddy Steve a genius. If you were at dinner tonight you would too. I dumped all the new found data I could on him tonight. Nothing intimidated him. In fact each new piece I shared only drew him closer to better understanding the hidden science behind these X900 printheads. Turns out as complex as these things are, they're also pretty simple. I can't say we know exactly how every element of them work, but I can say we are getting pretty dam close. I will explain this all in time, in a language I am comfortable with - images. But this will take some work. For now I'd like to share our most recent discovery - the third dimension of piezoelectric nozzle boards.
Up until this point (or point of view) one major unsolved mystery has been tracking the path of ink through the face of the piezo nozzle board. As you can see from my previous posts, ink has a bit of traveling to do in order to get to the actual piezo nozzles just under each hole in the face of the printhead. The reality behind these nozzles is actually very different than any illustrations that I have seen. These "nozzles" are not actually nozzles at all. Instead they are more like chambers. Each chamber is surrounded by it's walls, which flex when electrically charged. When these walls flex, the ink that is between them gets forced down (or across actually - since our heads sit sideways on the printer) the path of least resistance. In the case of these X900 printheads, that path is out the face of the printhead and on to your print. For sure the ink won't travel back into the head instead, because of the pressure backing up the ink in the supply lines - and throughout all the chambers (and tunnels) in the piezoboard.
Hold on there I just used a new word. Two in fact - chambers and tunnels. Like I said "up until this point - of view - one major mystery has been tracking the path of ink through the face of the piezo nozzle board." I shot video of ink entering a piezoboard and filling all the chambers. It makes no sense though, I can't track it. Somehow the chambers just get filled. Remember there is only one ink supply port per channel - it is pretty small relative to the size of the channel board that it supplies with ink. The bottom of a channel board is solid, no ink enters or exits out the bottom. The top of a channel board sits smack up against the thin sheet metal printhead face. No ink flows between the sheet metal face and the channel board - if it did the different inks in each channel pair would flow together. So it is confirmed then, the only way for ink to travel from the supply port, to the nozzles, is THROUGH the channel board.
...feel like blowing your mind right now? Imagine this - a channel board measures only about 1/32", or .8000mm thin. That's pretty lean actually, yet somehow it is perforated not only vertically (seen in various pics I have recently uploaded here), but also in fact horizontally - on multiple levels (only seen in pics I will share now) - in what is a fascinating complex three dimensional maze of impressive intricacy.
Here is a side-view pic of a channel UNIT. This is NOT a pic of the channel board. A channel unit measures about 3/16", or just under 5mm.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/side_board_4-5mm.jpg)
Here is the channel board, which sits at the very top of the channel unit.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/side_board-5mm.jpg)
I tried to remove the channel board from the channel unit but no dice, it's glued on pretty good and the board is fragile as you can imagine. So I broke a piece of the channel board off to examine more than just the top. Here we can see the bottom as well.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/piezo_frag.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/piezo_frag_closeup.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/piezo_side_close.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/piezofrag_underside_close2.jpg)
While these images are cool I learned nothing from them, other than we are dealing with some tiny stuff here.
...and then it happened. I took multiple frame grabs from some video I had shot and put them together to reveal what to me is a gateway to understanding the paths (or tunnels) that carry ink through and to our piezoelectric nozzles. This is by far the most revealing image yet. Those square holes you can see in the side-face of the channel board are actually ink passages. These are the paths, or tunnels, which lead ink to nozzle chambers.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/piezoboard_cross-full.jpg)
Today I learned that "fatal error messages" report broken piezoelectric boards. Your head is truly dead. I also learned that "clogs" are most likely actually that - simply clogs. Tonight however I learned that "nozzle" clogs may not actually be limited to just nozzle clogs at all. Could be clogs are anywhere inside the intricate maze that makes up piezoelectric nozzle boards. Perhaps a clog in a specific tunnel, or a chamber, could end up starving the nozzle that chamber supplies. I don't know yet. ...But I will I promise you.
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I've got two more hours in me then it's back to planet earth.
I dove deeper this morning in my quest to understand inkflow through these piezoboards. I clamped a glass slide on top of a channel, hooked a syringe filled with Cyan ink to it's nipple, and filled the channel. In my best representation, of my latest understanding, of how ink fills our X900 printheads - I need to report here it is both simpler and more complex than I thought last night. Not that such a thing is even possible, but whatever. I'm doing my best to reverse engineer these intricate machines in an effort to make my father proud, "Before you can fix it you need to understand it"
The following are a series of video frame grabs taken as the channel filled:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/1.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/2.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/3.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/4.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/5.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/6.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/7.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/8.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/9.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/10.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/11.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/inkflow_into_channel/12.jpg)
So the channel long, deep hull-like groove that exists inside each channel is indeed a reservoir. The reservoir fills first. From here ink does definitely travel THROUGH these intricate piezoboards, but it also travels beneath certain levels of them, deeper in the reservoirs. "Certain levels" of them you might ask? Yes I know, it's sickening how complex these piezoboards are - they actually do have different levels. Think of piezoboards like very wide three story buildings built on concrete slabs (ink never goes below the first floor), and capped with a thick sheet metal roof, with holes in them called "nozzle openings" (ink never goes above the roof, unless it's through a nozzle opening). Starting to make sense yet? Some of the areas of these buildings (piezoboards) are wide open, floor to ceiling. These areas are the ink reservoirs. They are contained within the dimensions of the piezoboard itself. I can't tell yet what goes on on the first two floors of the piezoboard. So far they seem made up of honeycomb-like tunnels. I can however tell what goes on on the top floor. This is where the nozzles fill, and this is where the nozzles fire. At this point my confidence is growing surer by the minute that our struggles happen on this top floor. This makes the most sense, being that this top floor is the one so vulnerably close to the open air - through the nozzle openings in the sheet metal roof just above. For sure this floor is also vulnerable to half-dried sludge being forced back down into the nozzle openings in the tin face of the printhead, by our dirty rotten wiper blades...
Finally, after my having said all this, and you having read all this, here is your reward - THIS IS AN UN-CLEARABLE CLOG:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/clogged_piezos/_80E5397.jpg)
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The top level of the piezoboards do indeed house the nozzles. Just keep in mind what I said previously - they don't at all look like nozzles. This is a piezoboard, top level, series of (clogged) nozzle chambers.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/clogged_piezos/_80E5400.jpg)
Best I can tell ink enters these top level chambers (which DO have micro-membrane floors in them that seem flexible/vulnerable), from the reservoir side. Ink then travels past what could be a one-way valve (looks like a speed bump) then sits, pressurized, and hopefully fluid, awaiting it's firing out into the great new world of dried up ink on photo paper.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/clogged_piezos/_80E5400_diagram.jpg)
So the problem is obvious once you look at your head through a stereo microscope for two weeks, take hours of video, think about it forever, write about it for days, receive great feedback on LuLa, and have a genius buddy. Our HDR ink is drying inbetween the chamber walls, on the top floor of the piezoboard. Once dry in the chambers ( I know because I've dug it out with the tip of a razor knife) this ink takes on a semi-hard, rubber like consistency which for sure is what keeps the chamber walls (piezo nozzles) from flexing (firing), which is what keeps ink from exiting the nozzle opening in the tin printhead face, which is ultimately what results in drop outs, clogs, broken nozzle patterns, banding, and ultimately impotency.
Last image I swear - here is the placement of the nozzle openings as they sit over the nozzle chambers. There is exactly one nozzle for every one chamber, and here is exactly where each one sits.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/clogged_piezos/_80E5423_nozzleopenings.jpg)
Next step - fix it
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Hi Eric,
Been following your forensic analysis with interest even thought I don't have a 7900 and I have to say I admire your adventure and tenacity. Your last image of the un-clearable clog looks like a concentration of pigment particles gone hard. Is it possible that too many concurrent power cleanings 'bake the pigment' into a cement like blockage using the heat generated in the process?
Good luck in your quest.
Brian.
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Good question Brian. Heat generated by the friction of multiple powerclean-firings, accelerating the drying of ink stuck inside the head is something we've talked about before. It's like the potential solution to clogs could be causing more clogs, you are exactly right. And then there is frying your head all together with powercleanings, which I think sfblue did. It's definitely food for thought but either way they got here, once your head has an unclearable clog you're pretty well SOL ...which is why this thread.
So far I have limited my exploration to just the printheads. I feel I understand them well enough now to know how they work, and why they don't anymore once clogged. You are exactly right, now it's time to explore the world of drying inks. I wish I were a chemist. While I knew nothing about piezoelectrics six months ago, at least I am inherently mechanical. Chemistry though, that's a world I need someone else's education to understand. I did buy a compound microscope, and inks are my next target. I plan to look at them wet, look at them dry, heat them up and look at them, and then ultimately I plan to try to loosen them up again.
As for the clogs in the head pictured above, I soaked that head in distilled water - nothing happened. I soaked it in rubbing alcohol - nothing happened. I soaked it in Acetone - plenty happened. The ink, ever so slowly, did loosen up, and did shrink away into tiny passable particles again. This is very good news. The flip side of this good news is Acetone is a lot more aggressive than I am comfortable with using just yet. I need to explore it's affect on all the different materials in these X900 printheads. Some plastics melt under the influence of Acetone. Others aren't affected. But it's not just plastics I am concerned with - there are many other semi-soft materials in these heads. There is glue that sticks the channel pairs to the printhead framework. There is a clear plastic silicone-like substance that insulates all the piezo wires. There is the piezo board itself, made out of I have no idea what. And then there is the glue used to stick the tin roof onto the piezoboards. I need to be confident that none of these materials will be compromised due to soaking in whatever chemical we decide to use. So there is plenty of work yet to do.
Any chemists in the house willing to lend some thought..?
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Not a chemist, but, as far ar i know, the difference from watrebased head to ecosolvent head is the nipple. At least for the older generation heads you can buy a waterbased head, replace the nipple and you have a ecosolvent head. More, since epson heads are used for both water and solvent inks, i think is possible that epson don't have 2 distinct production lines, one for water and one for solvent (yes dx7 heads are also used for solvent printers). The problem here is that i understand that solvents and water don't mix well together, they precipitate.
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I am not a chemist either. I remember reading somewhere that ammonia or household ammonia could be used to clean the head.
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Eric and all who have contributed,
I spent the better part of Christmas reading from page one of this thread, glued to the computer screen anticipating every twist and turn. I admire your staying power to determine the cause and solution! Awesome!!! What brought me to this place was my desire to purchase a 4900. I wanted to know as much about them as possible as I will be dipping my toes into the printing pool for the first time. I got to tell you that the water looks pretty cold from reading all of the issues with clogged print heads! I'm a masochist, so that is probably not going to stop me, however I will be mindful of how important maintenance is to the longevity of these printheads, thanks to you and all who have contributed there time and stories.
The one way valve (speed bump) would preclude you from drawing cleaning fluid backwards through the printhead? Or maybe I'm not completely following along with the path of ink flow.
Once again thank you for the education,
Steve
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What brought me to this place was my desire to purchase a 4900.
Steve
The practical fact of the matter is that unless you use the printer every few days, you can expect it to require cleaning - a little or a lot depending, before using it after it has been unused for more than a few days. My experience confirms what Epson said about them (somewhere, sometime, don't ask me for specifics) from the get-go: these are production machines, and my experience confirms this. If you plan to have gaps between printing sessions exceeding more than several days and you don't need a roll-holder and you want the highest quality, most maintenance-free printing experience achievable with an Epson professional series printer, do yourself a favour and buy a 3880. If you will be printing at least every three days, the 4900 is a fabulous performer.
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I agree. I don't know what special magic Epson put in the 3880, but unlike all of my other Epsons it's been a clog-free machine. It sometimes sits (covered) for a month at a time. It required one standard nozzle cleaning about two years ago but that's it. I still do nozzle checks before running an expensive sheet of 17x22 paper through it, but it continues to be clog-free. A Google search reveals this is a common experience with most 3880 users.
What did Epson do different in the 3880?
Sal
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Hi Eric
Today our vintage tractor ran out of diesel so I had to bleed the injector system which got me thinking as I was standing out in the rain. In an injector system even the smallest and I mean smallest amount of air will cause the pump to malfunction . Are the nozzles sucking air back into the system ? if the piezoelectric chamber is trying to squeeze air the air will just compress and we see no output.? If the chamber has an incompressible fluid i.e. ink it will be expelled from the chamber.
Jon
I have been following from the start .
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Mark D Segal, I've been wanting to bring this up for a while. You own a 4900 don't you? You seem to have your finger on the pulse of "X900" clogging issues so I ask you to think this over for a bit - in all of the reports we have heard about these X900 printhead killing terminal clogs, how many can you remember were 4900s? I'm doing my best to remember, which has one of my dog ears cocked to one side. Sure people mention clogging with 4900s, but how many dead heads... ...any? If there is a difference, and 4900s are indeed insulated from the most horrid of clogs - terminal clogs - then perhaps it's the very different angle that the 4900 head sits on it's rails. I don't know, thoughts like these are my sheep to count late night.
iladi, that's an interesting point you bring up. I know I've talked to HAL about some of his service calls on these X900s pushing out ecosolvent ink. The stories are disgusting actually - how the lines get gunked up with muck and tar, it really sounds like a mess. So perhaps this suggests there are solvents which could be used that won't do damage. From what I could tell from the one channel that I did test with Acetone, none of the piezoelectrics seemed adversely affected, neither did the clear silicone (rubber-like) material surrounding all the microscopic wires on the underside of the channel. The plastic framework of the head was not affected, the nipples were not affected, and neither was the rubber grommet that fits the nipples to the back of the head. All clear there. But there ARE two materials left which I am suspicious of, they may have been compromised. The glue which adheres the channel to the plastic framework of the printhead, and the glue which fastens the tin roof to the face of the piezoboard. It is indeed still difficult to remove an Acetone soaked channel from the printhead, but it doesn't seem AS difficult. As far as the glue adhering the tin roof to the piezoboard, I have not tested that yet but I will. I am paranoid about all glues now..
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I agree. I don't know what special magic Epson put in the 3880, but unlike all of my other Epsons it's been a clog-free machine. It sometimes sits (covered) for a month at a time. It required one standard nozzle cleaning about two years ago but that's it. I still do nozzle checks before running an expensive sheet of 17x22 paper through it, but it continues to be clog-free. A Google search reveals this is a common experience with most 3880 users.
What did Epson do different in the 3880?
Sal
Same experience with its predecessor the 3800, which was a breath of fresh-air from the previous 4800 and 4000 models both of which had clogging issues. So the question is what happened in the progression from the 3800/3880 series to the 4900. The new head technology is different - many more nozzles, hence smaller ones per square inch. The inks are named differently so the recipe may not be the same. The lines are longer between the cartridges and the print head. More than that I don't know. Epson did say - I believe in the initial promos - that the 4900 head was coated with a clog repellant material, but I have no idea what that would do for me if the clogs originate from drying ink within - or indeed if that's really what happens. This stuff is nano-technology, combining at least leading edge chemistry, materials technology, fluid mechanics and the relevant electronics; to really understand it I think requires a high level of very specialized education and experience.
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So maybe the piezo heads are just as much a consumeable as the thermo heads are. They just aren't labeled as such, are hard to aquire for the end user, need a trained $$$ technician to replace and cost so much that it means the printers end of life in most cases.
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Mark D Segal, I've been wanting to bring this up for a while. You own a 4900 don't you? You seem to have your finger on the pulse of "X900" clogging issues so I ask you to think this over for a bit - in all of the reports we have heard about these X900 printhead killing terminal clogs, how many can you remember were 4900s? I'm doing my best to remember, which has one of my dog ears cocked to one side. Sure people mention clogging with 4900s, but how many dead heads... ...any? If there is a difference, and 4900s are indeed insulated from the most horrid of clogs - terminal clogs - then perhaps it's the very different angle that the 4900 head sits on it's rails. I don't know, thoughts like these are my sheep to count late night.
................
Eric, yes, I own a 4900. I wouldn't say I have my finger on the pulse of "X900" clogging issues, but I do have a very clear perception of how MY 4900 behaves, and it behaves pretty much as predicted: use it regularly and there are seldom clogs; leave it alone for weeks on-end (as I need to do periodically) and cleaning will be required - sometimes repeatedly using a routine Epson Pro-Graphics advised me about some years ago (running prints between cleanings) and it always - eventually - recovers every nozzle. A nuisance to be sure, but no disasters - yet. The fact that there is so little forum noise about the 4900 indicates that few people are likely to be having fatal issues with them. I wouldn't have a clue why it *seems* to have fewer fatalities than the 7900, but these are not identical machines apart from size. The 4900 is a much more recent model - there was a gap of several years between the 7900 and the 4900, and the head technology is not simply a smaller sized clone of the 7900 head. They changed some stuff, but exactly what I don't know and it wouldn't mean much to me, not being a printer technologist.
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The one way valve (speed bump) would preclude you from drawing cleaning fluid backwards through the printhead? Or maybe I'm not completely following along with the path of ink flow...
Steve
Good question Steve. My genius brought up the same ideas.. It's easy to visualize the piezo-walls flexing, then pushing ink out of the nozzle opening in the printhead face (tin roof). But it can't be that simple. The reason being, each piezo chamber has two walls - a left wall and a right wall. OK so fine, the walls flex inward and ink gets shot out the nozzle opening. But what happens to the ink on the other side of these two walls? After all if they flex inward from the perspective of the firing nozzle, they flex outward from the perspective of the two chambers on either side. This would create suction in those two chambers wouldn't it? Seems to me that it would.. I don't know that the "speedbumps" are actually two way valves. I am assuming this. It is possible that since these bumps are indeed on the chamber walls, that they do make contact with the wall on the other side during a piezo firing. If this is true, then it is also possible that this one way valve is only a one way valve during a firing. When not firing the passage is clear for ink to pass. Keep in mind that these chamber walls have both a roof, and a floor. The roof is the tin printhead face, the floor is a very thin plastic-like flexible membrane.
Sorry for getting this technical, but you asked for it... :)
One theory the genius and I came up with, which "might" explain how two neighboring piezo chambers can fire at once, is that they can't. Perhaps, and please I am open to anyone's opinions here, the neighboring piezo chamber fires when the head comes back on it's return run. If you've ever watched your criss-crossing printhead produce a print, and I am sure we all have, it DOES seem to print only partial areas of the full footprint of the printhead face with each pass. I measured our X900 nozzle lineup, it is indeed one inch full of nozzles. So why then don't our printers print complete one inch wide bands per pass? It is possible that this is the reason why, two (or three actually) neighboring piezo chambers cannot fire at once.
We know that there is indeed one nozzle for every chamber. We know that the chamber walls flex when electrically charged. We know how the electric charge gets to each chamber wall. We know the flow of the ink. The rest is up to physics (which I dropped out of in college), and common sense (the only sense I have).
The reason I post the pics that I do is that people more educated than me can share their theories as well. We're all in this together. So thank you, for both past and future contributions to this X900 clog clearing journey of ours.
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So maybe the piezo heads are just as much a consumeable as the thermo heads are. They just aren't labeled as such, are hard to aquire for the end user, need a trained $$$ technician to replace and cost so much that it means the printers end of life in most cases.
No. Those heads are not meant to be a "consumable". They are essentially the printer, and they are meant to last a very long time.
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As the resident chemist who has been following this thread here are some observations. Acetone is an excellent solvent and as we learned when we first took organic chemistry, lots of thing dissolved int it. Dissolve is the operative word here, plastic doesn't melt as melting is a function of heat. If there are any binders that are used in the construction of the print head, then acetone is likely a poor choice of cleaning solutions since these compounds can dissolve, weakening the integrity of the print head. It would be better to try a more moderate solvent such as isopropyl alcohol which used to be used by audiophiles to clean turntable stylus and tape recording heads without fear of damage. The Epson inks are suspensions of encapsulated colorants (carbon black or appropriate color dyes) or as we commonly define this 'pigments' and my personal believe is that the quality control of the particle size which is critical here. As Mark and others have noted the 3880 which is highly resistant to clogging has half the number of nozzles per unit area compared to the x900 printers. Thus, Epson require far better quality control of particle size for inks in the case of the x900 printer. The only way to know if it is a QC problem in terms of clogging is to document clogs across all printers by the lot number of the ink which is nigh to impossible to do.
From what I've read in the Epson patents, it is likely that there is some heat generated at the print head by the charge put through the piezoelectric head but I doubt that this is significant.
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Alan, what about ammonia?
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Mark, printheads are consumables. Roland gives a live span of 7 bilion shots per a dx4 head. For a dx7 head, much more sensitive, must be less. The fact is piezo elements fails in time. They will not keep their properties and will start missfire, fuzzyness will became more and more obvious in prints. For a normal epson printer user, yes, printhead last a life, for a heavy user, a copyshop, like mine, it will last only a couple years. I have used over 35 liters of ink in an epson 9700 printer in one and a half year. Yellow is dead now. On my roland solvent i change heads every 2 years, it is a fact that i'm aware. I have to replace heads that are not cloged at alll, just fuzzy prints and lack of power to fire.
Eric, I have a modified epson 4880, turned into DTS printer (direc to substrat). Althou the manufacturer claims it uses waterbased ink, MSDS talks about ether and other stuff like this. And the ink smells alot like alcohol.lokks to me more like a lite solvent than water. The pipes are originals, made by epson. No melting. Monday i will try to see what impact the cleaning solution bfor the dts printer has on original HDR inks and let you know. Then i'll send you the MSDS.
Edit: maybe Alan will help with the MSDS.
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Thus, Epson require far better quality control of particle size for inks in the case of the x900 printer. The only way to know if it is a QC problem in terms of clogging is to document clogs across all printers by the lot number of the ink which is nigh to impossible to do.
Alan, I expect the QC on all their inks for the professional series printers would be rigorous - built-in to the production systems. It just doesn't pay for them to do otherwise, because once it is routine it is cheap compared to dealing with damage and customer relations. I think the real fact of the matter is that they are truly on the leading edge of technology and they don't have a win-win solution in terms of avoiding *all* or *almost all* clogging. As you know, most design and manufacturing involves compromises. My sense of it is that they take a model design as far as they can within what they consider to be a technical improvement within an acceptable range of price and performance. If they had all the answers and they could bundle them into a marketable product, I have no doubt they would do so. And if they don't have all answers, having been the developers of this technology and the true specialists in it for the past several decades, one can never say never, but I'd be surprised if the rest of us will be particularly reliable at second-guessing them, as fascinating and courageous as much of this discussion has been. Remember the beginning of what must be this "Guinness Book or Records Forum Thread" - I'd still like to know *what really happened* to Eric's printer during the time it was in transit from the seller to his place. Of course the discussion has evolved a long way from where it started, and that's OK, but that lingering issue is...well, still lingering :-)
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Yes, printheads are consumables. ..............
In the final analysis just about anything we use is "consumable". But the term has a specific meaning in this industry. When we say a printhead is "consumable", the meaning generally associated with that expression is that it is inexpensive relative to the printer and designed to be user-replaceable quite easily and at low cost - such as for example the printheads in an HP office inkjet printer. When we say it is not a consumable, we mean the opposite - it is a high percentage of the cost of the printer, and it is not designed to be user-replaceable - the case for ALL of these Epson professional series printers. The Canon IPFs are somewhat hybrid in this scheme - they are meant to be user-replaceable once enough of their nozzles get clogged, but they are not cheap.
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Maybe you are right, althou my Roland costs 15000 euros, 2 heads are about 1500 euros, including labor, since are not user replaceable. But as i mention earlier, they last about 7 billion shots each head. And you miss my point: piezo DO tears in time, each shot they fire. Maybe your head will not clog but will fail in time, the more ink, the faster. And canons are cheap. 350 euros for a user replaceable head and 4 liters of ink thru, it is cheap. Epson head is 850 euros the head, plus 450 euros labor and about 10 liter of ink by color.
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Alan, what about ammonia?
Ammonia won't do anything if the clog is an organic molecule such as an ink particle. You need to have an organic solvent. In the old days we made stylus cleaning solution with isopropyl alcohol, water and a drop of dishwasher detergent. It might be interesting for Eric to mix up a solution of 10-20% isopropyl alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol) and add a drop of Dawn to it (if it's good enough to clean oil soaked birds it should be good enough for an Epson print head) and see how this works. It's pretty much the recipe that Windex uses but with more alcohol in it.
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Eric, I have a modified epson 4880, turned into DTS printer (direc to substrat). Althou the manufacturer claims it uses waterbased ink, MSDS talks about ether and other stuff like this. And the ink smells alot like alcohol.lokks to me more like a lite solvent than water. The pipes are originals, made by epson. No melting. Monday i will try to see what impact the cleaning solution bfor the dts printer has on original HDR inks and let you know. Then i'll send you the MSDS.
Edit: maybe Alan will help with the MSDS.
I'll be happy to look at the MSDS. If one looks at the Epson MSDS, the inks are waterbased but have organic solvents in them (mostly glycols and glycerol) to help keep the particles in suspension.
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Alan, I expect the QC on all their inks for the professional series printers would be rigorous - built-in to the production systems. It just doesn't pay for them to do otherwise, because once it is routine it is cheap compared to dealing with damage and customer relations. I think the real fact of the matter is that they are truly on the leading edge of technology and they don't have a win-win solution in terms of avoiding *all* or *almost all* clogging. As you know, most design and manufacturing involves compromises. My sense of it is that they take a model design as far as they can within what they consider to be a technical improvement within an acceptable range of price and performance.
Mark, I agree 100% here. I suspect that the only difference between the x880 and x900 inks are the particle size of the 'pigments'. As you know I'm also in agreement that the cause of clogs might be multi-factorial and that the installed user base is quite high.
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...to really understand it I think requires a high level of very specialized education and experience...
....I'd be surprised if the rest of us will be particularly reliable at second-guessing them...
Don't worry I'm not fragile.
Listen I'm just a lowly 47yr old college drop-out carpenter who loves photography and (still) races motorcycles. You're not gonna learn much from me here and I'll be the first one to tell you that. But do keep in mind the genius buddy who I continually make reference to - he actually has a very specialized education which applies to more than just one aspect of these piezoelectric printheads. While I respectfully appreciate that you might expect a "genius" reference from a carpenter's perspective to simply mean "Wow that guy's smart," what I actually mean is - he's a genius. Keep in mind where I live. I used to wave to Steve Jobbs on my way to work in the morning, he literally lived up my street. The flip-phone was born above the very wood floors I'm writing this from. This area that I live in right now, which I don't even understand how I live here, is a mecca for the mindful. And our resident genius - who has access to more people just like him - has earned his his seat among the best of them. It's a safe bet you hold in your hands today, Mark, something our very genius made yesterday. Literally
I feel incredibly fortunate to have the very specialized help we do here. There's not as much "guess work" going on as my goofy nature conveys. Would you like me to explain exactly how just forty six microscopic brass leads inside a channel's tiny ribbon wire can deliver firing charges to seven hundred and twenty individual Piezoelectric nozzles - all needing different information? Because I can do that - all the notes are scribbled on three napkins from Thursday night's dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. That's the type of specialized education we are fortunate enough to have access to here. I have to brace myself before I ask questions. Seriously some of the answers I get leave me feeling pretty dam helpless. It's common I'm lost at the first sentence, never mind the last.
As for "that lingering issue is...well, still lingering :-)," consider this fun fact and then tell me YOUR answer: The 9900 that I bought in Colorado had a reported 75% of it's green channel missing. I bought that printer in August, where it was dragged from the back of a mini-van packed with four hundred suit cases and bicycles and juggling apparatus's piled on top of it. For a week it baked in the back of my cargo van in the high (dry) desert heat (110+). Once I got it home that machine lay inactive, never even turned on, for 4 months more. So it's been abused - subject to horrid neglect, super high temperatures, super dry environments, banging, smashing, vibrating and the like. You name it this 9900 has endured it. For sure way more than my shipped 7900 ever endured. The 7900 was back up and running in only ten days time from the day it was shipped, which was also the day it reportedly fired it's last print - and it had terminal clogs from (my) day one. So what would you expect a nozzle pattern to deliver on this 9900, after all this time and abuse? Maybe not one channel firing one nozzle at all? Well you'd almost be right, only magenta was 100% clear. The rest of the channels/nozzles were pretty much gone. After just one series of pairs cleanings (about three per pair), this 9900 was 100% clear and ready for printing - except for the very same 75% of missing terminally clogged green nozzles that we missing before I got it.
I don't know what this does for you, but it pretty well wraps up my view of the 7900 that I bought used.
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Good to hear you're getting knowledgeable help Eric.
That comparison between the 7900 and the 9900 is truly intriguing and it's encouraging to see how much abuse that 9900 could absorb and still work. Maybe that says something for the intrinsic quality of these machine builds, but very little about specifically what causes some of them to fail so completely.
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Ammonia won't do anything if the clog is an organic molecule such as an ink particle. You need to have an organic solvent. In the old days we made stylus cleaning solution with isopropyl alcohol, water and a drop of dishwasher detergent. It might be interesting for Eric to mix up a solution of 10-20% isopropyl alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol) and add a drop of Dawn to it (if it's good enough to clean oil soaked birds it should be good enough for an Epson print head) and see how this works. It's pretty much the recipe that Windex uses but with more alcohol in it.
You are right. Once i had some cleaning solution for my waterbased mutoh printer. It was alcohol, soap, some glycol and water.
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Ammonia won't do anything if the clog is an organic molecule such as an ink particle. You need to have an organic solvent. In the old days we made stylus cleaning solution with isopropyl alcohol, water and a drop of dishwasher detergent. It might be interesting for Eric to mix up a solution of 10-20% isopropyl alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol) and add a drop of Dawn to it (if it's good enough to clean oil soaked birds it should be good enough for an Epson print head) and see how this works. It's pretty much the recipe that Windex uses but with more alcohol in it.
I will try this tonight Alan. This is exactly what I had hoped for..
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Happy holidays all:
I don't know if this was discussed elsewhere but I'm rather pissed to discover that the 9900 initiated an ink recharge when I replaced the cleaning unit. It seems to have averaged about 60 mils PER COLOR or 600 mls total down the drain. Another 200+ dollars in wasted ink on top of two for the cleaning unit itself. Happy new year from freaking Epson.
There was no warning that this was going to occur and nothing about it in either service manual. It seemed like the printer was going to do yet another unasked for cleaning but instead drained a large portion of ink from each color when it came up in regular mode.
The service manual specifies the sequence to use to check the AID function but it did not work exactly as shown. Note that the AID check function produced blanks for the Mode 1 line on the LCD the first time I set it for 2.2 stop and then NG (Not Good I assume) for 2.8. After setting it back to 2.2 the Mode 1 line still showed blanks rather than "OK". Firing the printer up the next day (after the ink purge and reloading the most current firmware) the AID check function now shows "OK" and all is well.
I don't know what triggered the ink purge but the printer also seemed to have reset all the settings including reverting to the initial firmware version. I must have triggered a complete reset while looking for a way to set the cleaning unit counter without servprog.exe. Beware that there was no indication that any of this was going to occur.
Doug
Edited to reflect new information....
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Mark,
I appreciate your advice on 3880 vs. 4900. I have been debating this very issue for a while with the hopes that Epson will offer a rebate on the 4900 that I couldn't pass up. I'm still leaning towards the 4900 armed with the knowledge that it will require regular use and diligent maintenance (thanks to the enlightenment I've received from this epic thread). I have enrolled my cat in a printing 101 course, in my absence she will be able to output print jobs to keep the 4900 nice and lubricated! A little catnip and a furry toy and she'll do just about anything!
Eric,
I'm in the construction industry as well and I like to keep it simple. Things have to make sense before I can move on. I'm anxiously waiting to see if the cleaning solution is the answer without causing catastrophic damage to the head.
Steve
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...mix up a solution of 10-20% isopropyl alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol) and add a drop of Dawn to it (if it's good enough to clean oil soaked birds it should be good enough for an Epson print head) and see how this works...
Alan I am looking to mix/test your solution now. I have come up with a new system of flushing the printhead which will take far longer, but will be far safer for all parts considered. Please if you will, give me an idea of percentages when you say "a drop" of Dawn. Is this for a shot-glass sized portion of solution, or a gallon? And when you say 10-20% of isoproply alcohol, what's the rest of the solution made of - Distilled water I assume?
I have tested again and no, we cannot use Acetone to clean these X900 heads. I have confirmed that it indeed does compromise the bond of the glue used to secure the channel units to the printhead framework. Interestingly enough it's not the bond of the glue to the channel (metal) that seems broken down - it's the bond of the glue to the (plastic) printhead framework that gets broken down. Before soaking in Acetone it is very difficult to remove a channel unit from the framework. Once removed, equal amounts of glue residue are left on both the metal channel surface, and the plastic printhead framework surface. Upon close examination it is plain to see that the glue itself is what breaks when the parts are forced away from one another, before soaking, because equal amounts of glue residue are left on both surfaces. In fact in no places at all are either bonded surface even visible - glue residue completely covers both surfaces. But after soaking in Acetone, it's the bond to the printhead that breaks when the parts are forced away from one another - which is plain to see because almost no glue residue is left on the printhead framework surface. This is obviously bad, but what is worse is the hidden bond between the tin roof and the piezoboard. This is also compromised, as the tin roof is also easier to remove after soaking. ...so Acetone is out.
I am happy with this discovery because quite honestly once you explore all the tiny fragile intricacies of these piezoboards you are left with a very high level of respect for their vulnerabilities. While the Devil on my shoulder was anxious to watch Acetone melt away dried ink into nothingness from the chamber walls of a piezonozzle, the Angle on my other shoulder incessantly clashed pots and pans of despair in my other ear. I expected these results, so I feel far better about using your milder solution for far longer amounts of time.
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Alan I am looking to mix/test your solution now. I have come up with a new system of flushing the printhead which will take far longer, but will be far safer for all parts considered. Please if you will, give me an idea of percentages when you say "a drop" of Dawn. Is this for a shot-glass sized portion of solution, or a gallon? And when you say 10-20% of isoproply alcohol, what's the rest of the solution made of - Distilled water I assume?
Distilled water is best as you won't have to worry about any residual salts in tap water. I think if you mix up two cups of the isopropyl alcohol/water mixture and add one drop of Dawn to that you will have a good working solution.
Alan
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on it, thanks Alan
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Eric,
I just had a thought, STEAM as in cleaning oil and grease from engines.
might it be possible that hot water under mild pressure (steam) from under the nozzle plate, could be enough to soften and break up the "dried" ink in the piezo channels, enough to allow it to be forced out of the nozzles by injecting mildly pressurized distilled water from the damper side of the nozzles.?
BTW,From your pics and description, I have a suspicion the "speed bumps" are ink flow restrictors (governers) controlling the final flow to the nozzles.
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I like your thinking David. Heat, pressure, chemicals, even ultrasonic vibrations - there has got to be a way...
Here's the thing though - we face some tough challenges when you consider that clogged up ink is typically a LOT larger than the hole we need it to exit the head through. Forcing the dried ink free with pressure is an attractive idea, albeit dangerous considering how fragile the piezo chamber walls are. Backwards would be my direction of choice to force hardened ink through but regardless, we need to break it up before we can force it anywhere. Right now it's land-locked inbetween the speedbumps and the nozzle openings.
Here's a few illustrations I made to show a piezo channel unit from a perspective that I can't photograph. They go in order - no ink, filled with ink, hardened ink stuck inside the chamber walls. These illustrations are not based on theories. I've seen all this crap up close and personal, hardened ink included..
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/illustrations/piezoboard_fill-1.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/illustrations/piezoboard_fill-2.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/illustrations/piezoboard_fill-3.jpg)
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/illustrations/piezotop-landlock.jpg)
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Eric, yes, I own a 4900. I wouldn't say I have my finger on the pulse of "X900" clogging issues, but I do have a very clear perception of how MY 4900 behaves, and it behaves pretty much as predicted: use it regularly and there are seldom clogs; leave it alone for weeks on-end (as I need to do periodically) and cleaning will be required - sometimes repeatedly using a routine Epson Pro-Graphics advised me about some years ago (running prints between cleanings) and it always - eventually - recovers every nozzle. A nuisance to be sure, but no disasters - yet. The fact that there is so little forum noise about the 4900 indicates that few people are likely to be having fatal issues with them. I wouldn't have a clue why it *seems* to have fewer fatalities than the 7900, but these are not identical machines apart from size. The 4900 is a much more recent model - there was a gap of several years between the 7900 and the 4900, and the head technology is not simply a smaller sized clone of the 7900 head. They changed some stuff, but exactly what I don't know and it wouldn't mean much to me, not being a printer technologist.
I too own a 4900 and only if i do not use it for weeks in a row and humidity get a bit low(<40%) here in the netherlands, i may experience some clogging, a cleaning sofar has solved it always. Pretty stable and constant in its printing regardless of the volume. A good machine.
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Eric,
I just had a thought, STEAM as in cleaning oil and grease from engines.
might it be possible that hot water under mild pressure (steam) from under the nozzle plate, could be enough to soften and break up the "dried" ink in the piezo channels, enough to allow it to be forced out of the nozzles by injecting mildly pressurized distilled water from the damper side of the nozzles.?
Steam alone won't do it. You will need some amount of organic solvent to assist. There's a reason that Epson use both glycerol and some type of glycol in the ink mixture. In their absence the pigment polymers would likely clump together making clogs much worse than they are. Steam also could impact the integrity of the print head as well loosening any binder that Epson use.
Alan
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I've got one terminally clogged printhead (but still structurally sound and virgin to any experimentation) soaking in Alan's formula now. If it were soaking in Acetone I'd have taken it out after an hour. But this mixture seems a lot less agressive, I'm tempted to let it soak for quite some time. Maybe days. What's your opinion Alan?
For what it's worth considering this HDR ink drying/hardening, I have to say I am amazed at how reluctant it is to do either. I took apart our Oh Canada printhead, which we charged with ink when we first got it back from Canada many months ago (6?), and wet ink was still everywhere inside it - even though it was left all this time out in the open air. It's remarkable. Yesterday morning I smeared two drops of Cyan ink on a microscope slide which I completely forgot about. Today I found that ink smear still completely wet. Not even dry on the edges. I brought up this never-drying-ink phenomenon with the genius the other night and rather typically he threw one possible answer back at me before I finished my sentence. "Brownian Motion..."
Since I had no idea what he was talking about I looked it up. For those of you who won't; Robert Brown, a biologist in the early 1800s, observed pollen grains moving endlessly in drops of water for no particular reason. So he looked closer, under a microscope, way back in 1827, and as a result today we have something called "Browning Motion" - the presumably random movement of particles in a gas or liquid which is generated by their being crashed into by much smaller, faster moving molecules (or atoms) also in that gas or liquid.
Imagine if you will that this moving yellow dot represents one yellow pigment crystal suspended in our HDR ink, for three days of no printing, between the walls of a piezo chamber:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/illustrations/Brownian_motion_large.gif)
I don't know this for a fact. I am not a chemist. But something about this ink has it behaving very differently than most fluids I have interacted with. Perhaps the genius was on to something, could be Epson's pigment ink engineers have incorporated this mad science of Browning Motion into their ink design. I hope so anyway..
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Eric, I don't have any good suggestions on the soaking time. Clearly the solution will be much gentler than acetone. I'm not surprised about the drying speed of ink drops on a non-absorbable surface. I imagine that the drops are quite viscous (I should have saved one of my used cartridges to do a test; I'll see if I've got one in my printer that's about to run out and do so). Unfortunately, Epson treats the inks like the Big Mac secret sauce, we really don't know all the components with any degree of precision. Certainly when one prints, the drops are quite small and the paper needs about 24 hours or so to full dry so that the out gassing is eliminated when framed.
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I wonder if there is some heat or electrically activated compound in the ink that would stimulate it to dry faster?
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To Alan:
Are you sure about not to use ammonia?
If you google 'epson clog ammonia' or 'epson clog' you will get several hits where ammonia or Windex (with ammonia) is suggested. Here is one:
"Depending upon which printer and ink you are using, the ammonia will be more or less important. With the pigmented inks it is relatively critical in dissolving the resins. In the dye inks it helps to control the pH of the cleaning fluid."
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I wonder if there is some heat or electrically activated compound in the ink that would stimulate it to dry faster?
Quite doubtful judging from what is published in the MSDS listings for the Epson inks.
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To Alan:
Are you sure about not to use ammonia?
If you google 'epson clog ammonia' or 'epson clog' you will get several hits where ammonia or Windex (with ammonia) is suggested. Here is one:
"Depending upon which printer and ink you are using, the ammonia will be more or less important. With the pigmented inks it is relatively critical in dissolving the resins. In the dye inks it helps to control the pH of the cleaning fluid."
What is the proposed mechanism of action regarding ammonia? The resins are organic polymers and dilute ammonia should have relatively little if any impact on them. The more critical factor would be the nature of the organic solvent that is used. Most of the recipes I found use isopropyl alcohol (as I recommended earlier in this thread). There is a somewhat dated manual by Arthur Entlich HERE (http://www.scribd.com/doc/84252087/Head-Cleaning-Manual-Epson) that covers Epson printers. He does recommend using very dilute ammonia in the cleaning mixture. This cannot do much damage but again, I'm not clear what it's purpose is.
Alan
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Truly great work Eric!
I admire your tenacity and ability to really break things down (maybe the wrong word choice, but you do put things back together too). It really reminds me of the old films we used to watch in grade school (do they still show these classics?) where they broke down the body's systems so that young fresh minds could learn. Yup, that's right, Eric. You're the modern day "Hemo the Magnificent!" And whereas Leviticus declares that "For the life of the flesh is in the blood," here it becomes For the life of the printer is in the ink.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUb7vJAj6bM
I've found that regular use of my printers (9900 and 9890) or Harvey Head Cleaner doing automated nozzle checks in my absence; keeping a regular humidity sweet-spot; and basic maintenance on my printer (vacuuming rolls/media debris, clean/replace wiper blade, agitation of ink cartridges, etc.) described in the morass of this thread seems to be "best-practice" in keeping a happy printer. I've had zero problems. (knock on wood). I've kept a nice binder to organize on how to keep my Epson printer happy, including resources from Jon Cone and Americaninkjetsystems. Yeah, and I bought an extended warranty just in case, which I'm hoping is the biggest waste of money!
While I appreciate the desire to find a "soaking solution"---wouldn't it simply be easier to use what is currently available as a cleaning solution? (I would use windex sparingly as I've heard that the ammonia isn't good for printer part innards). It seems to me that Jon Cone offers an inkjet cleaning/flushing fluid specifically for this purpose: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/sc.18/category.31348/.f as does American Ink Jet Systems: http://www.americaninkjetsystems.com/symphonic_inkjet_cleaning_fluid.html Btw, there's an interesting paragraph on the use of windex in that last link.
Happy New Year to Eric the Magnificent! I look forward to learning and more adventures into our printers at the microscopic level! :D
ken
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Happy New Year Everybody
Thanks to Erics determination and exploratory skills we are now beginning to focus on beating existing hardnened clogs...
Ammonia windex and isopropyl are now starting to be discussed more freely and if i may interject a note of caution here for anybody with "live " machines....
Yes ammonia has kind ph properties which will be in harmony with your inks ph properties....but...but...it will dry out your printer if not followed up very quickly with a lubricant...you can also destoy your printer if you get the dose too strong...you could even mix ammonia with isopropyl in a coctail...there is alcohol in isopropyl and again you are drying out your piezo unit unless you quickly lubricate...windex is where the idea started for mixing ammonia and isopropyl....be careful with a piezo printer that is in use...has anybody used Simply Green which is a detergent...i have it but will leave it down the line until i have tried other options first..Piezo heads will not take to the same cleaning regime as other less sensitive printer heads will withstand.
I have used Epsons own recommended cleaning fluid which i am certain is a stronger dose of glycol and a weaker dose of glycerol and water of course...useless....(for me ..others could do better )..i have done many power cleans with it and my own guess is that Epson use it when changing inks or just a general service.it has not removed my two single blocked nozzles despite very intensive power cleans..
I have used Inkjetmall cleaning fluid (Piezo Flush )which i would say is about as effective as Epsons cleaning fluid...very very good for putting machines into cold storage and not much else....(for me personally...others may be luckier )I am now mixing Piezo Flush with Epson cleaning flush and no major improvement....i have to admit though that my problem of two blocked nozzles may be just mechanical failure and not clogged or air blocked ink....
I tried to get American Inkjet Systems 007 cleaning fluid but they dont ship into Europe for some peculiar reason....has anyone tried it and was there a result with clogs....
My two blocked nozzles may be collapsed piezo jets which no cleaning solution will be able to fix....as i mentioned they could also be as a result of air bubbles and i intend to use a very gentle dose of the hair dryer on the ink pipe (magenta ) as it heads towards its damper......a desperate effort i agree...
After that i replace the cleaning solutions in the magenta cleaning cartridge with the heavier gear in the following order
Some advice on a better way from you guys and girls
Hair Dryer on magenta line into damper and a power flush for good measure..
Ammonium/isopropyl mixed
Simply Green
Chainsaw
Sledge Hammer
Hello Canon Goodbye Epson...
Ps why do Epson Products not have a product rating system that new potential customers could refer to before taking the plunge to buy Epson......a rating system would give all existing customers a chance to communicate their satisfaction to the most important people as far as Epson is concerned.....NEW POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS
So many companies today have feedback sites so that the full picture can be seen..
Having followed this thread now i would not at all be convinced of the wisdom of trusting a company that has made no effort to come out in the open and help to solve what is a real problem for many committed Epson customers
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What is the proposed mechanism of action regarding ammonia? The resins are organic polymers and dilute ammonia should have relatively little if any impact on them. The more critical factor would be the nature of the organic solvent that is used. Most of the recipes I found use isopropyl alcohol (as I recommended earlier in this thread). There is a somewhat dated manual by Arthur Entlich HERE (http://www.scribd.com/doc/84252087/Head-Cleaning-Manual-Epson) that covers Epson printers. He does recommend using very dilute ammonia in the cleaning mixture. This cannot do much damage but again, I'm not clear what it's purpose is.
Alan
Alan
Arthur Entlich would be the first man to admit that he has no experience of Epson large format printers and he cautions people to this effect...
It really is great that ammo/iso is compatible with most Epson inks.....but thats missing the core important point ,in my opinion anyway,that ammonia is acidic and is capable of doing damage to the Piezo unit itself..piezo unit and inks have to be assessed jointly and not one in isolation to the other.
Btw that product for cleaning birds feathers (Dawn) ......turns out the advert was faked and some mild faked tar look alike was used on the birds instead ....there were concerns that an ad showing real live stressed birds covered in real tar would not be acceptable to protection of animals organisations (or ourselves possibly )and the tar had to be simulated ...
instead...the same could apply if the protection of printers organisations come after us ....we better be careful now...make sure you use fake ammonia ...
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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:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_DSC5983.jpg)
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
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Alan
Arthur Entlich would be the first man to admit that he has no experience of Epson large format printers and he cautions people to this effect...
It really is great that ammo/iso is compatible with most Epson inks.....but thats missing the core important point ,in my opinion anyway,that ammonia is acidic and is capable of doing damage to the Piezo unit itself..piezo unit and inks have to be assessed jointly and not one in isolation to the other.
Btw that product for cleaning birds feathers (Dawn) ......turns out the advert was faked and some mild faked tar look alike was used on the birds instead ....there were concerns that an ad showing real live stressed birds covered in real tar would not be acceptable to protection of animals organisations (or ourselves possibly )and the tar had to be simulated ...
instead...the same could apply if the protection of printers organisations come after us ....we better be careful now...make sure you use fake ammonia ...
Ammonia is basic and not acidic. It's likely that because of earlier work with Windex, ammonia is added to mixtures. Dawn was used in cleaning birds who were coated in oil during the recent Gulf oil spill. Back in 1969 when I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara we had an oil platform blow out in the channel and lots of birds got coated in oil. We used mild dishwasher detergent to bathe them and clean them up (this was before Dawn was a product and I cannot remember the brand that we used). It worked well and saved a lot of birds.
I think these cleaning solutions are only to be used as a last ditch effort when all else has failed. It may be that they do cause damage to the printer head but the experiments to date all involve damaged heads. The issue is striking the correct balance in composition so you can break up the clog. It's clearly possible to add some glycerol to the mixture which would reduce the polarity of the cleaning mixture and make it a little more gentle.
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Adding fuel to the "It's not what you know, but who" fire, I can (as well) indeed confirm that "Dawn" was used to clean oil from animals affected by the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. The retraction you might have picked up on considering the subject of saving wildlife in the Gulf with Dawn, Blue moon, and any potential manipulation of it's perception, could be related to the epic subject of BP's liabilities surrounding the disaster. Apparently there was quite an effort put toward guarding some of it's more gruesome realities. Dawn did in fact play an effective role in saving the animals, that were saved. The problem was the related question, exactly how many animals did die? In fact, quite unfortunately, more died than were saved - but not necessarily due to the animals succumbing to the volatility (vaporization) of the cleaning agents reacting with the oil on the animals, but instead from the many hours of exposure the animals experienced pre-rescue. And then there was the stress, coupled with the fact that some animals just got trapped again. The horror..
This off-the-subject tangent of bird feathers did prompt me to make a few calls this morning. Quite ironically these conversations about wildlife morphed us straight back onto the original subject of fluids to be used on our printhead cleaning quest. Dawn's use with the oil soaked birds was more to help rinse the oil away than it was to break it down. To "Un-stick" it. In theory then, soaking our printheads in a pure solution of Dawn might do nothing at all for our cause. We need something to break the dried ink down, first, which I assume is where the isopropyl alcohol comes in. The most fascinating element to come from the Gulf of Mexico conversations, relating to our printhead disasters, is the introduction to some new (for me) knowledge about oil degredation. If Dawn falls under the "un-sticking and carrying" category of cleaners, then we need to explore the "Degredation" category of cleaners, which we are.
Apparently there do exist today "environmentally safe" cleaners which degrade oil all the way down to an atomic level. These cleaners are biodegradable. Here is a quote from one product called "Kill the Spill (http://www.myboatsgear.com/mbg/product.asp?prodID=1818)":
The safety aspects of the product is its non-petroleum, non-corrosive, non-toxic, non-flammable, and contains no VOCs. Environmentally its attributes are in it being water based, leaves no residue, contains no chlorinated solvents or phosphates.
This tiny biscuit of information was offered to me more as a carrot than as an answer. Some teach more by aiming I guess. But I am not a chemist, by the time I decipher this riddle we'll all be in retirement homes. Any help understanding if any of this can apply to our printhead cleaning quest, from our resident chemist, would be duly appreciated :)
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Back in the good old days (really old days now) when I was still working as a bench scientist I did a lot of work with biological membranes. One of the detergents that we used was Triton X-100, a very gentle detergent that allowed one to extract interesting biological proteins from the membranes without destroying them. It might be a good thing to test in the mixture as well. It won't have any of the coloring or perfume additives that Dawn has. The Wikipedia citation even says it was used in formulations for record cleaning along with isopropyl alcohol. A 100 ml bottle (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sial/x100?lang=en®ion=US) ought to last a very long time since you would only be adding a small amount to create a cleaning solution. It's stable indefinitely as far as I know.
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I have been following this thread throughout (as an owner of a 7900).
Fascinating post Alan.
I suppose that its action would depend on the chemistry of the pigment inks themselves.
It certainly would not harm the piezo-electric elements in the head.
Tony Jay
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Phew! a few weeks and it'll be a year since the saga's start!
A sincere wish for a happier New Year printer-wise to Eric and any others tinged by the same troubles. :)
I've had a thought that's maybe too much to wish for in terms of any industry lurkers/participants taking notice of and implementing.
Basically, with the usual mantra about avoiding clogs by printing more, it's a borrowing from other consumer devices that sit "off" but wake up and do things the user has set in a menu - think television video/disk recorders.
If people are happy to have devices sit on standby and wake up fully to operate when they're not at home, wouldn't it be great if your printer woke up and printed an image once or twice a day/night it wasn't used?
An image it kept in its own memory and didn't depend on having an external computer for operation.
All this would be history, maybe.
I've made another thread with the details but thought I'd just add onto this.
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Ammonia is basic and not acidic.
You are absolutely right ... As the ph of ammonia needs to be compatible with the Ph of ink... It would have to be on the basic rather than acidic side...the word i should have used was "caustic" to describe one of ammomias properties ...as an example i wonder how ammonia (diluted ) would react on the silicone covers on the minute electrical cables that Eric found serving the piezo chambers ? Hopefully Eric will try that experiment.
Anyway i have every intention of going the amo/iso route myself followed by a wash of cleaning lubricant ...but after the safer routes first which i think you also agree is the way to go forward...thanks
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It's a very good idea rodcones. One we have affectionately named "Holiday Mode". Basically a program, or firmwear update, that would fire all nozzles of all channels in appropriate sized blocks of color - set at a user specified maintenance schedule. Dry climates, or times of the year you fire it more often, rainy seasons (for instance) you fire it less. Apparently there is a way to do this now by using a program kdphotography has brought to attention a few times now - it's called Harvy Head cleaner. Ken mentions this program a few posts up from this one actually. It's pc based. I believe Ken sets his version up to do exactly what you mention, via a local laptop. For sure this would help. It would be great if Epson created a firmwear update with this feature. I brought it up with a tech on the phone about two months ago. His response was disheartening, "There's a problem with X900s clogging...?" this was followed by "you could email me about it, I'll forward it to my manager, then he can forward it to his boss. If they decide it's a good idea, and enough people ask for it, they would then have to forward it to the right people at Epson Japan. And then they would have to..." That sounds like a long road filled with ifs and buts to me. But it's definitely a great idea
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I just wanted to note that I have been destroying and emptying the ink remaining in used carts for a few months now and putting them in glass vials by color, with thoughts of being able to use it for spotting purposes, as we did in the old B&W days with Spotone.
I noticed that the pigments in the ink do settle out and form a pigment sludge at the bottom of the vials I am storing the ink in.
The rest of the mixture itself (the carrier), could easily be centrifuged out.
Could the carrier alone contain enough of of whatever substances keep the pigment suspended and from solidifying, be used to soften or even dissolve the dried pigment?
I used to be able to clean bad coatings of spray lacquer by additional spray over to dissolve the old layer.
Whatever happened to "Hal" and his cleaning solutions that were supposedly Epson repaks?
David
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I've got one terminally clogged printhead (but still structurally sound and virgin to any experimentation) soaking in Alan's formula now. If it were soaking in Acetone I'd have taken it out after an hour. But this mixture seems a lot less agressive, I'm tempted to let it soak for quite some time. Maybe days. What's your opinion Alan?
How about adding a little agitation? There may be a membrane of hardened ink at the face of each of these channels/tunnels you have described -with more fluid ink behind.
Also- we shake our carts before installation, presumably because of some settling or separation of ink components.
{Edit} Sorry davidh202, didn't see your post- just previous. I did not mean to glomm off your post.
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Very good question David. I have them here by my side and am eying them up with great anticipation (question). It's just they came to me from HAL with quite a loose set of instructions. Something like "The red one, maybe only use that for an hour or two. Epson won't tell us what it is, does, or how dangerous it is to use it. They only say use it as a last resort/short time.." Apparently the clear one is far less potent or dangerous.
Those directions never did leave me feeling very comfortable. Apparently not everyone who works on these machines has had their microscopic internals in their sites quite as routinely as all of us have by now. I intend to test a sacrificed channel with this mystery solution this week. Good of you to have not forgotten.
For what it's worth this terminally clogged green channel head that I have been soaking, seems to be showing signs of life (or at least movement). I have a rubber blower (I suppose we all do) for freeing dust from lenses here. The rubber ball on this one is pretty thin, pretty gentle. I have been using this as a gentle fluid pressure source. Via clear tubing I have fastened this blower to the nipple on the clogged green channel daily, since it's been soaking. Day one applying gentle pressure produced not a trace of a drop of liquid exiting the nozzle openings in the printhead face. Day two nothing either. But tonight I am seeing a difference. By the way I tested the pressure tolerances of this technique on a deadhead channel before I applied the technique to a hopeful head. Apparently they take quite a bit of pressure before the piezoboard succumbs to the pressure. This makes sense actually, if you've ever watched your machine go through a cleaning cycle with it's covers taken off. You should see how aggressively ink gets sucked through the face of your printhead during a cleaning. I filmed it actually, as well as some other interesting things which I will share in time. Time will tell if I am being too aggressive or not. At this point as gentle as I am being I think we are far from doing damage. I may throw this head back in the 9900 this week, for a test. Fingers crossed there is ANY difference, other than it giving us fatal error messages. That would simply be annoying..
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How about adding a little agitation? There may be a membrane of hardened ink at the face of each of these channels/tunnels you have described -with more fluid ink behind.
Thanks Doug. I have added some movement, slight shaking, but nothing very aggressive yet. This initial soaking I am seeing as more of a test. My hope is that the new nozzle pattern will show differences. Any improvement at all would be a VERY welcome result. Even one nozzle firing that wasn't firing before would be a huge success. I do have lots of nozzle patterns saved from this very head, in fact only minutes before it came out. Green consistently showed the same broken results, so any differences will be obvious.
On the subject of "shaking" one scientist friend of mine brought up ultrasonic cleaning. Oh hell here we go again was my first thought - that's what they did in Canada. But it's interesting, after extremely thorough examination of the Oh Canada head the only damage that I find seems more fluid pressure related than vibration related. I could be wrong though. Either way it'll be easy to test this technique (minus the Canadian power flush routines), on a damaged head if we ever find the need to get a lot more aggressive than we are being now.
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I like your thinking David. Heat, pressure, chemicals, even ultrasonic vibrations - there has got to be a way...
Here's the thing though - we face some tough challenges when you consider that clogged up ink is typically a LOT larger than the hole we need it to exit the head through. Forcing the dried ink free with pressure is an attractive idea, albeit dangerous considering how fragile the piezo chamber walls are. Backwards would be my direction of choice to force hardened ink through but regardless, we need to break it up before we can force it anywhere. Right now it's land-locked in between the speedbumps and the nozzle openings.
Here's a few illustrations I made to show a piezo channel unit from a perspective that I can't photograph. They go in order - no ink, filled with ink, hardened ink stuck inside the chamber walls. These illustrations are not based on theories. I've seen all this crap up close and personal, hardened ink included..
...
These speedbumps could be filters, I came across this> "Inks for all types of ink jet printing are carefully filtered during manufacturing to eliminate any particulates which might clog the narrow channels and nozzles. Additional filters are located in the ink jet printers themselves in the fluid manifolds upstream of the narrow channels. Ink jet printing inks are commonly water-based, and contain either dyes (colored molecules) or pigments (colored crystalline materials). Design of ink jet printing inks is deceptively complex. For example, the ink should dry very rapidly when it lands on the paper, but it should not dry in the nozzle. A number of different additives are typically required in each ink, proper balance, to achieve the right mix of properties for high image quality and robust operation."
8 paragraphs down this page> http://www.imaging.org/ist/resources/tutorials/inkjet_printer.cfm
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Could it be the filters mentioned here are in the dampers, which are located at the very end of the ink lines, just before ink enters the head? Seems that would make more sense to me since any filtered particles stopped by the "speedbumps" would then build up and clog the ink flow making it impossible for ink to reach the nozzles. By the way this is the second image that I have seen in two days which pictures piezoelectric printhead nozzles looking nothing at all like the nozzles in our X900 printheads. You've seen the pictures under the microscope yourself, I'm sure you agree. I have another printhead here. I have no idea what printher it is from or where it came from quite frankly. Maybe Justing in SF gave it to me when he donated the 9800 head for exploration. Anyway I'll take that head apart and compare the difference in piezoelectric nozzles. I expect a huge difference.
By the way I ordered the X-100 Alan. Lots of screening questions. One in particular they asked me to describe my lab - "race bike, trophies, weights, two printers, a vacuum heat press and two microscopes." ...I'll probably get denied :)
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By the way I ordered the X-100 Alan. Lots of screening questions. One in particular they asked me to describe my lab - "race bike, trophies, weights, two printers, a vacuum heat press and two microscopes." ...I'll probably get denied :)
It's not a hazardous substance so I think they should ship to you. Probably you should have put down 'photographic printer researcher!'
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Probably stating the obvious here, but, what about using Epson dye ink as a possible cleaning agent?
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Adding fuel to the "It's not what you know, but who" fire, I can (as well) indeed confirm that "Dawn" was used to clean oil from animals affected by the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. The retraction you might have picked up on considering the subject of saving wildlife in the Gulf with Dawn, Blue moon, and any potential manipulation of it's perception, could be related to the epic subject of BP's liabilities surrounding the disaster. Apparently there was quite an effort put toward guarding some of it's more gruesome realities. Dawn did in fact play an effective role in saving the animals, that were saved.
I am not doubting that Dawn did save some poor unfortunate birds and even one saved makes it worthwhile...on the subject of solutions....I promised to let you know the result of checking up on a new solvent used in stem cell research projects to separate the silk produced by the humble silkworm from the glue used by that same worm to make a strong cocoon from its own silk...seemingly,the process is 100% successfull in bringing the silk back to its original best condition and could do no harm to a printer if it doesntn harm silk...but the scientist involved said it was too complicated a process to be used as a solvent for printer use..its being targeted for medical research only..
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... we have affectionately named "Holiday Mode". Basically a program, or firmwear update, that would fire all nozzles of all channels in appropriate sized blocks of color - set at a user specified maintenance schedule.
The problem I have with ‘Holiday Mode’ software is that a roll of paper has to be loaded continuously during the period, and this is something that Epson has always envied against. Do the heads not fully park when paper is loaded ready to go?
Brian A
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Eric
Just had another brainstorm...
Vinegar as a solvent?
heat up some ink on a slide to bake it dry, and then see what happens when you apply Vinegar
It works to dissolve calcium and hard water deposits in my coffee maker!
David
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It's not a hazardous substance so I think they should ship to you. Probably you should have put down 'photographic printer researcher!'
I'm getting the cold shoulder from Sigma Aldrich on the X-100 order. It seems automated though, they're asking for documentation confirming this is a business, and they refuse to ship to a residential address. I'll head underground and work this out another way tomorrow.
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go here for Triton x-100
http://www.sciencelab.com/page/S/PVAR/SLT2452 this one is $117 for 500 ml
All though I am guessing here, Kodak PhotoFlow 200 is likely effectively the same type of surfactant at a tenth the cost. It's $8 or so and you can get it from amazon.
Later Larry
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Eric
Just had another brainstorm...
Vinegar as a solvent?
heat up some ink on a slide to bake it dry, and then see what happens when you apply Vinegar
It works to dissolve calcium and hard water deposits in my coffee maker!
David
It won't work as it's a polar solvent (basically just dilute acetic acid) and won't have any effect on the pigment polymers which are organic in nature. Hard water deposits are minerals which is why vinegar works on them (same with calcium residues). I'm sure muratic acid would work on the Epson print head but it would probably also dissolve everything else of importance. ;D
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go here for Triton x-100
http://www.sciencelab.com/page/S/PVAR/SLT2452 this one is $117 for 500 ml
All though I am guessing here, Kodak PhotoFlow 200 is likely effectively the same type of surfactant at a tenth the cost. It's $8 or so and you can get it from amazon.
Later Larry
500 ml will last three or four lifetimes! I just looked at the MSDS Photo-Flo 200 and it just might work. It's mostly water with propylene glycol (which may be one of the glycols in the Epson ink) and a detergent similar to Triton X-100 (actually it is Triton X-114). The detergent level is 5-10% which might be OK for this purpose. The nice thing is that the stuff is readily available and reasonably priced (though not as cheap as a do it yourself mix). I like the fact that propylene glycol is in it since this may be a little more compatible with Epson ink. I would maybe start off with a 1:1 dilution with water, certainly the dilution that Kodak recommends for film won't do much of anything.
Alan
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500 ml will last three or four lifetimes! I just looked at the MSDS Photo-Flo 200 and it just might work. It's mostly water with propylene glycol (which may be one of the glycols in the Epson ink) and a detergent similar to Triton X-100 (actually it is Triton X-114). The detergent level is 5-10% which might be OK for this purpose. The nice thing is that the stuff is readily available and reasonably priced (though not as cheap as a do it yourself mix). I like the fact that propylene glycol is in it since this may be a little more compatible with Epson ink. I would maybe start off with a 1:1 dilution with water, certainly the dilution that Kodak recommends for film won't do much of anything.
Alan
I have been using Epson inks and their recommended service cleaning solutions (glycols) in an agressive way (about 8 power cleans..ive lost count... in the last month...). the glycols not shifting my 3 clogs or any part thereof...finished that exercise....will now warm the liquids as they enter the head with hair dryer as a final jesture with glycols on their own...if Photo Flow does the job for Eric my hunch is that the detergent Triton x-114 will be the key additional ingredient and not the glycol....its only a hunch....seems like a great product for the job....what would you think of leveraging with the detergent in view of my experience with the glycols alone ?
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For got that its one composite product which does not allow variations in its make up...hopefully it does the trick as it is ..
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I wonder how effective a 1 to 1 or even neat Photo Flow might work as a puddle cleaning agent? As opposed to the more typical water or Windex Classic type cleaners? With the glycols it would likely have a better retention time around the print head as opposed to the others. How about say a 70/30 mix of Photo Flow and Windex? I wonder if the addition of the polar cleaning agent in the form of the ammonium would help or hinder? Given that Windex has always worked for me in the past as an effective puddle cleaner.
I have a couple of old Pro 4000 ‘s that have been getting harder and harder to get and keep clean; I think next time I am going to try a puddle clean of Photo Flow instead of Classic Windex and see if that cleans better or quicker. Also I have some old carts around that I think I may repurpose and fill with a 1 to 1 of water and Photo Flow and do a few power cleanings and see what happens.
Anyway there is some more food for thought.
Later Larry
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Hello there-
I own an Epson 9600 and have two rough clogs. I came across this forum a month or so ago and gained lucidity on my problem when I read about the wiper crud re-entering print head. Here is the current solution I am in the process of prototyping, for whatever it's worth:
I live in the mountains, in a dry climate. My humidity is about 20% daily, in the winter. I noticed the topic of a micro climate, which I am in the process of simulating. My office is very small, 10' x 10' so I'm trying a humidifier right now.
Here is what I'm looking at embracing for a solution. It's a little robust, but what the hell.
There seem to be two opportunities for solutions. One is the wiper blade, the other is clog prevention. I feel that if you can completely bypass the wiper blade you are setting yourself up for success. I also feel that if you can keep something moving through the print head while the print head is not in use (perhaps dial in the cleaning solution that has been mentioned here before) then you are creating a situation where there is a low probability for a clog to form inside the nozzle.
My attempt is going to look like this:
1) remove the wiper blade and replace this "action" or "concept" by using, and disposing of after use, chamois cloth. By design, a wiper blade doesnt seem to come close to the "solution" of cleaning the excess ink off the print head after a head clean. Paper towels were never designed specifically for this job, but have assumed the role (clear flaw here is paper bits or dust left engrained in print head). On the other hand, chamois cloth is much more expensive, but worth it for this stage of the solution process, as a means. Chamois cloth is designed to clean fine surfaces and cutting up the cloth into smaller pieces, and giving the print head a careful "shoe shine" is what I have in mind.
2) remove the clog itself. This seems to be the million dollar question in some ways. Ill share a little concept that has been on my bandwidth and see what surfaces.
I make kombucha and bottle it in wine bottles. Instead of using a proper cork, I use "tasting corks" which have a cap on the top of them to assist in removing the cork. A few times I've gone to uncork the wine bottle to drink my kombucha and have encountered the cork "stuck". A few times, without thinking, I applied a forceful twist and ripped the cap off the cork. Not a huge deal, I get a wine opener and open the bottle. In not wanting to waste my tasting corks, I took a look at the bottle and realized that I had been storing these bottles as they would sit on a table. In doing so there is no moisture on the cork itself, and the cork dries out (you wine drinkers will know that wine bottles that have real corks, not plastic corks, are stored at an angle so the wine touches the cork) . I then started to tip the bottles upside down for as little as 15-30 seconds and wet the cork before opening the bottle. I got good results.
Here is where the clog comes into play.
I removed my print head and cleaned it with a solution I found online. This was the first time I went this far down the rabbit hole with repair. I got improved results but the stubborn clogs still persist. I've since removed the the dampers from the ink lines a couple times and the dampers from the print head a couple times. In doing so, I realized this wasn't that hard to do. A little messy occasionally but put on rubber gloves and get some q-tips soaked in windex for cleanup.
What I'm looking at doing (to get the stubborn clogs removed) is apply motion (slight pressure) on both ends of the clog, at different times but in close duration. This is a bit of a lofty goal but from all the posts out there with nozzle clogs, it needs to be. 15 seconds of light pressure from the end where the ink line inserts, 5 seconds of pressure from the other side. I am not sure if the nozzle is a "one way" flow as previously touched on in this thread. Even if it is, the flow coming back into the print head would be far less than what is flowing out, per traditional travel of ink. I'm going to begin not using any pressure at all, just puddling, then move on to slight pressure if need be.
The visual in my mind is this...when a wine cork is in a bottle there are small spaces in between the cork and the glass where liquid can touch. When my liquid (kombucha) touches this area, I get the desired result of the cork releasing. Now picture this (this is what is in my mind). Instead of visualizing a "piezeo tube" I picture a set of Chinese finger cuffs (for some reason this came to mind when I was thinking about the flexibility of the piezeo nozzle). The finger cuffs have a cork stuck in the middle. Now picture liquid accessing each side of the cork. So that means that the finger cuffs are flexible in a small way and likely allow a bit of an improved space (between the cork and "glass" or cork and finger cuff) for the liquid to access each time liquid is applied to either side of the cork. And it's a very, very small improved space but likely gradually improved each time liquid hits it, even if in tiny amounts. The rate and duration of liquid coming in contact with both sides of the clog is what will allow the clog to dissipate. Yes, this may mean that a print head will need to be connected to a setup like this for a couple weeks (months) perhaps, but our boy Eric has been after it for close to a year. In hindsight 2 weeks is nothing. I've been trouble shooting for two months and am front row and center with "necessity is the mother of invention."
My idea is to take the print head out of the printer and connect latex tubing, the same size as the ink tubing, to the print head (7 tubes, 7 colors on the print head). I then gently pump (I'm thinking breast pump) cleaning solution through the print head. And I do mean gently (I recall someone posting something about the metric used for pressure? A BAT perhaps? Long term we dial in the correct BAT that sends pressure but doesn't throttle the print head). On the other side, the clog itself needs to be in motion or closer to being in motion. So I then puddle cleaning solution on the top of the print head and access the areas I was referring to before (the space between the cork and glass) on the business end (the side of the print head that faces the paper) of the clog. Perhaps apply a bit (a tiny bit) of pressure somehow to this side as well. Desired "action" is cleaning solution gaining access to the space in between the clog and the piezeo wall as often as possible, but not at the same time.
This concept isn't new at all. Often times we get out the ol' syringe and plastic tubing and try to work it out that way. I've found that rather challenging, mostly because the syringe doesn't move smoothly. In fact the one I have is quite jerky, which is dangerous to the print head if you should happen to "burst" fluid through the syringe. The other problem is the the tubing (female end) rarely matches the male end where the traditional ink tubing fits. The tubing is usually too small. How about a piece of latex tubing that fits snugly?
While this is a subtle attempt the long term solution would be a pump with an auxiliary set of nozzles attached to the print head that gently (like 3ml a day gently) pumps a cleaning solution through the print head while the printer isn't in use.
Cost:
The pump (I'm looking at using a breast pump because of the "gentle" pressure associated with such a device...it will be tested of course. Long term perhaps we stumble on the right brand name breast pump that offers the correct pressure). If we stumble on the right pump it's likely $50-$400.
The rubber latex tubing (3 bucks a foot?)
Tubing assembly (not exactly necessary but could be convenient)
7-way splitter for tubes coming off pump
Adaptor from pump to tubes
Towel on the back end of the print head to absorb the 3ml per day that comes out of the print head
(more costs associated with a device on the print end of the print head that could gently feed a solution down the "wrong way" of the print head....much more long term)
This would primarily be a tool of prevention but would also serve as a remedy if need be. I heard somewhere that an ounce of prevention is worth something valuable.
Eric, well played sir. To all the other who have contributed to this point, thank you for being a part of this solution.
I keep looking over at my copy of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and smiling.
I'm not a handyman or a technician or a scientist or a even an amateur printer. I'm a ski bum in Colorado who wants to print stuff.
Again, for what it's worth.
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Re: humidity
I used to live in NY and had to use these for my musical instruments during the winter:
http://www.dampits.com/
Wooden string instruments are really fragile- can't get them wet at all but low humidity over time causes problems.
Rather than humidifying a whole room constantly, you might be able to make something similar, or use several of these dampits with a cover over the printer. There are other companies that make similar products for instruments besides the damnpit.
I know that it is a very different kind of situation in that with an instrument you have a closed case, but maybe some solution like this with a covered printer might help from a humidity standpoint? Just a thought . .
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SO CLOSE I CAN SMELL IT....
Last night I warmed Alan's original solution up and drew it back up through the head from the face - rearward, by gently sucking from a syringe separated from the head by about twenty inches of clear tube. This way I figured negative air pressure would be a buffer if the solution needed more time to get through the head's internals. For what it's worth warm solution pulls through the head easier than cold solution. Someone tell me why, please, I need another headache right now.
After all channels got about 10ml of solution run through them I re-visited the Green channel on this particular head - which went terminal many moons ago. I did a few runs on the green channel. In the end I ran about 40ml of solution through it, gently. Then I let the head, with solution still in it, sit tight until this evening when I installed it. I didn't have my genius with me (cause he's got a girl now) so I put the 9900 back together solo. I doubt I missed anything. Machine started up fine, recognized everything fine, tried running a cleaning cycle, got through a lot of it, then flashed me an error message - 131B.
I looked this code up, it means "They get too close now, tell them turn machine off - call service.."
Bastids
I'm shot right now, been powering through an illness that's trying to get the best of me all week. This was my last goal for the week, testing the head. This error code stole my wind. It's second meaning is " Head driver (transmission gate) overheat error ". I'm not sure because I have put no thought or effort into diagnostics yet. Haven't even checked the service manual. Least it didn't flash me "Fatal error/replace head." ..who knows maybe that's next.
I swear I'm gonna beat this machine if I have to do it with my framing hammer. Either way it's gonna get done.
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Hey Eric,
I looked up the error code in the field repair guide: 13xx Ink Cover Error
You may just need to check the ribbon cables.
131B Thermistor Sensor Error: The Thermistor on the Print Head Driver reports an over temperature condition
Remedy:
1. Re-seat the Print Head Cables on the Main Board side.
2. Re-seat the Print Head Cables on the Print Head side.
3. Replace the Main Board.
4. Replace the Print Head.
When D1 was out to replace my machines guts (AID board, pump cap, mother board) the tech said you can kill a print head and/or motherboard by improperly inserting the ribbon cables.
Of course, this was as he put the wrong mother board for my machine in the beast (he didn't check the board first). It was actually kind of funny in a morbid way. He's all chatty as he's reassembling
the machine (I was drilling him with questions), and grabs a ribbon cable to insert into the board ... and there's no socket for it ... cartoon moment with the question mark over the head - priceless!
I was wondering what you thought of making a "dedicated" cleaning station using an old pump cap in it's own rig. Is there a way to measure the maximum suction force the
pump cap generates? It would be nice to know if your in safety limits when drawing cleaning liquid through the head. But it must be "safe" to do if that is all the pump cap does.
I can't image a tiny aquarium pump generating much force, but who knows.
But, as you said recently, watching the pump cap suck ink out of the head is enlightening at how much it sucks out!
BTW, every time you mention the "oh canada" head I get that cringe in my gut for suggesting it. Seeing the actual blown ink channels makes me think dude took no care (or his own website's advice) about the maximum force that the head could handle. Futz.
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Thanks Chaddro. You are truly the information mercenary. Batteries charged, ready for battle. I'll tear it apart after lunch. I hope I didn't fry anything but if I did let's look at the bright side - I will finally have learned to cook.
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We are officially up and running. It was indeed a crooked ribbon cable at the printhead. That's what I get for operating heavy equipment under the influence of illness.
Machine fires up fine now, has a healthy appetite for ink (which means the fever has passed, it's acting normal again), and it actually prints. Here's the thing though, it's pretty well starved for ink - most of the channels (including our suspect green) aren't producing much yet. My initial hopes for this first cleaning test were that we could create a difference with our cleanings. Any difference. That hope of course was recently reduced to "I'd be happy if this head is still recognized as a printhead by the printer."
So our reduced hope has indeed been satisfied. We damaged nothing, at least as far as I can tell. As for whether or not we get all channels 100% firing again, we will know that soon. I have to go buy more ink first...
classic
My gut though says we will not have cleared the piezoelectrics of dried ink. I have a few dried channels here which have been removed from their heads. I have been soaking them along with our in-tact heads. Everything I have done to the printhead, I have done to these open channels. The crap news is these open channels have not been cleared by our first-run, mild solution. This is why I expect our 9900 head will still be clogged once I'm done flushing money down the maintenance cart (toilet).
so, good news and same news. At least we now know that we can indeed successfully remove a head, soak a head, flush a head, re-install a head, and then print.
never surrender
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Machine fires up fine now, has a healthy appetite for ink (which means the fever has passed, it's acting normal again), and it actually prints. Here's the thing though, it's pretty well starved for ink - most of the channels (including our suspect green) aren't producing much yet.
Eric
Sympathise with you firing ink into tank...its gut wrenching stuff...
If it helps at all....the following was my experience with dumping good ink...
i could not get any color after restarting a machine that was 2 years idle in Piezo Flush storage fluid...as an economy measure i dumped paper pads that were in the maintenance tank and replaced with handy sized ice cube block that fitted nicely into the emptied tank and means i recycle the tank and ink and far more important ,I see the clean liquid (or ink depending)clear as daylight coming out of the park station and falling into the tank..anyway ...the point is i got practically no ink landing on paper until i did a power flush...the result of the power flush was a mass of air bubbles lying on the top of the power flushed ink (recycled pink cleaning fluid actually ) in the remodelled maintenance tank...imo ..it would have taken years of regular printing to get that air out...after that i got a much improved print pattern ...there is no air at all to be seen in the maintenance tank ...just my three regular clogs on paper..
Good luck with the clog stalk...i'd hate to be that clog when you come popping round the corner...its gonna turn green in the face...
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All channels clear and shooting healthy again. Didn't take as much (money) ink as I feared.
....but (come on you KNEW there would be a "but") green is still out to lunch.
What was my original goal here in this first cleaning test - to create a difference? Any difference? Well we accomplished that - green is worse now. Used to have two lines up top and two down at the bottom of nozzle patterns. Now it just has one line at the bottom.
Does this depress me you ask? Am I defeated you wonder? Will we press on regardless? Oh how the hell do I know, I see about nine feet in front of me at all times. Never farther for fear I'd stop right here.
I notice, and tell me if you think I am crazy, that unclearable clogs seem to come in groups. More than that they seem to grow, like viruses sometimes. And rarely from different areas of a channel. Instead they usually grow outward, from one area. This observation, which I am again observing on this green clog cluster, seems to have potential support of a theory that's been brewing in the back of what's left of my brain. If chamber walls flex to fire nozzles, and only one wall separates each chamber, then it is more than likely that dried ink inside one chamber will have a limiting affect on how well it's neighboring chamber fires.
Makes sense right?
We need now more than ever to find/test more effective cleaning solutions. Like I said my open clogged test channel is unaffected by our rubbing alcohol/distilled water/Dawn concoction. Now neither is our test head. I think the operative word to focus on next is Larry Heath's "surfactant". Right now that word sounds sexy to me
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It took several days to skim through this post and I'd like to say thanks to Eric and everyone else that has been experimenting, researching and theorizing about what goes on in these printers.
I have a 9890 with a nasty clog in the yellow channel, and I'm about to get started on trying to clear that up. Wish me luck.
I didn't read every post because there's just so many, so forgive me if someone already posted this idea.
I'm posting about the Holiday Mode idea. If it's basically to make sure that the printer prints something everyday then I have a bit of a solution for Mac users. It's far from perfect but *might* do the trick. Using Automator you can make an application to print a page and then schedule it in iCal to happen every day. I've attached a sample of what I'm talking about. The automator action picks a specified file and then sends it to the printer. Very simple but it'll take some tweaking to work for you.
Open the "Holiday Mode.app" application that I've attached by dragging it on to automator and in the "get specified finder items" box click the "X900_routine_print.jpg" item and click "remove" (I put it in there as a place holder). Now click "add" and find a file that you want to use to print every day. I'm going to use an 8x10 test page with all the colour ramps and such (8x10 because the system assumes you have letter sized paper loaded).
In the "Print Images" box pick your printer from the drop down. Save and close.
Open iCal (Calendar), make a new event, double click on it and click "edit". Set the time you want the print to happen and set repeat to "every day". Click on alert, select "Open File" - you'll get a few more options, the default file to open is iCal. Open the pull-down, pick "other" and find the automator action.
Now you'll have a test page print every day at the specified time as long as your printer is on with paper loaded. It will not print patches of pure ink but with a decent test page it should fire enough ink through the heads to keep everything moving.
Cheers!
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Nice work Luca. Automator is one of many programs on my mac that I still don't grasp. Thanks for this homework you've done.
Here is something to consider - when you remove your printhead with the intent to experiment with clearing unclearable clogs, it's highly likely it'll be off the machine for some time. This poses two extra (like there aren't enough already) challenges. One, your head is even more susceptible to drying out once off the machine. Two, so are your dampers. I haven't talked about this because until we find a way to clear unclearable clogs why even suggest trying. But since you're about to charge forward on your own quest I suggest you have a system in place to plug the dampers while the head is off the machine. This will keep ink from draining out of the unit, and keep it from drying out. We used dowels carefully slid into the damper fittings that the nipples of the head itself slides into. Unfortunately ours were wood, which I would not use again as it absorbs the ink and seems to dry itself onto the rubber grommets of the dampers. I will look for plastic, or rubber plugs to replace the dowels next time. ...But I'm chasing down different chemicals first.
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I'm posting about the Holiday Mode idea.
Luca, thanks ever so much for doing this. I've downloaded it and made a PDF of your instructions in the referenced post. I shall have to make some time to play with it, as my life has been involving longish periods of absence from my printer (4900) and every time I come back to it, a good 45 minutes and a number of clean-print-clean-print cycles are needed to restore it to 100% - which it always does, but what a nuisance. The question then is whether your routine or my periodic regeneration routine will be the more cost-effective approach. The one qualm I have about any "holiday mode" is the need to leave both the computer and the printer on for weeks at a time with such intermittent use. I don't know whether it's an issue for either machine - as at least in the case of Epson the advice has always been to shut the machine off when not in use, to insure that the head is properly parked and sealed.
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I agree on the automotor idea Mark. Good promise, just a few kinks to work out. For me one would be roll paper rather than single sheets, for you that's not a problem.
This morning I began experimenting with the cleaning solution HAL sent me months ago. Again, this fluid came with no instructions other than "be careful, I have no idea what it does - rare few do". So until now I have left it in the box it arrived in. There are two fluids, one deep red the other clear. From what I can tell after watching the two fluids sit on top of a clogged channel, the clear is most likely a rinse - not much goes on under the scope. The red however is a different experience. The channel I chose has been out in open air, without it's top, for weeks. It is saturated with cyan ink, completely dried and hard. The chambers are all locked solid with cyan ink, filled to the top. After a good fifteen minutes with the red cleaning solution sitting on top of this channel, the red puddle turned purple - a good sign. By the half hour mark, under the greatest magnification that this scope has (280x - which basically shows only eight chambers at once it's so zoomed in), it's a fascinating view. It's like watching a video taken in low light, with the gain amped up. What in the video would be digital color noise, is on the channel (I expect) the red cleaning solution working away at the dried cyan ink, on a microscopic level that I do not have the ability to fully see. This movement is so tiny I have to ask myself if I am imagining it. I am not. To put a size reference together for you, imagine in my channel chamber speed bump illustration, a thousand or so tiny speckles of red and blue sparkles flashing between the narrowest passage of the speed bump and the opposing chamber wall. Tiny stuff..
After a few drops of the clear solution wash the red away, the chamber wall tops are revealed. They are square, sharp edged, immaculately clean, and full of hope that the rest of the chamber walls just below could possibly look the same with more time soaking. Very interesting.
Right now I have a free channel lying face down in a tiny puddle of the red fluid, inside a sealed Tupperware container. I plan to let this soak for 24hrs. This should be long enough to see if the clogs are at all clearer, and if the channel is at all damaged. Interesting times lay just ahead.
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I agree on the automotor idea Mark. Good promise, just a few kinks to work out. For me one would be roll paper rather than single sheets, for you that's not a problem.
Good that you mentioned the roll-holder - actually for me it's an opportunity, because the 4900 does have a built-in roll-holder, which I can imagine being more reliable to let the machine auto-manage compared with a tray-fed mechanism. The roll is a straight pass-through, while in the tray the paper needs to be pulled from the tray and turned for printing.
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Discovery number 2:
About mid-way through this journey I sent our Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printhead to Canada, after me and my genius buddy decided we could do no more to help clear it on our own. Once in Canada our head was subject to both an ultrasonic cleaning, and also a flushing. When we got the head back into our 7900, all it produced were fatal error messages. Our goose (printhead) was cooked.
In the many months since experiencing this disaster, I have done a lot more learning - thanks in great part to other (more intelligent/better educated/and vastly more experienced) users right here on Luminous Landscape. I have also done a lot more thinking. And, finally, I have done quite a lot of poking around INSIDE the very printheads which we have all grown to enjoy a love (beautiful prints) hate (ink-time-money-printer-destroying-clogs) relationship with. While I do still have hope that we can find a cure for X900 clogs, for quite some time now I have quietly hidden my greatest fear - that terminal clogs are not clogs at all. After all, the wonderful world of Piezoelectrics is not only amazingly tiny, but it is also amazingly fragile. For sure with all of the aggressive Power Cleanings we are forced to resort to in order to combat the most tenacious clogs; the sucking, the smearing, the pressures of ink being forced through the printhead's internals - it is quite possible that we all walk a fine line between helping our printheads with cleanings, and hurting our printheads with cleanings. So for quite some time my greatest fear has been a discovery that terminal clogs are actually damaged Piezoelectrics, rather than simply clogs.
Since this very point is such a vital element of our journey, late last night I finally gathered the courage to act on finding our answer. I performed an autopsy on our "Oh Canada" X900 Printhead. Remember, before we shipped it to Canada it simply had un-clearable clogs. It returned with "terminal errors". While this is a tragedy, it is also an opportunity. If the piezoelectrics in this Oh Canada head are damaged, well then here would be our answer - damaged piezos = fatal errors, dropouts = clogs. Anyone else curious what I found?
It WAS too much fluid pressure that killed our Oh Canada head. I feel confident in this assessment due to the fact that both channel pairs show damage exactly at the source of where the pressurized fluid would have entered from - which is the same place where ink enters from. Take a look for yourself.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/_80E5361.jpg)
Eric, a suggestion, while your current working microscopy setup seems to work pretty well, this cheap little jewel, or ones like it, linked below works quite well. It does still and video imaging direct to computer. For $40 or $50 it might make life a bit easier, simply attach to the camera tube of your scope. I’ve done some photomicrographs at the 1000x to 2000x level that are quite serviceable. The thing has its own variable internal light source as well, so you could even possible use it without the scope up to about 400x. It also comes with software and standards so that you can directly measure the size of objects in the field of view.
I can see one bump and its 20 minutes of fussing around to get things all lined up again with your setup.
http://www.buy.com/prod/new-version-400x-usb-digital-microscope-video-camera-best-choice-of/222931099.html?listingId=147632864
Just a thought.
Later Larry
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At last finished the glycol/glycerol power cleaning program with Epsons service solution and Inkjetmall Piezo Flush.Still have the same 3 jets clogged...
made no difference warming up the glycol as it entered the head...hoped that it might..
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At last finished the glycol/glycerol power cleaning program with Epsons service solution and Inkjetmall Piezo Flush.Still have the same 3 jets clogged...
made no difference warming up the glycol as it entered the head...hoped that it might..
tenacious bastids aren't they...
Thanks for the tip Larry. I actually have a camera mount for this scope which does make life a LOT easier, but the optics are not so great. I've never seen this device you linked to. Wish I had about a month ago, could have saved me a small bundle. I think?
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Luca, thanks ever so much for doing this. I've downloaded it and made a PDF of your instructions in the referenced post. I shall have to make some time to play with it, as my life has been involving longish periods of absence from my printer (4900) and every time I come back to it, a good 45 minutes and a number of clean-print-clean-print cycles are needed to restore it to 100% - which it always does, but what a nuisance. The question then is whether your routine or my periodic regeneration routine will be the more cost-effective approach. The one qualm I have about any "holiday mode" is the need to leave both the computer and the printer on for weeks at a time with such intermittent use. I don't know whether it's an issue for either machine - as at least in the case of Epson the advice has always been to shut the machine off when not in use, to insure that the head is properly parked and sealed.
Hi Mark!
When D1 was out to work on my machine (9890), I again asked about this ON/OFF question. He said that when ever the machine is not actually printing or performing some kind of maintenance (cleaning, AID check, etc), that the head always returns to the capping station and is fully seated.
My 9890 is 1-1/2 years old now. I rarely ever turn it off. I can say that it's easily been on for months at a time. Personally, I think it's better to leave the printer on. This way pressure is maintain in the ink carts, and the lines, dampers and ink TO the head should NOT allow air to pull back into the system (a notorious problem with my 4000).
BTW, take a look at this post for how to schedule your machine to automatically power up. You could then run the holiday script, and then power down:
http://www.macgasm.net/2010/03/25/mac-os-x-tip-automatic-power-onoff-with-os-x/
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Thanks chaddro.
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This patent (http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPAT6224185&id=h7AFAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=inkjet+head+cleaning+solution&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=inkjet%20head%20cleaning%20solution&f=false) makes for some interesting reading.
Eric I think I'd be really careful with that cleaning fluid you are using. If it indeed contains Silane compounds (Organometalics) at significant consentrations its is really something you do NOT want to make a mistake with. Don't get it on you or even breath the vapor, your eyes lungs liver and nervous system will thank you.
Later Larry
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which fluid are you talking about Larry? I feel like flushing my entire downstairs in the toilet now. :)
Hopefully no danger yet - I've only used rubbing alcohol distilled water and Dawn to any extent. The "red" and "clear" fluids I got from HAL I've only used one drop of each (literally). I didn't trust it then and I don't trust it even more now - having no idea what it is... The one channel is lying face down in a drop of it now, sealed inside a tupperware container. Now I don't even want to look at it..
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Alright I read the patents. Good for you my Mom could never get me reading this much. I was a painter back in the day - high end cars. Hated the chemicals, always paranoid. They called me "the doctor". I used airless sprayers, had outside air pumped in to my face mask, wore a white suit - even taped my wrists closed. Still hated the chemicals so I quit. Now I risk cutting my arms off with a 12" chop saw daily. Doomed either way.
Sincere thanks for the warning Larry.
I was about to dump the red cleaner in my waste jug but after rinsing the Cyan channel that I "think" I watched soak in the red cleaner - the one that sparkled - I checked it out under the microscope. Maybe I confused something, it can't be the same channel. Looks like it came straight from the factory - not a trace of blue in it, A N Y W H E R E.
WTF?
I have to confirm this, seems too remarkable to be true. I set another channel face up with two drops of red cleaner, inside a small sealed container tonight. We'll see what this thing looks like tomorrow. Promise I will share. In the mean time, always wear protection..
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/gijoe.jpg)
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I just read the patent and it's interesting on two counts. It provides a reference to a number of key inkjet print and ink patents from other companies and gives a clue to how one can approach a cleaning solution. The way they did the test was to put a drop of ink on a gold coated slide which was then baked at 80C to harden the deposit. They then washed the slide with water and a significant amount of ink came off. The residue was then treated with the cleaning solution to see what worked. Now this is not something one can do at home! The question is whether we can come up with a substitute that would provide an easy way to experiment without doing everything on the print head. Let me think about this for a while.
The Kodak researchers were trying to combine three functions in their cleaning solution: a biocide that will get rid of any microbial contamination (and this is again something to think about; I'm not sure whether this is a key problem or not), a surfactant (detergent), and a humectant (something to help keep things moist). This is a delicate balance and the researchers chose the silane compound as it fills all three purposes. We all know that isopropyl alcohol is a biocide (it's in a lot of hand sanitizers and wipes that are used prior to vaccination). Epson use glycerols and glycols as humectants in the ink mixtures. The one thing to consider is whether more detergent might be needed in mixture. Again let me think about this.
EDIT: I don't think we need to move to the use of toxic compunds like the silanes or pyrolidones that were mentioned in this patent disclosure.
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[quote author=Alan Goldhammer link=topic=61585.msg588575#msg588575 date=
The Kodak researchers were trying to combine three functions in their cleaning solution: a biocide that will get rid of any microbial contamination (and this is again something to think about; I'm not sure whether this is a key problem or not), a surfactant (detergent), and a humectant (something to help keep things moist). This is a delicate balance and the researchers chose the silane compound as it fills all three purposes. We all know that isopropyl alcohol is a biocide (it's in a lot of hand sanitizers and wipes that are used prior to vaccination). Epson use glycerols and glycols as humectants in the ink mixtures. The one thing to consider is whether more detergent might be needed in mixture. Again let me think about this.
EDIT: I don't think we need to move to the use of toxic compunds like the silanes or pyrolidones that were mentioned in this patent disclosure.
[/quote]
I know that when Epson want to go "agressive" they turn up the Glycol tap.
I have experienced zero success on my own Glycol intensive power cleaning program over the bones of a month in terms of removing even one clog....
So Alan if might suggest to you not to ignore upping the surfacant attack ...see what happens
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Ok here is the MSDS (http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=16780) for the suspect red material. The good news is that its L/D 50 seems pretty high so it won’t kill you unless you get a lot of it on you or in you. So I would approach it in much the same way you do with a chop saw, with significant respect. It’s a tool use it wisely.
On a lighter note, I was thinking maybe adding some of the solvent DMSO to a more conventional cocktail of cleaning substances might help allow for better penetration of the materials into the small passages and more quickly remove the dried ink/polymerized carrier materials.
Later Larry
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On a lighter note, I was thinking maybe adding some of the solvent DMSO to a more conventional cocktail of cleaning substances might help allow for better penetration of the materials into the small passages and more quickly remove the dried ink/polymerized carrier materials.
Later Larry
I would be very careful if you use DMSO as it could dissolve a lot more than just the ink clog; it's quite potent. Don't get any on your fingers as you will taste it on your tongue very quickly (though it won't be hazardous).
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Feel like I'm losing my mind here you guys throw chemical terms around like I throw crown molding up. I am anxious to take the next step, just not sure what it is. I checked my red soaked channel tonight, nothing doing it looks exactly the same. Not sure wtf happened but somehow, someway, my cyan packed test channel got cleared clean as the day it was born. Maybe this mansion has ghosts.. Tonight I repeated the same exact soak, only this time in the clear fluid. Maybe that was it.
Alan that supplier of the X-100 or whatever it was called, they denied me. It was a chick on the phone, they always deny me. So I did some poking around google tonight, as I really want to keep this ball rolling here, and found an interesting thread written by a German guy a couple of years ago who by accident found a great way to clean dried pigment ink. It was a German made product designed for food service cleaning. Turns out 3M sells a similar product. it's kind of expensive - cheapest I can find is on amazon, it's $80 for 2liter bottle. But whatever, if it works...
It's ingredients are, among other things I imagine, include ETHYLENE GLYCOL ETHYLHEXYL ETHER which are also apparently found in inkjet inks.
So what do our resident chemists think, please?
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Eric, please post the link to the 3M product so I can see what's in it. It may be fairly concentrated stuff and maybe the cost comes down when you dilute it to a working concentration. All of these things contain some kind of surfactant (detergent) and I'm not sure that it really makes much of a difference about which one they use. My goal is to help find a mixture that works and is cheap to make. Sorry to hear about the problems getting Triton X-100; I wish I was still working in a lab and I could get some to you.
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Here it is Alan - http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Building-Life/Cycle/Products/Catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U52300PM102FLRECAB2K44000000_nid=38T6ZVWPPSbeQB2XRP1WS8gl (http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Building-Life/Cycle/Products/Catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U52300PM102FLRECAB2K44000000_nid=38T6ZVWPPSbeQB2XRP1WS8gl)
here is a direct link to the msds of this 3M food service degreaser (http://gotagteam.com/epson/food_service_degreaser-msds/food_service_degreaser-msds.pdf)
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Eric, this is pretty much a mixture of concentrated detergents, primarily long chain alcohol derivatives. They are non-ionic (similar to Triton X-100) which means they well be gentler than ionic detergents which are usually ammonium compounds which would have a basic pH or sulfates which would be mildly acidic. Certainly these would have to be diluted down to get a working solution and I can't see anything here that would be problematic for the print head. Most of the consumer products that you can get in the grocery store have similar compounds in them but they are diluted way down (for fun I looked up Formula 409 which has ionic detergents but the concentrations of the two main ingredients is less than 2%). If you could get a bottle of this stuff it would likely last a long while. I wouldn't go above a working concentration of about 5% and would start off maybe at 1-2% here.
In looking at some of the Epson ink MSDS listings I guess the best approach might be to mix up something along the lines of the following (measure these in some volume unit ounces or ml):
6 parts water
2 parts isopropyl alcohol
2 parts glycerine (or glycerol as it is more commonly called)
1/2 part detergent
You could gradually increase the detergent if nothing is working and see if that helps. I think the glycerol is important for preserving the moisture in the print head
Alan
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Feel like I'm losing my mind here you guys throw chemical terms around like I throw crown molding up. I am anxious to take the next step, just not sure what it is. I checked my red soaked channel tonight, nothing doing it looks exactly the same. Not sure wtf happened but somehow, someway, my cyan packed test channel got cleared clean as the day it was born. Maybe this mansion has ghosts.. Tonight I repeated the same exact soak, only this time in the clear fluid. Maybe that was it.
Eric
Funny thing is i would trust (with great care for your safety obviously ) your "red liquid" .......it shifted your cyan clog beautifully....the "white i would guess is an antidote or lubricant to undo any of the corrosive effects of the "red" once the clog has passed...the fact that red killed the cyan clog and white did not is an encouraging sign....can you possibly repeat both exercises a second time in the same way....you must be exhausted.."red may be a surfactant in disguise.....maybe
Ps lived in a haunted house once so im just used to this sort of thing....Alos Alan's recipes are getting very close to the mark...
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Alan please when you mention "diluting down to get a working solution" what exactly do you mean? This red liquid I have here for instance, if it were concentrated with the intent to be diluted down, and I did not dilute it, would that render it worthless? Do these ingredients need to be spot on with ratios? If so, if you don't mind me asking, why? I'm sorry but neither of these questions have two wheels or can be nailed, so naturally I am lost.
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The recipe I just posted would be the best guess at a cleaning liquid based on the Epson inks and adding some stuff to solve the clog problem. The majority of it is water. If a solution of cleanser or anything else for that matter were too concentrated it might do some damage. You can put a small amount of salt in a glass of water and drink it without any problem. If you were to put a cup of salt in a glass of water bad things would happen to your body. It's the same with the Epson print head. One needs to strike a balance here. I don't know what's in the Red liquid that you mention so I can't render a decision.
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Thanks Alan.
as for your concoction, what would I use as the detergent?
6 parts water
2 parts isopropyl alcohol
2 parts glycerine (or glycerol as it is more commonly called)
1/2 part detergent
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Hey Eric & Alan... this foodservice cleaner brought to mind BEAM oven and grill cleaner. Comes as a bright orange liquid.
From the MSDS the main ingredients are sodium hydroxide & sodium metasilicate, but I have no idea if those would be save for the print head or for removing ink. It IS a good grill cleaner!
We sells these where I work at and I can get a couple ounce packet of it if you think it's usable.
https://www.messnerinc.com/catalog/p/BAE-1/Beam_Oven_Grill_Cleaner_-_Gal/
MSDS available at that link.
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Thanks Alan.
as for your concoction, what would I use as the detergent?
6 parts water
2 parts isopropyl alcohol
2 parts glycerine (or glycerol as it is more commonly called)
1/2 part detergent
I would try Dawn as it's good enough for the oil spill coated birds!
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Hey Eric & Alan... this foodservice cleaner brought to mind BEAM oven and grill cleaner. Comes as a bright orange liquid.
From the MSDS the main ingredients are sodium hydroxide & sodium metasilicate, but I have no idea if those would be save for the print head or for removing ink. It IS a good grill cleaner!
We sells these where I work at and I can get a couple ounce packet of it if you think it's usable.
https://www.messnerinc.com/catalog/p/BAE-1/Beam_Oven_Grill_Cleaner_-_Gal/
MSDS available at that link.
Sodium Hydroxide is lye and very corrosive. I would not use this at all. It probably would get rid of the clogs in the same way that drain cleaners open up clogged drains but it would also do much damage.
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While doing a search for maintenance on a 4900, which, by the way, I don't even own one, I came across this product and it seems as though it might benefit others who are looking for a maintenance print mode (holiday mode). http://www.karmaplus.com/howWorks2.html. seems like a good idea for all Epson users to avoid long periods of not printing. I believe it's Windows only.
Steve
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While doing a search for maintenance on a 4900, which, by the way, I don't even own one, I came across this product and it seems as though it might benefit others who are looking for a maintenance print mode (holiday mode). http://www.karmaplus.com/howWorks2.html. seems like a good idea for all Epson users to avoid long periods of not printing. I believe it's Windows only.
Steve
HHC does work well when you're out of town for a bit. It is indeed Windows only. I use a dedicated laptop to schedule daily nozzle checks; inexpensive 10" roll of lustre in the printer.
ken
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Have had some success and some loss with the suggestions in the post. About a month ago I was ready to take my 4900 in and have a new head put in or scrapped. I thought Cyan and VM would never come back. Finally I bought the bullet and ordered new ink, these channels were running low, and windexed the hell out of the head. Amazingly Cyan and VM came back. :) Unfortunately i had a lot of drop out on all of the other channels. Through cleaning and power cleaning i have gotten them all back except, PK and LK. If you look at the attached images, 1st is when I first started about a month ago. I have tried cleaning and power cleanings and got to 2nd. Ready to trash the machine again. After a couple of weeks, I ran another test strip and it has gotten better. Now I am up to 4th. There are actually other test strips in between. What is amazing is that on each test strip, they "slowly" are getting better. I am hoping by next June I will have a working printer, that is until Cyan and VM drop out.
It is interesting in that I had this phenomenon, once before after a windex session. Maybe 6 months ago. I thought I had ruined the head. With frustration I let the printer sit for 2-3 weeks, then tried one more test strip and all of the PK and LK had come back. Very interesting, very frustrating.
I just want to print again.
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Have had some success and some loss with the suggestions in the post. About a month ago I was ready to take my 4900 in and have a new head put in or scrapped. I thought Cyan and VM would never come back. Finally I bought the bullet and ordered new ink, these channels were running low, and windexed the hell out of the head. Amazingly Cyan and VM came back. :) Unfortunately i had a lot of drop out on all of the other channels. Through cleaning and power cleaning i have gotten them all back except, PK and LK. If you look at the attached images, 1st is when I first started about a month ago. I have tried cleaning and power cleanings and got to 2nd. Ready to trash the machine again. After a couple of weeks, I ran another test strip and it has gotten better. Now I am up to 4th. There are actually other test strips in between. What is amazing is that on each test strip, they "slowly" are getting better. I am hoping by next June I will have a working printer, that is until Cyan and VM drop out.
It is interesting in that I had this phenomenon, once before after a windex session. Maybe 6 months ago. I thought I had ruined the head. With frustration I let the printer sit for 2-3 weeks, then tried one more test strip and all of the PK and LK had come back. Very interesting, very frustrating.
I just want to print again.
There are a number of issues to unpack here:
(1) How often do you use the printer. A 4900 is a "production machine". It was designed for people who would be using it on a regular basis. Regular here means daily or at worst several times a week. If it sits unused longer than that channels fail to produce ink on paper. Whether that it all drying, clogging, clogging where, or pressure drops, I have no idea, but the end result is totally predictable - at least from my experience owning this printer from the first day it hit the Toronto market. Recall, I reviewed it for this website. When I travel for long periods of time, I can totally count on about 45 minutes of cleaning work to get it back to normal. That I didn't know when I wrote the review - no way I could have at that point, but now that this experience is accumulated, it's good to confirm that Epson was right when somewhere at some time they said it's a production machine. Sure is.
(2) Who ever told you that you should use Windex on the printhead? Certainly nobody from Epson did - at least officially. When I last discussed with an Epson representative what one could do to improve the whole cleaning story in case of major "f...ups", he referred me to the manual. Yes, of course, I'm one of those who does RTFM, so my question was about what happens "beyond the box" and that was the answer I got back. In other words, they aren't sanctioning user-intervention on cleaning beyond what they themselves think it legally and commercially "safe" to let users do. This is standard manaufacturer behaviour dictated by their legal departments and they follow it to a "T". Once you start doing things beyond the manual, from a user perspective you are into "experimental territory" and you can expect ANY outcome, all the wisdom from various contributors on this thread notwithstanding.
(3) There is a technique to repeated cleanings once you are into what I would call a "stubborn clog" situation. A stubborn clog is one that doesn't get remedied after using the stronger of the two cleaning options for a channel pair activated from the printer controls (not your computer). Once a stubborn clog happens, Epson has advised, as reported in numerous places on this website, to always run a test print that uses all the channels between each cleaning cycle. This helps to keep ink flowing and to minimize the risk of problems from air that can be triggered by repeated and powerful cleaning. I have found it makes a huge improvement to the efficiency of clearing the printer.
All the above said and done, the next basic question is whether you have called Epson for servicing. It could be that a service call, as expensive as they can be, may still be cheaper than replacing the printer. And if replacing the print head is necessary, you would be best advised to have this done professionally anyhow.
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I actually looked at the marketing hype below which is taken directly from the epson website:
Our advanced Epson MicroPiezo TFP print head is capable of producing higher quality prints, at speeds up to twice as fast as our previous generation. And, with our latest ink-repelling coating and auto nozzle verification technologies, clogged nozzles are virtually eliminated.
No where on their website does it say this should not be used by the casual or occasional user and clogs are virtually eliminated.
Unfortunately this machine is beyond warranty and at the time of doing a windex I was to the point of trashing the machine. All the posts i have read here and alsewhere is that the normal response from Epson is to replace the head. I was desperate and not wanting to put more money down a rat hole. Having said that I was able to get cyan and VM to clear and work just great with the use of windex. They were unable to clear by power cleaning, printing and the standard cleaning. Nothing would open them up.
I think the the black colors will come back like they did in the past. We are in a low humidity time right now, hovering around 40%.
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Yes, they did say clogged nozzles are virtually eliminated. And correct, their published material doesn't emphasize regularity of use as being important, but I've seen this reported elsewhere.
Perhaps your use of Windex fixed one issue, but from what you describe in your previous post, I'm wondering whether it caused another. You should not have to use a printer for months to get it back to normal. Makes no sense to me.
40% humidity is low and that may be part of the problem (would your room be even less humid?). The specs say 20 to 80%, but the "print quality guarantee" range is 40% to 60%, so you are at the low end of the "quality guarantee" range, whatever that means. Try running a humidifier in the room and see if that helps.
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I actually looked at the marketing hype below which is taken directly from the epson website:
Our advanced Epson MicroPiezo TFP print head is capable of producing higher quality prints, at speeds up to twice as fast as our previous generation. And, with our latest ink-repelling coating and auto nozzle verification technologies, clogged nozzles are virtually eliminated.
No where on their website does it say this should not be used by the casual or occasional user and clogs are virtually eliminated.
I must agree with you...i had a very detailed conversation with epson sales in the Uk before i purchased a couple of 7800's. i was particularly concerned at that point about clogging issues as i had come from the 3000 range with plenty of hassle ...the reply from epson professionals was that the 7800 could comfortably be left unused for a month at a time without any problem of clogging whatsoever....relax...in other words..
then in time, i was so keen to get into the 900 range because of the capability of dual colour and b/w (which i achieve now with an imageprint rip on the 7800...) and the marketing HYPE from epson was that a 900 would comfortably reduce the incidence of clog much more than in the earlier series ,but it seems to me , as i have said all along that the 900 series was never capable of producing a better clog result than earlier machines...quite the contrary in fact. it simply isn't designed intelligently enough even though it has nano bits.. .never did epson caution me in writing or verbally that the 800 or 900 series had to be used every other day....that seems to have popped up as an "after event "when epson realised what they had unleashed on their customers.. I know that i was never told about frequency issues which seem now to be an issue for epson...does that actually mean that material sales information was wilfully withheld at point of sale ? Interesting. Alan has told us that ammonia does not have surfactant (clog busting ) characteristics and i would agree with Mark that you are on your own risk when you step away from using epson ink as your cure....epson need to step in with their own reputable reliable surfactant fairly soon i would guess..the day of using ink and maintenance tanks to clear solid clogs is yesterday....
Mark...you have readily admitted in an earlier thread that relying on Epson service is not always practical or feasible when one lives away from larger centres ....you might continue reminding people of that when you fall back on the "ring epson " recommendation..for those of us living in beautiful rural places.a huge flaw in epsons marketing strategy is selling machines to people who are in no position to avail of epson service facilities...i would advise that Epson products are impractical to own unless one can actually price in a service warranty and product repurchase when the warranty has expired...that is the real cost of trouble free printing with minimal ink wastage.. (I had a financial and risk assessing background in an earlier life..)
ALAN
A little surprised that you recommended to Eric to use DAWN a second time as his surfactant for his"recipe" . Are you hoping that adding the humactants ie glycols glycerols will do the trick on Erics first recipe attack of DAWN and ISOPROPYL (plus water of course ). ....or is Eric going to increase the DAWN concentration this time ? I have ordered PhotoFlow from Kodak and will give it a try as a surfactant on another power flush program....you never know ! .. might leave out the Isopropyly for the moment as i am inclined to agree with you that its not for clogs but more for bacteria issues..
ERIC...you mentioned a german product that you thought might be worth a try...have you a link to it ? Don't mind giving it a go with power flush and syringe after I've tried Photoflow ...thats only if you are not going to try it...
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Here is a link to a PDF document you might fine entertaining.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.168.3094
I am sorry but I don't seem to be able to figure out how to setup a direct link to the PDF file. So you will have to use the link above and then click on the small PDF symbol (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/images/pdf_icon.gif) on the left of the page up at the top.
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Here are two patents that is also instructive on print heads.
Ink Jet Print Head (http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPAT5963234&id=ezoYAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=Motonori+Okumura&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=Motonori%20Okumura&f=false)
Print Head Two (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6949869.pdf)
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Mark...you have readily admitted in an earlier thread that relying on Epson service is not always practical or feasible when one lives away from larger centres ....you might continue reminding people of that when you fall back on the "ring epson " recommendation..for those of us living in beautiful rural places.a huge flaw in epsons marketing strategy is selling machines to people who are in no position to avail of epson service facilities...i would advise that Epson products are impractical to own unless one can actually price in a service warranty and product repurchase when the warranty has expired...that is the real cost of trouble free printing with minimal ink wastage.. (I had a financial and risk assessing background in an earlier life..)
Frankly, whoever you are in reality, I have nothing to "admit" or not "admit". I would always recommend contacting Epson if I read a post from someone having trouble with their printer that doesn't indicate whether they have done so. Epson actually makes it very easy to do this - especially Epson America's Pro-graphics tech support. I don't know how well this works outside North America, but any time I've had issues with Epson products, and trust me there have been - I've been using their printers since the 2000P hit the market thirteen years ago, I have been able to communicate quite readily either by phone or through their on-line support system and they have been very helpful, particularly with in-warranty products. When it comes to out of warranty products, well, they're out of warranty and then it's another discussion.
Even for in-warranty service beyond the first 30 days, their usual policy for anything that can't be handled over the phone is to exchange the printer with a refurb rather than sending a service-person, because the time and cost of that often exceeds the residual value of the printer; and I must say for Epson, based on very recent experience with one of their office "all-in-ones", they will support this policy for however many printers it takes until you have one that works properly. Heck, if I call a serviceman to look at my washing machine or dishwasher the fee for walking through the door is 85 dollars and then the repair costs start mounting - if they don't tell you outright to save the money and buy a new one. Getting personal service at your doorstep these days is just darn expensive, like it or not.
Now going out of warranty, they aren't obligated to us, and they obviously don't think it's practical and economic for them to maintain their own service network for doing actual machine repairs at peoples' premises. So they outsource it. Many manufacturers do likewise for the same reasons. The outsource arrangements are often sub-optimal from a user perspective, because depending on where one lives, accessing such service whether by the machine being sent to them or them coming to us can be very expensive. I'm well aware of all that, but I would still advise contacting Epson for all the help they are prepared to provide, because for Prographic support (all the x800/x900 printers) even out of warranty they will still provide email and phone support. Beyond that service can be costly no matter how arranged. So yes, I agree with you, one needs to think of all that in making a purchase decision, but I don't believe any of this varies much over a wide range of bulky high tech items one buys. Fr example, I know if my large, expensive high-def TV goes belly-up, given who made it and where they service it from, I'll be buying a new one.
Now let's turn to the subject you raise about the extended warranty. I still do have another life - consulting on financial evaluation, risk analysis, legal underpinning and structuring of major projects. As we both know, this is effectively an insurance policy, so insurance principles apply. There is a premium set by the company based on the cost of trouble, its probability of occurrence and the number of policies they expect to sell. So if they are rational economic actors, which we must assume they are, it's always structured in a way that they don't lose. And if they happen to lose in one year because they bet wrong, they'll make it up the year after. From our perspective as purchasers of such insurance, we need to make judgments about whether it's worthwhile. It's a bit of a crap-shoot; on average pretty-much a zero-sum game apart from their profit margin on the premiums, but for an individual it all depends on what happens - it's either a complete waste of money or a wise decision, which one gets to know after the fact. None of this makes an Epson printer impractical to use. It just complicates decision-making with options and each of us need to optimize based on our expectations. FWIW, I pondered this decision long and hard, and haven't bought such insurance, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Time will tell.
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ERIC...you mentioned a german product that you thought might be worth a try...have you a link to it ? Don't mind giving it a go with power flush and syringe after I've tried Photoflow ...thats only if you are not going to try it...
Hell of a thing, retracing your web-search footprints a week after they've been cleared from browsing history. Not sure how I finally ended up there again but here is a link to the conversation that I had found, Blue moon - Lothom's accidental discovery (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=36655) You may be the only one of us who could buy such a cleaning product. Please share your results!
Later this afternoon I am have the sorrowfully unfortunate, but also curiously fortunate opportunity to take apart a 7900 with a "fatal error" printhead in it. But this printhead, unlike our "Oh Canada" printhead, has never been removed from it's mother ship - The Epson Stylus Pro 7900. THIS printhead was destroyed by power cleanings.
I can't wait to see what evil lurks inside this machine. But first I have to ride my bicycle to the top of a mountain and back. Stay tuned.
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Mark
No problem letting you know who i am . My name is Matthew Deegan and I live in Connemara Ireland right on the Atlantic ocean.My email address is mattdeegan@eircom.net...nice to meet you formally.....i have followed a lot of your contribution with great interest..and appreciated too..
I am in agreement with you that warranty solves the problem for the customer and transfers the risk right back to Epson.....the lower the risk premium is the less of a problem Epson will think their machines are going to cause them and of course vice versa..if a customer cannot afford the risk premium then repairs are definitely going to hurt...where i live people replace troublesome machines with new ones rather than going the repair route...we are just too isolated to do otherwise....unless you can fix it yourself....a lot of my neighbours are just gifted innovators and try to fix out of necessity what they can...
I would not (really regret to say ) purchase a 900 as it stands and would not purchase its successor without a warranty...that simple...i would also factor in a 3 year lifespan on the machine and include that in my costs were i to use it commercially including warranty costs....market forces will eventually decide whether the consumer will accept the warranty fees or not...
On the other hand from reading and rereading this thread from start to now it seems to me ( and i have my own personal limited experience as well ) that the 900 has not mastered the art of troublefree printing...you are personally happy that you were cautioned that you must use your 900 every other day or your printing could be troublesome ....is that so ? I was never cautioned to that effect and i have purchased several machines over the years.....the marketing HYPE that Epson delivered to me was simply untrue.......and unwise....why did their pre launch testing let them down so badly....
Put it to you this way....
I was assured by Epson UK pros that 900 could be left unused for 30 days at a time without turn on......it was in their view a better machine than 800 as we had new anti coagulant material lining the Piezo chamber walls and pairs would look after a problem of a singular nozzle...no more macro cleaning...the rest is history ...I had a sales career once and if a customer produced evidence that i had supplied sales literature (or verbally either ) as part of the sales process which had no basis in fact ,it was a money back situation straight away....and not a refurb replacement machine either...money back and no questions asked...sales claims need substantiation..
Where i have difficulty with your approach Mark and with great respect to you personally as I very reluctantly express my opinion,is that your approach SEEMS to me to be more often than not to take the Epson side without listening hard enough to the large middle ground of frustrated printers who just cant all be wrong either.... unless i am totally misreading this thread a large number of contributors have not had their expectations met by Epson and Epson i am sure would not wish to be exonerated from real life production problems either as they will need to be able to encourage their old reliable customers to take the risk and purchase more Epson printers in time...this thread must be invaluable to Epson scientists as it is letting them know what they need to do better...none of us are perfect and Epson are certainly no exception.And it will ultimately be Epsons problem to solve..
There have been incredible contributions from Eric and his team of very knowledgeable team mates and we all feel that our problem is being shared between us....I just feel at times that your approach could be more encouraging to our brave frontiersmen who are doing all this heroic work for us. Last week you made a throw away comment that the lads should be leaving it to the pros in Epson because none of our guys were up to the specialised problems that the 900 has to offer.....even though you were not including me ,i found this remark just a little condescending and i could not agree with your sentiment...This is just my own personal opinion and has taken me months to formulate...Sorry...
This is a Guinness book of records thread for a very good reason ...i believe and i know deep down that you will be the first to congratulate the guys when they get the breakhrough that we all want to see happen...Finally , Epson will be dam glad to see an end to this particalar episode too...
Nice to meet you formally Mark
Matt
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Hell of a thing, retracing your web-search footprints a week after they've been cleared from browsing history. Not sure how I finally ended up there again but here is a link to the conversation that I had found, Blue moon - Lothom's accidental discovery (http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=36655) You may be the only one of us who could buy such a cleaning product. Please share your results!
I would not use this on an Epson print head. I just looked up the composition datasheet which is in German and this is much stronger stuff than the 3M degreaser that was mentioned earlier. It contains potassium hydroxide at concentrations similar to what is in some oven cleaners and drain openers! It does have a coconut derivative which is found in a lot of shampoos.
Alan
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I would not use this on an Epson print head. I just looked up the composition datasheet which is in German and this is much stronger stuff than the 3M degreaser that was mentioned earlier. It contains potassium hydroxide at concentrations similar to what is in some oven cleaners and drain openers! It does have a coconut derivative which is found in a lot of shampoos.
Alan
Alan
Thanks....great to see that your grasp of German allowed you to realise that the printer would have been
"shampooed "with this solution.
Relief..
Matt
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<<Mark No problem letting you know who i am . My name is Matthew Deegan>>
Hi Matt, very good to meet you formally too. It is nice to communicate with "real identities".
I can't take "Epson's side" on any of this, because I don't know what it is. I wish they did otherwise, but they have chosen not to participate in this thread so they haven't said anything to side with or against. As well, I respect what people here are trying to do, and I too am watching with interest to see whether at the end of the day the work Eric and others are doing actually resolves how to deal with apparently fatal clogs. I do have a sense that trying to unpack Epson's technology and improve upon it could be extremely challenging, if not heroic, but I think the folks on this thread know that too and nothing I said was intended to be condescending to anyone.
The problems a number of people are facing are obviously real, expensive and very frustrating. But at the same time, I do have a great deal of respect for the Epson corporation, which shouldn't be mistaken for "taking their side" on every issue. They pioneered the development of technologies that in a few short years are allowing us to deliver images with an ease, quality and cost that was simply unthinkable to most of us as recently as a decade ago. They have to have poured huge amounts of money and technological prowess in numerous fields of applied science to do this, and this is a commercial enterprise whose results you can read in their annual reports online. Yes, problems there are, and they need to be addressed, but let us not lose sight of who we are dealing with. That's one matter of perspective.
Another matter of perspective is the scale of the trouble relative to the overall success. You say there is a very large middle ground of disgruntled printers. Do we have any idea how many x900 printers world-wide Epson has sold to how many customers since they were introduced about four years ago? To make any kind of manufacturing these days worthwhile, it must be on a significant scale - and recall we are talking world-wide. So what percentage is the number of people experiencing fatal clogging problems compared with all the satisfied users? You are questioning the maturity of the technology, but I think the real issue is whether the trouble ratio is beyond the expected, (and how the *expected* is calculated, because every manufacturer expects a certain amount of trouble - there is no perfection). Several years after the 7900/9900 they issued the 4900 which builds on the same technology, so are they dumb enough to be flogging a dead-horse, or is it a bit much to claim that the technology was not ready for *prime time*? Recall, they need enough confidence in the market to sell printers so they can sell ink for years after. These considerations are also relevant to the matter of advertising hype. One would need much more information than we have on-hand to assess whether in the context of the broad international experience of this technology over the past four years their advertising is misleading or not. Please don't mistake this as a defense of Epson - I'm just saying what one needs to know before landing on a conclusion about truth in advertising or lack thereof.
You challenged me on these issues, so I am responding that I think it's relevant not to lose sight of the larger picture in coming to judgments about what this thread is dealing with. As for the solution to the particular issues folks here are facing, I hope for two things looking forward: (i) that Epson itself finds and shares a consumer-friendly way of de-clogging apparently hopeless printers, and/or (ii) a brand new discovery along the lines Alan and others are trying to facilitate comes out of this thread and solves it. Either or both could indeed be very useful to any of us some time in the future.
Nice to chat with you Matt and I hope to have cleared-up misunderstandings.
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Hi Eric I just stumbled apon your long adventure from last year to now and see the saga has continued. My name is Matt (might be too many Matts in here) I live by the Bay area, Ca not to far from you and was just in Arizona working a full day on my buddies (Aaron) Epson 9900. I am kind of like your buddy thats the tech guy, I have some technical background and mechanically can rebuild anything you throw at me. He bought a used and fully working 9900 off Ebay from a east coast print shop that had no problems and even included a test print to him. He paid good money to have it shipped to AZ. Within a week he had started to get a small clog. So he did some cleanings, then power and so on, it got worse and then he called Epson. He gave them the rundown on what was going on and how his 9800 never did this and they listened and gave the old reply "wow thats weird this printer has not had any reports of people having this kind of problem, we can refer you to a company that can help you."
You can see where this is going, they refer him to DecisionOne. He make's an appointment a week later the tech comes out has a capping station, wipper assembly and Head. Here's the best part, I just happen to be there in AZ at the time and at his house, we left it all together so the tech doesn't say something like "sorry I can't touch it becasue you have it in parts." So he gets there and gets to work on it, replaces the head and capping station/wipper and fires it up but he gets some error, he shuts it down and does some more stuff fires it up and still no good, he's checking his computer and looking at the field service guide but no luck. 10-20-30 minutes go by finally he says the main board is bad and he doesn't have one and that he will have to order it and come back out. My buddy and I are thinking we were having no such error earlier but the tech had no clue of that since he wasn't there when I was working on it. So he proceeds to pull out all the new parts and put the old parts back in. He gets it all together and say's sorry I can't do more but I cant do much without a working main board. Now my Aaron is pretty ticked you could imagine after waiting all that time to get someone to come out a fix this thing that he has barely gotten to use. I'm thinking this can't be hold on let me think. Then I though what the heck I will pull the main board and go over it my multimeter and see if there is a surface mount fuse or something that could have burned out. I get it out before the tech leaves and I ask the tech if I can get the main board working give us you cell number we will call you back. He leaves as I continue working on it checking all things over carefully and couldn't find one bad component. So frustrated that I couldn't find anything wrong im looking at it and think well last ditch effort would be to remove the cmos battery to try and get it to reset anything in the memory. So I pulled it and let it sit for a minute and put it back in and the thought lets reinstall the battery and try turning it on. It powered right up no error codes and no problems. We call the tech and he was right down the street getting some lunch and said he would come back after he eats. Thirty minutes later he's back installing all the parts again. He fires it up no issues does some more tuning, platen gap and so on and Aaron has a working printer. No problems he's back in business with a working printer just less ink and $2200 less in his pocket.
Fast forward from November 2011 to August 2012 and 150 prints later.
One day in August he gets ready to do some printing and does a nozzle check, see (picture 1) it has a few small spots on one channel that could use a cleaning. So he puts the printing off for a couple days till he has more time to mess with the problem. So a few days later he thought what the heck I have a 24x36 print I have to do it will most likley clear up as I print, maybe its just some air in the head. So after the print he did a nozzel check (picture 2) and it got worse. So you can see his head is missing just part of one channel, its missing a few lines in the second picture. Then after he tried multiple cleanings, power, and sscl it went completley out minus one line at the top of the channel and 1-2 on the bottom see (picture 3). So there it sat less than a year old on the second head and not working again, weird could lightning strike twice, same as last time more cleanings more clogging.
So I happen to be out in AZ this past week and I ended staying at his house for two days working on nothing but his printer mainly. While I was working on his I did all sorts of cleaning with reverse flushes with solution CLF007+ and distilled water only to have the original channel go blank completely. Then after more flushing, soaking and multiple head removal/installs nothing improved. I took apart and cleaned and inspected the damper assembly and couldn't find anything wrong, I even swapped two dampers to see if the missing channel would switch to another channel but no luck . At one point I had the head installed and it came up with the error 1A39. I removed the ribbon cables from the head and re-powered it up and the error went away. Now he has a nice printer weight that has less than 350 prints thru it and empty ink tanks from all the cleanings, power cleanings, SS and you know the drill. Now we are at the cross roads of what to do next. I was very close to renting a van and bringing it back up to Norther California with me but I wanted to have him let the head soak for a few days to a week and see if that would help loosen things up. I did check his capping station and pump and everything inbetween but everything is good.
I even tested the seal on his capping station by parking the head on the station and then testing the seal by creating vacume with a syringe hooked directly to the black tube that goes to the pump assempbly. You know the one that has all white cam lobes that decide what channel routes to the pump that creates a vacume to pull ink out of the head while its in the cleaning process. The thing that stinks about the two colors per section of the head is that when it does a pair cleaning the suction pulls from both channels and not one so the unclogged head will be the only one releasing ink into the capping station while the clogged channel will resist the suction. My thought was to maybe crimp the ink line right at the entry into the damper assembly of channel thats not clogged that is paired with the clogged head. That way it creates resistance to the suction being applied to the unclogged head and forces the more suction to the clogged channel and helps clear it. Just a thought.
I even watched with the side cover off when it would do a test nozzel print and could see the background light shade down a bit as the head would spray the ink, and one thing I noticed was that it didn't spray at one point but looked as though it was generating a smoke effect almost like it was a mist that would float away from the paper instead of a fine spray that it normaly is. Anyhow I am also determined to finding why it clogs and if there is a way to recover a clogged head or if it fails internally without any recovery. Im almost leaning to the fact that when it starts to clog the clog makes that nozzle self destruct to the point it wont ever spray or pump again.
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Hey Alan depending on the shampoo they used that German oven cleaner could be ok. Fran Tarkenton swore by Johnson's Baby Shampoo.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/FranTarkinton.png)
..alright I'm kidding. Nice work. I still don't have my hands on all the ingredients of your latest concoction. Sorry. But I did order the 3M cleaner. They only deliver it slowly though, you can't rush ship it (some sensitive chemical law or something).
Listen Blue moon, that's one of the most thoughtful, respectful displays of disagreement/agreement that I think I've read, ever. Well said, well done. That would have taken me months.
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Higgy, we need to meet. I like your ideas of specifically sucking fluid through one part of one channel, rather than both (or actually just the clear color). The one thing I feel better about though is sucking fluid up through the face of the printhead, from behind. As you know from the back of a printhead you can access one side of any channel you choose. Plus the passages only get larger as ink flows backwards through the head. All experiments aside though, we are wasting our time until we find a solution (like, a liquid solution) that will break up dried ink without compromising the many different materials in the head. That will be key.
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Yes I agree on the reverse flow and sucking fluid from the face of the head as well. My only worry is when doing so you have to make certain small particles like lint or debris from the air that can land in the container of liquid cleaner your using aren't pulled into the front nozzle's along with the fluid cause then your going to get some more clogging. I also thought you could always take an old capping station apart and make a small desktop cleaning station for the head that could seal up against it while your cleaning as well as you could pull liquid thru the capping station head via the black tube that runs to the pump for that shared channel as you use a syringe on the nipple side of the head and put a rubber plug over the other shared nipple to stop it from pulling air. Not sure if that makes sense but I see it in my mind. Maybe I can draw something up later but im trying to think of ways to minimize creating clogs and treating it as if its in a clean as possible environments so as to not create more issues and have a controlled test.
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The reverse flow approach has a lot of merit I think. A couple of thoughts here, I think the big issue is how to make sure that the clogged material doesn't reclog the print head. If it's a case of some kind of particulate forming on the print head, the cleaning solution would need to break it up (dissolve is not a really good term to use here). The power cleaning that the printer employs is probably a combination of pressure and heat (the print head does get warm as the nozzles fire) which tries to break the clog up and push it through. The fatal clogs are probably particles that are just too big. If one is drawing cleaner back through the head one would want a gentle solution so that there is minimal chance of head damage. Simple soaking may not be good enough (and I think this has already been tried) as a lodged particle won't go anywhere. I think the solution components that I posted back in post 1125 will be gentle enough on the print head and that maybe a pre-soak prior to the reverse draw of the cleaner might also be a good idea (say 30-60 minutes to make sure that the outer part of the head is acclimated to the cleaning solution.
Another interesting point is past experience with Windex (FORMULA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windex)) which has a touch of ammonia in the mixture. The base detergent in Windex is sodium lauryl sulfate and the ammonia is probably there to buffer the solution and make it slightly basic. I don't know whether the pH of this solution is important or not and whether it has an effect on the clog. Certainly my proposed formula is much stronger than Windex in terms of the composition.
As an aside here, I did some work on a highly potent detergent-like molecule from bee venom for my PhD work. I don't advocate using mellitin (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jo00873a029) in these solutions however due to it's cost (and Sigma Aldrich probably won't sell it to anyone on this list unless they are a certified lab researcher as Eric has already found out). My thesis adviser's research group had done a lot of research on various long chained detergent like molecules and maybe some of these might be options as well. I'll have to think about this some more.
Alan
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You are obviously outside of warranty new or extended..how old is the printer...heavily used ?
My printer is 4 years old. I purchased it in December 2008. Started using it in February 2009. I run about 3 rolls of 100 ft canvas through it a year. That's it. So Sad!
In terms of inks used i wonder have you been getting through as much llk and green as your other inks...?
Nope. Green is the least used for sure. Not really sure about llk. I use a ton of that one on my 4880 so you would think I would use a ton of that on the 9900 too because I print similar stuff.
1 do you do b/w as much as color...llk is there for lowering bronzing in b/w prints as you know..
No, I print mostly color.
2 would you use green much either....i gather its more for graphics people than photographers...but i have no idea myself.which side of the fence are you on ...?
I don't have much use for green it seems.
3 if you had problems with 2 colors in the same pair a guess would be the air seal itself but not so in this case.
I don't really know what the cause is. I have had someone come out and clean it and I changed the wiper blade and nothing. I cleaned it in the power cleaning mode when you turn it on in service mode if that makes sense. I did that so much that a brand new 350 ml thing of green ink is now 50% full.
4 have you ever vibrated your green or llk carts in any way
Not regularly, no. I just shook my inks when installing them slightly.
My own little theory is that the Piezo channels and nozzles are bombarded by underused pigment from above and recyled resins from below beyond the capacity of the Nano Nozzles to deal with over time...I would be very keen to see Epsons next design model to replace the x900 series.
I think you are right. I think this is a design flaw for sure. There is no reason other than that that this printer should have done this. I am a very light user at most.
Anyone want a steal on a ton of ink, lol?
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Hi All
As Epson are so good at making nozzles many in their next series of printers they could have a separate set to spray cleaner at the print head as it or before it docks or when the wiper blade cycles.
Just a thought it could be 2 channel and spray the red and then neutralise it with clear.?
Jon
btw epson you heard it hear first
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Ok, so here's where I am with my 9890.
I had a clog in the Y channel, with about 30% of the nozzles clogged. Tried cleaning, power cleaning, SS cleaning and nothing changed.
Called Scott at American Inkjet Systems (who has been very helpful) and got some of his cleaning fluids. Tried spraying the capping station per Scott's suggestion with CPL 007+, no changes. Then Scott suggested soaking a paper towel in CPL 007 and parking the head over it for at least 5 hours. This, I feel was a mistake. The head sucked up some fluid and I think it broke some of the clogs free which when I did a cleaning proceeded to ram themselves into a bunch of new previously unclogged nozzles. I now have 8 clear nozzles on my Y channel. Every other colour is perfect.
Scott is sending me some cleaning carts but I think the odds of anything happening with this clog is slim to none. If I were to try and fix this again I would first run the cleaning carts and then try the paper towel trick hoping that whatever clogs are dislodged from the nozzles would be broken down by the cleaning fluid the head is loaded with. As is stands, I don't think there's enough free nozzles to ever be able to clear the head and lines of the ink and fill the head with cleaner.
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I guess all this depends on if the individual ever so tiny nozzles are actually clogging or they are failing. I think it would be awesome if you could have maintanance cartridges filled with a water based solution that is filled with microbes that feed off the ink and pigment stuck in the head and you let the microbes do the unclogging. Then say after 48 hours or so you put the regular ink taks back in and flush the hear with a initial fill and your good to go. All this will omly work if the nozzles still working as they should and you can get microbes or nano bots to do the tiny work. Just sayin
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I guess all this depends on if the individual ever so tiny nozzles are actually clogging or they are failing. I think it would be awesome if you could have maintanance cartridges filled with a water based solution that is filled with microbes that feed off the ink and pigment stuck in the head and you let the microbes do the unclogging. Then say after 48 hours or so you put the regular ink taks back in and flush the hear with a initial fill and your good to go. All this will omly work if the nozzles still working as they should and you can get microbes or nano bots to do the tiny work. Just sayin
I doubt that the polymers Epson use are biodegradable by microorganisms. Besides it would take a lot longer than you think for this to do any good even if it were true and then you would also have to worry about a biofilm forming on the inside of the print head that would lead to further problems. Most of the cleaning approaches are antimicrobial in nature to prevent this from happening. Nice thought though.
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Called Scott at American Inkjet Systems (who has been very helpful) and got some of his cleaning fluids. Tried spraying the capping station per Scott's suggestion with CPL 007+, no changes. Then Scott suggested soaking a paper towel in CPL 007 and parking the head over it for at least 5 hours. This, I feel was a mistake. The head sucked up some fluid and I think it broke some of the clogs free which when I did a cleaning proceeded to ram themselves into a bunch of new previously unclogged nozzles. I now have 8 clear nozzles on my Y channel. Every other colour is perfect.
Scott is sending me some cleaning carts but I think the odds of anything happening with this clog is slim to none. If I were to try and fix this again I would first run the cleaning carts and then try the paper towel trick hoping that whatever clogs are dislodged from the nozzles would be broken down by the cleaning fluid the head is loaded with. As is stands, I don't think there's enough free nozzles to ever be able to clear the head and lines of the ink and fill the head with cleaner.
I don't know what they use in their cleaning solution but it points to the basic problem of having and ink clog of some sort inside the print head. If you cannot break up the clog then what happens is exactly what you observed, the clog gets displaced only to reappear somewhere else. I think what we are all trying to figure out is how to break the clogs up into tiny enough particles so that they come through the print head without doing damage.
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You are obviously outside of warranty new or extended..how old is the printer...heavily used ?
My printer is 4 years old. I purchased it in December 2008. Started using it in February 2009. I run about 3 rolls of 100 ft canvas through it a year. That's it. So Sad!
In terms of inks used i wonder have you been getting through as much llk and green as your other inks...?
Nope. Green is the least used for sure. Not really sure about llk. I use a ton of that one on my 4880 so you would think I would use a ton of that on the 9900 too because I print similar stuff.
1 do you do b/w as much as color...llk is there for lowering bronzing in b/w prints as you know..
No, I print mostly color.
2 would you use green much either....i gather its more for graphics people than photographers...but i have no idea myself.which side of the fence are you on ...?
I don't have much use for green it seems.
3 if you had problems with 2 colors in the same pair a guess would be the air seal itself but not so in this case.
I don't really know what the cause is. I have had someone come out and clean it and I changed the wiper blade and nothing. I cleaned it in the power cleaning mode when you turn it on in service mode if that makes sense. I did that so much that a brand new 350 ml thing of green ink is now 50% full.
4 have you ever vibrated your green or llk carts in any way
Not regularly, no. I just shook my inks when installing them slightly.
My own little theory is that the Piezo channels and nozzles are bombarded by underused pigment from above and recyled resins from below beyond the capacity of the Nano Nozzles to deal with over time...I would be very keen to see Epsons next design model to replace the x900 series.
I think you are right. I think this is a design flaw for sure. There is no reason other than that that this printer should have done this. I am a very light user at most.
Anyone want a steal on a ton of ink, lol?
Kristi,
I am genuinly sorry to see the fix you find yourself in !
What strikes me from your latest post is the amount of extra investment that is at risk when your machine becomes unusable.......$1200 ink ,imageprint licence ..( i think i paid the bones of $2000 for my licence ).plus all the extra ink ,tanks ,that you are forced to use/lose in a vain effort to unblock a bad clog.....not nice....
What also hits me hard is if you dont do b/w and strong green prints why are you letting them (llk and green inks cartridges) lie idle in your printer with no outlet for them except down the spit tank in an effort to keep llk and green nozzles moist...with 8 channels instead of 10 ,your ink costs are down 20% straightaway...and your regular clean routine would be better able to look after the nozzles that are used all the time..
I am definitely learning from your experience and will try to remember your situation when i buy again ! SO...
My next printer demand list will be as follows...
1 is this printer ok if not used say...1 week....4 weeks etc. what volume of printing has this machine been tested for to establish min/max production levels for consumers ?..what written independent evidence do you have (manufacturer) to substantiate your claim..is this printer rated for durabilty like say fridges are for energy efficiency
2 Is there a review site where i can readily see the experiences to date for this printer from existing consumers...why not ?
3 is there a software package (windows/mac )available to activate the printer for "away " periods...that exceed your recommended levels of dormancy....
4 are my ink requirements properly matched to this printer...are there unnecessary ink options with this printer..
If so ...why so..was i asked what my ink requirements are ? Were ink recommendations offered to me ?
5 is there an ink agitation program built in
6. Can i easily maintain the park station wiper blade dampers myself and what are the costs to me for these parts.
7 in the event that a nozzle permanently blocks ....can this printer fall back to replacing a blocked nozzle with a spare standby built-in nozzle unit....
8 most importantly, is the nano nozzle technology being serviced by an unwashed and unmodified wiper blade system ...or has the nano technology been (modified )downgraded to match existing hygiene standards ?
9 is there a reputable tried and tested clog busting solution available for purchase ...what is the MSDS for this solution and what is the cost of it..what written evidence is there that this solution is reliable
Kristi...
Have you any demands that you would add to my list or would you extract some of my priorities ?
Epson please copy...
Matt
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Ok, so here's where I am with my 9890.
I had a clog in the Y channel, with about 30% of the nozzles clogged. Tried cleaning, power cleaning, SS cleaning and nothing changed.
Called Scott at American Inkjet Systems (who has been very helpful) and got some of his cleaning fluids. Tried spraying the capping station per Scott's suggestion with CPL 007+, no changes. Then Scott suggested soaking a paper towel in CPL 007 and parking the head over it for at least 5 hours. This, I feel was a mistake. The head sucked up some fluid and I think it broke some of the clogs free which when I did a cleaning proceeded to ram themselves into a bunch of new previously unclogged nozzles. I now have 8 clear nozzles on my Y channel. Every other colour is perfect.
Scott is sending me some cleaning carts but I think the odds of anything happening with this clog is slim to none. If I were to try and fix this again I would first run the cleaning carts and then try the paper towel trick hoping that whatever clogs are dislodged from the nozzles would be broken down by the cleaning fluid the head is loaded with. As is stands, I don't think there's enough free nozzles to ever be able to clear the head and lines of the ink and fill the head with cleaner.
Will you let us know how you get on with the cleaning carts.......hopefully its good news.....
Matt
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<<My next printer demand list will be as follows...
1 is this printer ok if not used say...1 week....4 weeks etc. what volume of printing has this machine been tested for to establish min/max production levels for consumers ?..what written independent evidence do you have (manufacturer) to substantiate your claim..is this printer rated for durabilty like say fridges are for energy efficiency
2 Is there a review site where i can readily see the experiences to date for this printer from existing consumers...why not ?
3 is there a software package (windows/mac )available to activate the printer for "away " periods...that exceed your recommended levels of dormancy....
4 are my ink requirements properly matched to this printer...are there unnecessary ink options with this printer..
If so ...why so..was i asked what my ink requirements are ? Were ink recommendations offered to me ?
5 is there an ink agitation program built in
6. Can i easily maintain the park station wiper blade dampers myself and what are the costs to me for these parts.
7 in the event that a nozzle permanently blocks ....can this printer fall back to replacing a blocked nozzle with a spare standby built-in nozzle unit....
8 most importantly, is the nano nozzle technology being serviced by an unwashed and unmodified wiper blade system ...or has the nano technology been (modified )downgraded to match existing hygiene standards ?
9 is there a reputable tried and tested clog busting solution available for purchase ...what is the MSDS for this solution and what is the cost of it..what written evidence is there that this solution is reliable>>
Matt,
I think your list is basically a good one, though I don't understand #8. I believe the emphasis on throughput is very important because I too think there are grounds to attest that there hasn't been enough advance disclosure in this area, and from everything one reads including personal experience there are whole categories of printers for which it will be a primary performance issue given the characteristics of the technologies involved. A few comments on some of the others:
For #2, it means you won't be an early adopter, because I think one needs months of time to pass and evidence to accumulate before getting a reliable fix on the clogging issue. For example, I reviewed the 4900 on this site when it first came out - the objective was to get an early evaluation published primarily about machine usability and print quality, knowing full well there are certain usage issues that simply can't be reviewed because not enough time has passed.
For #4, the only dormant ink most users would experience is one of the two Blacka. If one is always using papers that require the same vintage of black, it doesn't really matter what happens to the other black or its channel - if you don't use it. One of these days when I want to punish myself I should try firing up Matte Black to see what happens, because I don't print on matte papers any longer. The other inks all get used, not evenly, but all used. So whether this is a real issue, I'm not sure.
For #5, one needs to distinguish between deal-breakers and "nice to have" features. I think the primary issue of throughput falls into the former category, but container agitation the latter, because when the machine is off we can simply remove each cartridge, shake it around a bit and put it back. Regular usage of the printer probably makes this unnecessary (I've not done it through 5 Epson professional printers in 13 years), but for really irregular usage I would think it prudent to do so before each printing session. Who knows, perhaps stuff settles.
Re #7, as things stand, you would not be looking at an Epson printer - you would be buying one of the Canon IPF models, because their heads do exactly that. I wonder whether Epson could build such redundancy into its head technology - one of these things they must have thought of because the competition does it, but again only they can answer to.
Re #9, I think for people experiencing really stubborn clogs this is an important point, and I don't understand why it takes 3rd party developers to market these solutions while the manufacturers don't. It seems that from much of what one reads, the most effective and permanent cleaning requires running solution right through the head. This means substituting a cleaning cartridge for an ink cartridge, pumping it through the channels, re-substituting the ink for the cleaning cartridge, and then recharging the channel so the lines are full of ink. I think it would be a bit challenging for manufacturers to design a user-friendly approach to running such cycles, but I for one would encourage it - despite the steps involved, has to be a lot cheaper and a lot less trouble than head replacement.
Regards,
Mark
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Canon does seem to be paying attention to the dissatisfied, and vocal Epson users. The wide format ipf machines automatically agitate the ink tanks periodically, have nozel redundancy as mentioned above, provide user replaceable $400 print heads (with head calibration built in), and actually let the user into the "black box" of their version of ABW (tone adjustments and soft proofing). No doubt Epson will have to react to competition with future models.
Sal
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Canon does seem to be paying attention to the dissatisfied, and vocal Epson users. The wide format ipf machines automatically agitate the ink tanks periodically, have nozel redundancy as mentioned above, provide user replaceable $400 print heads (with head calibration built in), and actually let the user into the "black box" of their version of ABW (tone adjustments and soft proofing). No doubt Epson will have to react to competition with future models.
Sal
Sal, the interesting thing is that there's been six years plus to "react to competition". Canon has had these features I believe since the IPF 5000, such that if Epson were intending to emulate them, one would have thought that by now they could have. I think it's a matter of a different "technology path", which Epson is very persistent in pursuing incrementally. Time and the market will tell whether it works for them or not. So far it seems to.
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Will you let us know how you get on with the cleaning carts.......hopefully its good news.....
Matt
In the very begining of this thread, Eric made us very aware that his effort to clear his "clogs" with cleaning solution and carts were a waste of money and effort. I'm afraid this is going to be the same outcome,as it has been with everyone else that has made the effort.There are many outfits taking advantage of people, selling them all kinds of 'remedies' when they really know it is futile once the real damage has been done! Cleaning carts and fluids were designed to flush a good system for storage,for changing over from OEM ink to a private supplier, or going from solvent to Pigment or visa versa, in the machines that allow for this.They can also possibly be used for preventative measures They are not designed for clearing clogs once they are that serious!
I have come to a conclusion that once anyone has done 'repeated' cleanings in succession,in an effort to clear a stubborn clog, (especially power cleans) they have already placed the head in fatal jeopardy! The clog is no longer the sole reason for death of the head.
The statement that just about all the people complaining about unclearable clogs have made, is "repeated cleanings, followed by power cleans,and tons of ink down the drain in the process of doing so" ...
This appears to me to be the common denominator to dead head syndrom!
Once this has been done it's good bye head. Epson warns against it in the manual, and says that "damage to the head will occur"
David
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I have come to a conclusion that once anyone has done 'repeated' cleanings in succession,in an effort to clear a stubborn clog, (especially power cleans) they have already placed the head in fatal jeopardy! The clog is no longer the sole reason for death of the head.
The statement that just about all the people complaining about unclearable clogs have made, is "repeated cleanings, followed by power cleans,and tons of ink down the drain in the process of doing so" ...
This appears to me to be the common denominator to dead head syndrom!
Once this has been done it's good bye head. Epson warns against it in the manual, and says that "damage to the head will occur"
David
I believe you are correct.
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From Mark...
For #4, the only dormant ink most users would experience is one of the two Blacka. If one is always using papers that require the same vintage of black, it doesn't really matter what happens to the other black or its channel - if you don't use it. One of these days when I want to punish myself I should try firing up Matte Black to see what happens, because I don't print on matte papers any longer. The other inks all get used, not evenly, but all used. So whether this is a real issue, I'm not sure.
Sorry Mark...i am a bit confused as i do not have a 900....put it to you like this ....i decide to have a 10 channel 900 but for the moment i do not wish to MK (or green or whatever) or LLK ......can the machine fire on the colors i want for the moment or must i load all the slots with full ink carts.....are you compelled to fully load even though you have no use right now for the full color range..hypothetical.....it would be more economical to select your own immediate color preferences ...say run on 7 or whatever ...why load a color that you don't need to load....and if you load must that colour be managed like all your regularly used colours...trying to think economical...
For #5, one needs to distinguish between deal-breakers and "nice to have" features. I think the primary issue of throughput falls into the former category, but container agitation the latter, because when the machine is off we can simply remove each cartridge, shake it around a bit and put it back. Regular usage of the printer probably makes this unnecessary (I've not done it through 5 Epson professional printers in 13 years), but for really irregular usage I would think it prudent to do so before each printing session. Who knows, perhaps stuff settles.
Mark...
I have been doing very encouraging printer vibration tests for months now..3 shakes a day...could not remove carts that often...would burn out the chips.....prefer leaving carts in as i had to dismantle two machines to replace cart chip sensors....ouch...
Yes...stuff settles....we have several references to pig settle on this thread already....remember the emulsifiers that are needed to keep all the bits flowing and mixing freely.....what Guinness do with their canned stout is to put a small plastic ball bearing in their cans.....marvellous for agitation...the natural instinct of ink particles is not to mix but to separate ...ask yourself what that means ....
Re #9, I think for people experiencing really stubborn clogs this is an important point, and I don't understand why it takes 3rd party developers to market these solutions while the manufacturers don't. It seems that from much of what one reads, the most effective and permanent cleaning requires running solution right through the head. This means substituting a cleaning cartridge for an ink cartridge, pumping it through the channels, re-substituting the ink for the cleaning cartridge, and then recharging the channel so the lines are full of ink. I think it would be a bit challenging for manufacturers to design a user-friendly approach to running such cycles, but I for one would encourage it - despite the steps involved, has to be a lot cheaper and a lot less trouble than head replacement.
Mark
Believe Epson had a 9th channel 20 years ago that was just a flexible but targeted clean channel....this clean channel could be exclusively focussed on the clogged colour ( i was told ).....they have done it already it appears.....
I have all the gear for building cart no 9 with just clean solution...the idea is to have a separate cart and pipe with its own damper ....plug out the blocked cart and damper and plug in your cart ,line and damper direct into the head ...no ink waste....Eric got their first with his syringe attack into the head which is where i am now...he is very hard to keep up to !
Mark
#8
I see a conflict between the super sensitivity of the 900 nozzle system and a wiper blade mechanism that is unable to permanently remove the threat of residual resins from being injected back into the head...we all know too that a malfunctioning wiper blade can be an indirect cause for air bubbles working backwards into the head through puddling on the head surface itself
Good night
Matt
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Sorry Mark...i am a bit confused as i do not have a 900....put it to you like this ....i decide to have a 10 channel 900 but for the moment i do not wish to MK (or green or whatever) or LLK ......can the machine fire on the colors i want for the moment or must i load all the slots with full ink carts.....are you compelled to fully load even though you have no use right now for the full color range..hypothetical.....it would be more economical to select your own immediate color preferences ...say run on 7 or whatever ...why load a color that you don't need to load....and if you load must that colour be managed like all your regularly used colours...trying to think economical...
Matt, it may be more economical but I think unrealistic. You would need custom colour mixing and dithering algorithms to suit the wants of each customer. It won't ever happen.
I have been doing very encouraging printer vibration tests for months now..3 shakes a day.
I seriously doubt anything near this amount shaking-up is necessary for any of these inks.
Believe Epson had a 9th channel 20 years ago
The first pigmented ink desktop printer that Epson produced came onto the market in 2000, model 2000P - that's about 12 some years ago. There has not been such a cleaning channel on any Epson printer outfitted with pigmented inks or 21st century ink delivery systems that I am aware of, so if such a thing were to be developed, I think it would be a big deal for a manufacturer to package it in a way that the average user could use - few people are as adventurous and skilled as you and Eric - the vendor caters to the vast user pool out there; I think it would be super to have such a thing, as I said before, but I do think from a manufacturing, marketing and support perspective it wouldn't be a slam-dunk to introduce.
Re #8, I can understand problems with a malfunctioning wiper blade shifting stuff about rather than wiping it off completely - I have experienced that with a 4000 model. But when you say "we all know too that a malfunctioning wiper blade can be an indirect cause for air bubbles working backwards into the head through puddling on the head surface itself I'm interested to know how we all know this, as well as the point about residue being sucked back into the printhead.
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Perhaps we do this the old fashioned way and see where the Epson boys drink after work?
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one observation: in outdoor printers, like Rolands (also Epson heads), one can print with a few cloged or deflected nozzels because no one nottice from the distance. In time, the clogged nozzels "heal" themselvs, just by printing not by cleanings. I know it is not a solution for fine prints, but just an observation that cloged heads can heal by printing. Obvious, it is not a 100% solution, some clogs never cleans.
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Hi Eric,
Looks like you've been having some fun with the printhead. Thanks for posting the pics! I'm attaching a document that should help understanding the inner workings of what you're seeing. Also, here is a link for you which should be a good read if you're curious. http://doc.utwente.nl/58366/1/thesis_Wijshoff.pdf Granted, they are a little dated... :)
All the best,
Chris
Mark
This is just a thesis and you very probably have read it as avidly as i have !
You may have noticed that around page 125 the cameras used were able to pick air bubbles tethering on the brink of the nozzle wondering whether to "stay outside" the head or go with the flow backwards into the nozzles chamber......unfortunately the bubbles were photographed "sneaking back inside "
Seemingly whats to blame (as I'm sure you know ) is pooled ink lying on the head for longer than is healthy !
The thesis attributes a lot of responsibility to poor hygiene management by the user.. .
We are also admonished on the dirt side ie rag papers flints what have you....that in these scientists opinion goes back up the head....as the air bubble seemingly can....
I sincerely do not think it impossible for drying rubber blade resins to get in on the act with the air bubbles and dirt blobs ....what actually would prevent resins ( coagulating ink in simple terms) which have not been properly washed off the blade going anywhere that the wiper blade touches..or takes them...?Unfortunately,i am using a huge amount of imagination and hunch right now....i am just a printer user mostly who is learning so much from all of your contributions...
I would love to be able to prove that this thesis is right or wrong....
But I am way out of my depth......
But thanks Chris 233 for giving me a chance to read something of a different world :D
Matt
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I have been doing very encouraging printer vibration tests for months now..3 shakes a day.
I seriously doubt anything near this amount shaking-up is necessary for any of these inks.
Mark,
I am fed up doing it too....but this printer (800) has not printed since last April...is in beautiful condition....is 7 or eight years old on its original head....demands a test pattern every 3 weeks or so..i know by the lazy startup...little spray on the park pad for good measure when i think of it.(..about 18 c with 65 humidity ..).we have a damp climate most of the year...i have reduced the shake routine but i end up with a blocked nozzle as a thankyou. a bit of useless information for you...i need about 600 mls of ink a year ...just to stand still....i should be putting that 600 mls into a few photographs instead..
Once i go back printing i will dramatically reduce my simple shake program....
So far there is only one bit of advice that i can honestly and sincerely offer to everybody...and its this....i am certain that vibrating your cart or your printer for that matter will never do harm !
Matt
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In the very begining of this thread, Eric made us very aware that his effort to clear his "clogs" with cleaning solution and carts were a waste of money and effort.
Here's the thing, I can't afford to have a tech come and make this repair. If the carts don't work (and I've already stated that I have little hope) the Epson goes to the highest bidder and I lease a Canon 8300s or 8400 (Kinda leaning towards the 8300s). Whatever I can get for the Epson goes towards the new printer and I get a warranty, user replaceable heads and a year warranty on replaced heads when and if I ever get to that point. It kills me that I just spent $1500 on ink.
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Like it...daring concept.....maybe like we see a car being washed back and forward....
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Luca, don't die about spending all that loot. I've never really considered this before but with these X900 Epsons dying off to the scrap yard it could be that a used parts market is emerging. For instance let's say you just bought a 700ml cart, then blew 40% of it doing power cleans and killed your head. Printer is a total loss so it goes to the junk, and 420ml of new HDR ink goes down the toilet with it. You go buy a Canon clinging to the only trace of happiness you can, which is knowing you won't be in this place again any time soon. While that may be a trace of happiness, it's mostly sadness. I don't know how reasonable it is to sell something like half used ink on craigslist, but it does still have value doesn't it?
As for your cleaning carts, they aren't cheap either - and they too may threaten to end up in the can. I can help you here. I have a dream to set up an X900 machine specifically for cleanings, so I'll buy them from you when/if you're done with them. Why must we all face the daunting task of buying cleaning carts, purging all that expensive ink, filling the lines with cleaning fluid, rinsing the head, then filling the lines with ink again? It's too much I think. Ridiculous money down a ridiculous drain.
I haven't thought to share this because why would I, we don't even know if it's possible yet. But I have a dream. In this dream we will find a way to clear clogged heads. Once we do I will offer an X900 Rescue Package consisting of the following: head removal video, special phillips head screwdriver, empty printhead shipping box, four Hersheys kisses. You get the package, take your head out, ship it to me, I soak it/clean it, install it in the X900 cleaning carts machine. I do cleanings with it, print with it, confirm it is indeed clear. I pack it up and send it back to you. We all finally slip the knot from the noose around our necks.
Hell of a dream, I know, but that's my MO. I am a dreamer
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one observation: in outdoor printers, like Rolands (also Epson heads), one can print with a few cloged or deflected nozzels because no one nottice from the distance. In time, the clogged nozzels "heal" themselvs, just by printing not by cleanings. I know it is not a solution for fine prints, but just an observation that clogged heads can heal by printing. Obvious, it is not a 100% solution, some clogs never cleans.
Iladi,
If we were talking about the 9800/3800/4000 heads, I'd agree with you. And running 8x10 swatches was one method I used to clear a nozzle.
However, in the last 1-1/2 years of owning my 9890, this has never worked. I have ALWAYS had to resort to a paired cleaning to clear dropped nozzles. I believe this is because the x900 heads do not generate the same kind of "firing force" that the older head do. The whole head cleaning process is vastly different than the older heads. The new heads just do not seem to be able to force the gunk out.
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one observation: in outdoor printers, like Rolands (also Epson heads), one can print with a few cloged or deflected nozzels because no one nottice from the distance. In time, the clogged nozzels "heal" themselvs, just by printing not by cleanings. I know it is not a solution for fine prints, but just an observation that cloged heads can heal by printing. Obvious, it is not a 100% solution, some clogs never cleans.
On the 4900 it's a mixed bag. Some clogs do rectify themselves by printing, and some don't, requiring a "pair-cleaning". I had this experience both ways just last night.
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Mark
This is just a thesis and you very probably have read it as avidly as i have !
You may have noticed that around page 125 the cameras used were able to pick air bubbles tethering on the brink of the nozzle wondering whether to "stay outside" the head or go with the flow backwards into the nozzles chamber......unfortunately the bubbles were photographed "sneaking back inside "
Seemingly whats to blame (as I'm sure you know ) is pooled ink lying on the head for longer than is healthy !
The thesis attributes a lot of responsibility to poor hygiene management by the user.. .
We are also admonished on the dirt side ie rag papers flints what have you....that in these scientists opinion goes back up the head....as the air bubble seemingly can....
I sincerely do not think it impossible for drying rubber blade resins to get in on the act with the air bubbles and dirt blobs ....what actually would prevent resins ( coagulating ink in simple terms) which have not been properly washed off the blade going anywhere that the wiper blade touches..or takes them...?Unfortunately,i am using a huge amount of imagination and hunch right now....i am just a printer user mostly who is learning so much from all of your contributions...
I would love to be able to prove that this thesis is right or wrong....
But I am way out of my depth......
But thanks Chris 233 for giving me a chance to read something of a different world :D
Matt
The paper from the Epson engineers doesn't address the specific issue at hand here. As for the thesis, I don't have the engineering background to evaluate it, even if I did I wouldn't have the detailed knowledge of the Epson printhead and the system that drives it; therefore I would not make any presumption, hunch, guess or inference about the accuracy of its findings in respect of this issue for specific print heads in x900 Epson printers.
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........So far there is only one bit of advice that i can honestly and sincerely offer to everybody...and its this....i am certain that vibrating your cart or your printer for that matter will never do harm !
Matt
Matt, honestly, on a scale of 1 to 10, the most important piece of advice I would offer any one having clogging problems is to make prints at least twice a week, allowing no more than three days interval between. OR, do experiments, as I have done, to see for how long you can leave the printer alone without needing to clean it on next start up. In my case for the 4900 in my humidity and temperature conditions (well within Epson specs), it's up to 5 days.
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Iladi,
.............. The new heads just do not seem to be able to force the gunk out.
Chad, from my experience, it depends. Sometimes yes sometimes no. I'd say more often than not one does need a "pair cleaning" to get all those little lines reproducing in the nozzle check. But before cleaning, unless many lines are missing, I do try running a print and then a nozzle check to see how much printing repairs on its own.
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Sorry, my bad, I was not very clear: if some cleanings cannot totaly unclog a head, in time, after some prints, it is possible that the clogged nozzels heal themselves. So, if it is possible, avoid to many cleanings, try to better use the ink and print something not waste the ink downn the waste tank.
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Chad, from my experience, it depends. Sometimes yes sometimes no. I'd say more often than not one does need a "pair cleaning" to get all those little lines reproducing in the nozzle check. But before cleaning, unless many lines are missing, I do try running a print and then a nozzle check to see how much printing repairs on its own.
Hi Mark!
Yes, your 4900 is certainly a different creature than the 79/9900's in that your head sits horizontal in the capping station. Perhaps this helps keep the nozzles more "moist" than my 9890 with it's slanted capping station.
When I first bought my 9890 and had a bad clog, I tried to add some distilled water to the capping station for a soak. It just wasn't practical with the way it's slanted, and the individually capped channels. I had better luck with my 7800 doing this.
Kind of miss my 7800! It could go 3 months without any serious clogs. But the BIG thing I miss is once you had a good nozzle check, it STAYED that way as long as you were printing.
My 9890 has (more often that I care to think about) dropped nozzles after doing large prints. Enough so that if I do a 30x40 (or larger) I will do a nozzle check after wards. Sometimes it's okay, but too frequently it's not. I've not been able to determine any pattern to this either.
It has been better since my capping station and AID board were replaced. I turn off AID because it was just TOO sensitive and would run a cleaning for a partially deflected nozzle (even if the nozzle check looked good). Really hate wasting ink!
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Hi Mark!
Yes, your 4900 is certainly a different creature than the 79/9900's in that your head sits horizontal in the capping station. Perhaps this helps keep the nozzles more "moist" than my 9890 with it's slanted capping station.
When I first bought my 9890 and had a bad clog, I tried to add some distilled water to the capping station for a soak. It just wasn't practical with the way it's slanted, and the individually capped channels. I had better luck with my 7800 doing this.
Kind of miss my 7800! It could go 3 months without any serious clogs. But the BIG thing I miss is once you had a good nozzle check, it STAYED that way as long as you were printing.
My 9890 has (more often that I care to think about) dropped nozzles after doing large prints. Enough so that if I do a 30x40 (or larger) I will do a nozzle check after wards. Sometimes it's okay, but too frequently it's not. I've not been able to determine any pattern to this either.
It has been better since my capping station and AID board were replaced. I turn off AID because it was just TOO sensitive and would run a cleaning for a partially deflected nozzle (even if the nozzle check looked good). Really hate wasting ink!
In the early days when I still had my Epson 4000, tech support recommended moistening the felt pads at the bottom of the capping station. It didn't help - at all.
On my 4900 I have also turned off all automatic cleaning. It was doing too much cleaning. My philosophy is that if a cleaning is really needed it will show up in a nozzle check, and I do those before each printing session, or during a session if I see the print coming out with obviously missed colours (this latter happened only once since I bought the printer in December 2010).
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Matt, honestly, on a scale of 1 to 10, the most important piece of advice I would offer any one having clogging problems is to make prints at least twice a week, allowing no more than three days interval between. OR, do experiments, as I have done, to see for how long you can leave the printer alone without needing to clean it on next start up. In my case for the 4900 in my humidity and temperature conditions (well within Epson specs), it's up to 5 days.
Mark
Yes I agree...
the more frequently one prints obviously the less one would hope to have to do housekeeping...and i agree it makes sense to print...thats why we buy our machines after all..as i said i will reduce my agitation program proportionately as i recommence printing...
However, your own results are beginning to indicate to me at least that i may be on the right track after all.....
During the last 75 days i have done 5 auto cleans...and printed 2 small rgb prints..4 autos went through clean on the first run...the one reject took 3 blocked lines before cleaning itself..minor really...but a reject nevertheless...
So am i right in saying that in the last 75 days i had 1 block situation....and 2 small prints to my name....
On the other hand,am i wrong in deducting that ,in order for your 900 to remain trouble free over 75 days ,you have either produced 25 prints in that time OR if you were not in the position to produce 25 prints that in your established cleaning method you would need to have done ( in your own words)....
15 startups and 15 cleans on startups over a 75 day period of zero printing....
Then again i may be jumping to conclusions that the inference in your post above was that your method was superior to the method i use....apologies if i have
Matt
...
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Mark
Yes I agree...
the more frequently one prints obviously the less one would hope to have to do housekeeping...and i agree it makes sense to print...thats why we buy our machines after all..as i said i will reduce my agitation program proportionately as i recommence printing...
However, your own results are beginning to indicate to me at least that i may be on the right track after all.....
During the last 75 days i have done 5 auto cleans...and printed 2 small rgb prints..4 autos went through clean on the first run...the one reject took 3 blocked lines before cleaning itself..minor really...but a reject nevertheless...
So am i right in saying that in the last 75 days i had 1 block situation....and 2 small prints to my name....
On the other hand,am i wrong in deducting that ,in order for your 900 to remain trouble free over 75 days ,you have either produced 25 prints in that time OR if you were not in the position to produce 25 prints that in your established cleaning method you would need to have done ( in your own words)....
15 startups and 15 cleans on startups over a 75 day period of zero printing....
Then again i may be jumping to conclusions that the inference in your post above was that your method was superior to the method i use....apologies if i have
Matt
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Matt,
Here's what happens in my studio/office. Maybe I'm typical, maybe not, I don't know, but FWIW, here goes. I like making photographs and printing them. I also have a huge backlog of scanning, because I'm not a youngster and I have film going back many decades, some of which is worth digitizing and preserving (why I developed some specialization in making and processing scanned images and even wrote a book about it). So the only thing that keeps me from making prints is time and absence from home when I need to travel. So that's my "context". As I said, it is optimal to print every three days or so. Even if I only have time to turn the printer on, run a nozzle check and make a print or two, that's adequate, but normally I would be making more. If I leave the printer off for 5 days I can count on a pair cleaning, and then make several prints or more. And that's it. So yes - 25 prints minimum in 75 days, but on this rhythm, it's basically trouble free, and no waste to speak of. At five day intervals (minimum 15 prints), a pair cleaning really uses very little ink, so again, little waste relative to the volume of prints made, but if I can maintain a 3 day interval cycle so much the better. If I am away for several weeks at a time, then I can count on being into a bigger cleaning issue - BUT so far, no complete power cleans; rather I'll find it needs "Clean>Powerful" on individual pairs, with up to an hour doing the clean-print-clean routine to get the printer back to 100%. It always come back to 100%, but it wastes time, a few sheets of paper and in that case, yes, wastes ink. But there hasn't been a train-smash so far, and the print quality is excellent.
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I regretfully report our latest cleaning solution has about as much impact on our dried ink as I had on science homework back in 9th grade. Head low, in my hands, thoughts of tears but nothing yet.
WTF is this stuff made of...
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I regretfully report our latest cleaning solution has about as much impact on our dried ink as I had on science homework back in 9th grade. Head low, in my hands, thoughts of tears but nothing yet.
WTF is this stuff made of...
Sorry Eric we are all really rooting for ya!
I like your dream post much better ;)
I have another thought.
My wife the artist, uses a product called Pink Soap to clean her brushes.
The label says will clean Oils Acrylics and Watercolors contains a conditioner but no chlorides, phosphates,alkalies alcohol or solvents ?
Realatively cheap and probably available at any art supply, Michaels Hobby, Lobby, etc
Here's their site and some other interesting products to use on dried paints...
http://www.speedballart.com/our-products.php?cat=71
David
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I regretfully report our latest cleaning solution has about as much impact on our dried ink as I had on science homework back in 9th grade. Head low, in my hands, thoughts of tears but nothing yet.
WTF is this stuff made of...
For God Sake Man
Do you not realise that you are the first human being to have discovered that a solution does not work WITHOUT HAVING TO DO A SELF DESTRUCTIVE POWER CLEANING PROCEDURE SO TO DO .....
I am extremely envious for one !
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Matt,
Here's what happens in my studio/office. Maybe I'm typical, maybe not, I don't know, but FWIW, here goes. I like making photographs and printing them. I also have a huge backlog of scanning, because I'm not a youngster and I have film going back many decades, some of which is worth digitizing and preserving (why I developed some specialization in making and processing scanned images and even wrote a book about it). So the only thing that keeps me from making prints is time and absence from home when I need to travel. So that's my "context". As I said, it is optimal to print every three days or so. Even if I only have time to turn the printer on, run a nozzle check and make a print or two, that's adequate, but normally I would be making more. If I leave the printer off for 5 days I can count on a pair cleaning, and then make several prints or more. And that's it. So yes - 25 prints minimum in 75 days, but on this rhythm, it's basically trouble free, and no waste to speak of. At five day intervals (minimum 15 prints), a pair cleaning really uses very little ink, so again, little waste relative to the volume of prints made, but if I can maintain a 3 day interval cycle so much the better. If I am away for several weeks at a time, then I can count on being into a bigger cleaning issue - BUT so far, no complete power cleans; rather I'll find it needs "Clean>Powerful" on individual pairs, with up to an hour doing the clean-print-clean routine to get the printer back to 100%. It always come back to 100%, but it wastes time, a few sheets of paper and in that case, yes, wastes ink. But there hasn't been a train-smash so far, and the print quality is excellent.
Mark
You know your 900 at least as well as I think i know my 800 !
i have the less sophisticated 800 that i am testing to its limits through (at the moment anyway ) INACTION...you have the more advanced 900 that you have calibrated to "purr" by intelligently matching your print production to the fluidity needs of the printer ....you have clearly demonstrated that it is possible to stay printing once you know the limits of your machine and respect them.
Now put these two methods of management together.. and what are the possibilities...?
1 your method tells us what you need to be producing in terms of regular print output with the 900. .in a going concern scenario...how many days between prints...how long is a safe vacation period ..really practical stuff...make sure your machine matches your workload....not an easy task when one takes note of the many "cries for help " all around us on this thread .....and you have been successful and thats what matters.
2 The method that i have pursued is testing the machine itself in terms of its endurance... Basic things like ....(dormant means no printing )
How long between autos for a dormant 900 = 5 days (thanks to your research Mark )
How long between autos for a dormant 800 = 15 days ( my research )
Over 75 days I know that the 800 had a 80% success rate on its 5 dormant printer auto checks...just one clean to be done. 10 minutes cleaning in 75 days (printer not entirely dormant...2 tiny prints done in 75 days )previous 210 days had similar results....no printing ...
Hypothetically,If you were to do 5 autos on a dormant 900 over 75 days could you guess how many hours it would take to clear your clogs during the 75 day period ?
3 I am of the opinion that the obvious difference in the management of the clog characteristics of the two machines is partially as a result of the different features of the two machines but principally as a result of the way that i manage the 800 on a day to day basis as compared to conventional management methods.
4 i expect to improve on my 80 % success rate provided that i print a photograph once every 15 days at least and continue with my existing auto check routine.
5 i expect that the rate of improvement above 80% clog free ( 10 minutes cleaning time every 75 days) will be directly correlated to
A. The amount of printing done and its frequency over the 75 day period
B the continuation of my existing clog management program in addition to a consistent regular print program like you achieve Mark.
Matt
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isn't it a hoot how we have to optimize the baby-sitting of our printers? I *almost* regret getting rid of my 3800. Never had to think of stuff like this.
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Mark
On the negative front,
When i start printing again with the 800,i do expect any performance gains that i make ,in my opinion anyway,to be challenged by Epsons terribly sad method of moving obsolete inks (resins) away from the printhead ably assisted (epson hopes )by gravitational forces ,in the expectation that these resins are gone away for ever.....
The resin disposal method for the 900 is not sad ....its funny
Matt
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I am so excited I can hardly believe this. If you've been reading along you might remember me describing watching one of the many cleaning solutions actively dissolving dried ink lodged inside the chamber walls of the piezoboard. I had a few tests going on at the time and to be honest I lost myself in all of it. Somehow I mixed up my test channels which devalued any of the tests I had just done that day. But I "knew" one of the cleaning fluids actually did work. So, I set out to do all the tests again. Whatever, I do a lot of things twice. But when I did this test again, and watched this fluid in anticipation of the same remarkable dried ink dissolving phenomenon, it never happened. I tried it again on another channel. It never happened. WTF...? So at this point I decided the ink that I watched dissolving must not have been that dry. That's the only explanation I could come up with. To date "all cleaning solutions fail to dissolve our dried ink".
A few days ago I ordered the 3M cleaner. Another $80. Whatever. It takes a while to get here because they don't rush ship this stuff. So we wait. But all this time I am still haunted by the moving image that I know I saw, of one solution actually working.
...I woke this morning and it hit me square in the forehead. In the beginning of my tests I went crazy aggressive, I tried Acetone, but only on a few channels. It worked like mad, cleaned the chambers like that was it's sole purpose in life. But it compromised the glue that sticks the channels to the head. Done deal, Acetone is out. One of the channels that I used for this test I let soak in Acetone for hours. The other two only ten minutes or so, then I rinsed them off with distilled water and Dawn. There they have sat ever since in my test cabinet. These channels are still packed with dried ink, as the Acetone wasn't on them long. And it is THESE channels that I used to "confirm" whether or not the fluid which I thought had worked, had actually worked. Which now it did not. So what "hit me in the forehead" this morning was an idea that the Acetone may have melted the outer surface of the dried ink that it started to dissolve, but then when I removed it this might have sealed the dried ink in some scientific way that I am only imagining. So this morning I repeated the same test, for the third time, on a virgin channel.
Are you curious yet? Do you already know what happened? You do don't you..
...it works. The dried ink-packed piezoboard is 100% clear of ink, and the chamber walls look lazer perfect. This fluid did not harm the super sensitive board AT ALL.
KOWAFREAKINGBUNGA!!!!!!
I apologize for the confusion. My mistake(s).
Next test is to perform what I have come to feel is the safest and most effective cleaning procedure to a printhead channel, with this fluid, while it is still secured to a printhead. Then I will perform a full autopsy. Yes, with pics :)
I love you too
ps - it was the RED fluid
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Hey Eric, is this the same RED fluid you were successful with?
http://zczy.en.alibaba.com/product/635234629-214342460/Original_Clean_fluid_for_epson_Pro_9600_printer.html
Did you find this from a US source, or did Hal give you some?
Great news on the tests!
.... look what I just stumbled on ... this must be really old, but still on the web. I wonder what's in this stuff:
http://www.squaredot.com/flushkit%20web/headflush2.html
And for finding products with similar chemical indrediants, this may be helpful:
http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=chem&id=148
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Unfortunately I cannot confirm what this fluid is. HAL sent it to me in unmarked containers. Knew little about it. Gave little advice. I could grow another head tomorrow using this stuff. Being very careful though.
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Unfortunately I cannot confirm what this fluid is. HAL sent it to me in unmarked containers. Knew little about it. Gave little advice. I could grow another head tomorrow using this stuff. Being very careful though.
I know they say that two heads are better then one, but I’d presume they weren’t figuring on them being on the same body. Be careful.
Brian A
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When I ordered extra wipers from Compass Micro last year I asked about the cleaning solutions Epson used to sell and was told they were only available in 55Gallon drums to the tech people.
This is probably what Hal sent.
I do imagine that due to environmental and safety reasons Epson withdrew it from the general public...
Especially California, which has a warning label on just about everything produced today.
I'm surprised they even allow the sale of Banannas in Cal. since if not properly disposed of, the skin can be a serious hazard. ::)
David
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Chaddro,
All these places that sell these cleaning "solutions" always have a disclaimer that the product will not be effective if you have burned out the head. Even Ericks guy "Oh Canada" had this disclaimer on his site.
I may be wrong but I believe that most people that have serious "clogs" and have done multiple power cleans have already done too much damage to their head, and cleaning is no longer an option. It all boils down to just how much repetative, consecutive cleaning, will do damage to the head.
I hope I'm wrong...
David
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Chaddro,
All these places that sell these cleaning "solutions" always have a disclaimer that the product will not be effective if you have burned out the head. Even Ericks guy "Oh Canada" had this disclaimer on his site.
I may be wrong but I believe that most people that have serious "clogs" and have done multiple power cleans have already done too much damage to their head, and cleaning is no longer an option. It all boils down to just how much repetative, consecutive cleaning, will do damage to the head.
I hope I'm wrong...
David
I don't think you are wrong, I have seen advice NOT to do consecutive power cleaning, and I suspect doing even more than one without running prints through the system between cleanings could be deleterious.
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I for one don't know what deleterious means but I have spent a lot of time peering around the insides of these heads. So far I have never come across something looking thinner on one chamber in areas, bent, having different sized holes, or looking worn out. It is my opinion, which has been developed by listening to the many fateful stories that I have heard about heads with un-clearable clogs, that these problems aren't lite switch type problems. What I mean by that is they don't reach 100% terminally clogged in a week. From what I understand many of these deadly clogs were first troublesome, but to a degree manageable. Until they were not anymore.
What I have actually seen while exploring the microscopic world inside these heads is that many chambers have hardened ink lodged inside of them, but at the bottom of the chamber, so at the top ink is still passable. While other chambers are completely clogged, floor to ceiling. If you keep this paragraph in mind, and now recall the one that preceded it, you might now consider that power cleanings (which are the cleanings that fire the piezos - which flex the sometimes unflexable ink-locked walls) are most dangerous when we need them the most. My bet is that a semi-clogged chamber will benefit greatly from a power cleaning, because the movement and heat will dislodge the semi-hardened ink and discharge it from the head. My other bet is that a fully clogged chamber, with it's chamber walls locked from moving while the piezos are firing, is the chamber that is doomed to permanently fail. I don't think there is a semi-fail, a close to fail, or an about to fail head. I think your head is failed, or not.
Definitely print between cleanings, like Mark says. And definitely do no more than, quick, somebody pick a number, (1?) power cleanings before you resort to plan... "D" - which is we don't know yet.
In my opinion you do pairs cleanings first. If that doesn't work you try them in serviceman mode, there are four different levels. If by then you still have your clogs, try power cleaning. But after one power cleaning if your clog is still there, maybe you've got a problem the machine itself cannot solve. Once those piezo's can't flex, your machine's hands are tied. But I really think it's too early to consider it dead. Maybe bury it, but tie a string to it's big toe with a bell on the end of it, just in case. In the mean time, I'll be on the graveyard shift.
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Well, the standard "paired" cleaning should not damage the head at all. There is no piezo firing associated with this. The capping station just SUCK the ink out.
The problem with SUCKING the ink out (and not firing any nozzles) is that a fluid will always flow in the path of least resistance. So there is no way for the cleaning station to target just the problematic nozzles. Say one color channel drops... you keep cleaning to NO avail because ink gets sucked out the other color in the pair: the path of least resistance.
So I was thinking. What about adapting a syringe with a rubber seal on the tip that you can use to target say 5 or 6 nozzles at once? Like a regular cleaning, but targeted. Not the small tipped syringes, but the large ones that vets use when feeding animals, etc. If we knew how much sucking force the standard cleaning creates, you'd have an idea of what is safe and you could apply cleaning in a more directed approach. I have thought that a small aquarium pump might work. You could use regular vinyl tubing with some kind of o-ring on the end. Sorry if this sounds crazy. Just thinking out loud here.
As side story about cleaning... a couple years ago I bought a Fuji Q4 Pro HVLP off ebay. Was owned by a custom cabinet making shop. Got a GREAT price on it. At least I thought I had. When it arrived, it turned out that the last time it was used, it wasn't cleaned. Everything was glued together with a white epoxy base enamel paint. It took me HOURS and plenty of acetone to get the spray head pristine again - slowly, layer by layer! Seriously, HOURS!
If the RED fluid works Eric, and can dissolve dried ink, I suppose the real question is how long can the head be exposed to the RED before it starts to dissolve things other than ink!
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Eric, you posted while I was writing! But I agree with you. If 1 power cleaning won't clear the clog, you have a big problem. Maybe time to take the head out and soak it in the RED stuff, or it's equivalant!
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Trust me chaddro by weekend's end we will know how long is too long, and why it is too long. But first I have to find out if I can even get more RED.
As for your suction idea I appreciate that type of thinking. Creative thinking. So here is more food for more (creative) thought; one channel that I recently took apart was so packed with ink that the hardened yellow ink actually kept the shape of the nozzle opening after the top of the channel had been removed. Doubt I'm explaining this well enough to give you the picture but suffice to say sometimes our clogs are very well established. Under a microscope, which is the only way to see this stuff, under 280x magnification you get an idea of size relationships. If the nozzle opening has a diameter of 1, then a nozzle chamber has the width of 3, a depth of 8, and a length of maybe 40. No matter how you slice it, or how you suck it, that's a 960lb block of ink trying to fit through a 1lb opening, with nothing to dissolve it but the same ink that formed it. ...that's one hell of a challenge.
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Trust me chaddro by weekend's end we will know how long is too long, and why it is too long. But first I have to find out if I can even get more RED.
As for your suction idea I appreciate that type of thinking. Creative thinking. So here is more food for more (creative) thought; one channel that I recently took apart was so packed with ink that the hardened yellow ink actually kept the shape of the nozzle opening after the top of the channel had been removed. Doubt I'm explaining this well enough to give you the picture but suffice to say sometimes our clogs are very well established. Under a microscope, which is the only way to see this stuff, under 280x magnification you get an idea of size relationships. If the nozzle opening has a diameter of 1, then a nozzle chamber has the width of 3, a depth of 8, and a length of maybe 40. No matter how you slice it, or how you suck it, that's a 960lb block of ink trying to fit through a 1lb opening, with nothing to dissolve it but the same ink that formed it. ...that's one hell of a challenge.
In other words, the 1 against 960 is samson versus goliath......our mothers would have gone for the cod liver oil (guessing) and we would-be on our way to the loo in no time...son your just constipated...!
And of course from Epsons perspective the 1 droplet at a time that does get through the tiny aperture of 1 must have power behind it (960 bits of power) ...and great speed and controllability....(guessing again )
What you are allowing us to see and think about for the very first time Eric is that the flexibility of a Piezo chamber is USELESS unless it has flexible ink to play with....
Knowing you.......you probably wont be happy until you can prove that excessive power cleaning actually DOES damage piezo walls....and no doubt you will produce a photgraph of the damaged wall to prove it !!
On the other hand,possibly the hardening ink takes the rap and protects the wall behind it....you will tell us all in your own time
No tv for me this week-end
Good on you Eric
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What I have actually seen while exploring the microscopic world inside these heads is that many chambers have hardened ink lodged inside of them, but at the bottom of the chamber, so at the top ink is still passable. While other chambers are completely clogged, floor to ceiling. If you keep this paragraph in mind, and now recall the one that preceded it, you might now consider that power cleanings (which are the cleanings that fire the piezos - which flex the sometimes unflexable ink-locked walls) are most dangerous when we need them the most. My bet is that a semi-clogged chamber will benefit greatly from a power cleaning, because the movement and heat will dislodge the semi-hardened ink and discharge it from the head. My other bet is that a fully clogged chamber, with it's chamber walls locked from moving while the piezos are firing, is the chamber that is doomed to permanently fail. I don't think there is a semi-fail, a close to fail, or an about to fail head. I think your head is failed, or not.
Definitely print between cleanings, like Mark says. And definitely do no more than, quick, somebody pick a number, (1?) power cleanings before you resort to plan... "D" - which is we don't know yet.
In my opinion you do pairs cleanings first. If that doesn't work you try them in serviceman mode, there are four different levels. If by then you still have your clogs, try power cleaning. But after one power cleaning if your clog is still there, maybe you've got a problem the machine itself cannot solve. Once those piezo's can't flex, your machine's hands are tied. But I really think it's too early to consider it dead. Maybe bury it, but tie a string to it's big toe with a bell on the end of it, just in case. In the mean time, I'll be on the graveyard shift.
I am confident ,and have said a few times now, that it is indeed excessive power cleans killing the heads.
Are you so sure that Oh'Canada blew out your head with too much pressure,or was it already burned out due to tooo many power cleans?
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61585.msg585320#msg585320
David
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Why do I think the clearest first thing in the morning?
Here is some food for thought, before the weekend's fun begins, on the subject of growing clogs. It has been my experience, and the experience of quite a few others who have chimed in here, that after doing power cleanings their clogs sometimes are worse instead of better. This has never made sense to me until now. Now I'm not saying I know why this happens, more I am offering an idea. Consider just two adjacent chambers - one fully clogged with dry ink on the left, the other only partially with dry ink on the right. The right chamber still fires because ink still passes through the upper portion of the chamber, but it's in jeopardy. The left chamber does not fire at all. So you do a power cleaning. This fires all chambers, all walls are charged, they all get hot, they all flex - except the wall between our two chambers because the chamber on the left is frozen stuck. Perhaps this heat, with no movement of the chamber walls, actually bakes the already building clog in the right chamber - causing it to grow instead of shrink.
I don't know, this is just an idea. But it could support some reason to what is otherwise, so far, a perplexing phenomenon.
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I am confident ,and have said a few times now, that it is indeed excessive power cleans killing the heads.
Are you so sure that Oh'Canada blew out your head with too much pressure,or was it already burned out due to tooo many power cleans?
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61585.msg585320#msg585320
David
That's a great question and I have a great answer. I am sure our head was functioning before we sent it to Canada. In fact it printed, minus the drop-outs, fine. We only had un-clearable clogs in two colors, and those clogs were small percentages of the channels. Our clogged channels were actually mostly clear. There is a pic of our last nozzle pattern on page one.
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The more we talk about this, the more I can almost image what's happening in the head.
Remember, the Piezo element is in the TOP of the chamber. This was detailed in those recent posted docs (the patent one and the other, don't remember...)
When you do a power clean, perhaps all you are doing is COMPACTING he already sludgy ink, and allowing more sludgy ink into "damnation alley".
Also, there MUST BE a problem with Epson's new fancy paired capping station technology. To do something like have a solid blocked channel would take weeks and weeks of air exposure to cause this to cake up.
Now, add normal head operation, and maybe we're BAKING the ink into a toothpaste like substance until it finally hardens like concrete.
And while I'm on a roll... if this kind of clogging is gradually building up (like plaque in your arteries!), perhaps the head need to be taken out and flushed one a year to keep everything nice and shiny inside???
Or, less drastically, just fill each damper with the RED STUFF... let sit an hour (or so) and then a standard cleaning...???
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I think Chaddro is correct about this assessment and the more I think about this I suspect that a head that gradually is exposed to air will cause these kinds of problems. The capping station tolerance has to be pretty well sport on to prevent this kind of problem. The only other possibility in my mind is poor quality control in the ink manufacturing process where there are some oversize particles that plug things up (though I don't think Epson would say this is the case).
Alan
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Why do I think the clearest first thing in the morning?
Here is some food for thought, before the weekend's fun begins, on the subject of growing clogs. It has been my experience, and the experience of quite a few others who have chimed in here, that after doing power cleanings their clogs sometimes are worse instead of better. This has never made sense to me until now. Now I'm not saying I know why this happens, more I am offering an idea. Consider just two adjacent chambers - one fully clogged with dry ink on the left, the other only partially with dry ink on the right. The right chamber still fires because ink still passes through the upper portion of the chamber, but it's in jeopardy. The left chamber does not fire at all. So you do a power cleaning. This fires all chambers, all walls are charged, they all get hot, they all flex - except the wall between our two chambers because the chamber on the left is frozen stuck. Perhaps this heat, with no movement of the chamber walls, actually bakes the already building clog in the right chamber - causing it to grow instead of shrink.
I don't know, this is just an idea. But it could support some reason to what is otherwise, so far, a perplexing phenomenon.
Makes a lot of sense and very good logic to me!!!
David
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There I sat tonight, pondering more money spent, and the week or so it will take for my shipment of RED to arrive. Until then I have only a tiny bottle to experiment with. I sat, I thought, I finally grew impatient. I've watched RED circulate it's way around piezo chambers enough already. I know what happens in an hour, I know what happens in a day. WTF am I waiting for.. I removed the un-clearable clogged head from this dead 9900 that I bought from Edward the Juggler in Colorado, for the second time in a month. Last time I used gentle fluids, knowing full well they most likely wouldn't work. I knew the head would be out again. This was a learning experience. I was fine with that. But tonight after work I went back to page-1 of this thread, and read from top to bottom. Funny, quite a few responses went missing, but that's not what grabbed me most. The date of post-1 did. Lord forgive me it's almost a year to the day.
I knew a lot already in my first post about these machines, but at the same time I knew very little. Man have we come a long way in a year. But we still can't clear un-clearable X900 clogs. Not yet anyway, which finally got my goat. I dumped the little RED I have left into my soak tank and set ole 99 face down in the juice. I drew RED up into each channel, particularly focusing on green - which is 98% dead. I sealed the tank, stowed it in the cabinet, and there it will sit til tomorrow.
HAL warned me "nobody knows what it does to 900 heads. Don't leave it long". Well I'm gonna know what it does to 900 heads. And soon so will you.
...you had to figure the framing hammer was coming sooner or later
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/GoGo_framing.jpg)
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Eric,
Are we to the point of posting another thread, just to condense what would be a good guide for those looking for help. I want this thread to keep going, great stuff. Just thinking it would be great for someone looking for help to not have to weed thru all this to find some simple advice. Thanks for all the work you have done.
I think in another two or three days I will finally be back to printing after being down for FIVE months. Yes this last clog has taken me this long to clear.
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Seems to me that the only worry from leaving it too long would be softening and delamination of the adhesives bonding the layers together.
Lets hope this is not the case. ;-)
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You have GOT to be kidding me...
Head back in after soaking in RED all night. Everything functions perfect. Head is recognized, nozzle patterns razor sharp, life is good - except for green. Still 98% MIA.
This is my theory as to why:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/clogger.jpg)
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Maybe it needs some Drano™
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Eric, I have the clear. I have had it for a long time. It's in its original bottle with Japanese writing on it. Can you read Japanese?
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My most recent focus has been finding the proper chemical to dissolve dried HDR Ultrachrome Ink. We found that, but the deadly clogs persist. We can only reach a small percentage of the two ends of these clogs, but the meat of the clog is untouched. The next step in this direction is soaking longer, which I have decided against. I am changing tack. It's too dangerous I feel, soaking with RED too long. The reason for this is very simple. Each channel runs two inks. The most delicate link in the chain which keeps these two separate inks separate, is the bond of the printhead face to the piezoboard. Once this goes soft, green and orange won't be green and orange anymore, instead they'll both be brown. If your head hasn't died yet in the face of cleanings, this will kill it for sure.
These piezoboards are amazingly intricate. Even though I have a stereo microscope, and can see these boards in great detail, I have to admit they are elusive things to map your way around. They are very difficult to light under the scope, and depending on how you light them they can and do change their shape straight before you. This makes it very difficult to understand exactly what you are seeing. Then there is the fact that typically they are caked with dried ink. It's a challenge. But recently, after the successful cleanings with RED, I have got some clearer views of these things under the scope. Another discovery was viewing them while submerged in water. This cleared things up even more.
What I have confirmed now is that the line of 358 consecutive chamber walls are indeed built on one horizontal deck. I knew this before, but what I did not know is that the deck they are built on is actually transparent. The next thing I learned recently is that beneath these transparent chamber wall lined decks, there is a second open reservoir containing free flowing ink which runs UN-compartmentalized, for both the width and the length of the entire deck. Stick that in your hat and consider what's next..
Upon the very closest, submerged in water under halogen lights examination I have managed to perform to date, I have discovered that at one end of each piezo chamber, at the very bottom, directly downward from the placement of the nozzle opening in the printhead face, there are incredibly tiny "steps". Three total. I cannot confirm what they are at this point, but I am suspect that they might actually lead to the un-compartmentalized ink reservoir below. Why you ask do I think this, if we already know ink is supplied to the chambers by passing through the tiny space over the "speed bump"? I have no $U*O%&)#$-ing idea, yet, but I do have an unsolved mystery to share which may be related..
*paragraph note: when I say "pressure" I am talking nearly immeasurable pressure.
When you create negative pressure at the rear of the head in order to suck fluid up through the face of the head, you get resistance. When you apply positive pressure to the rear of the head in order to push fluid out the face of the head, you get resistance. Nothing happens. But after a while of soaking things do begin to move. It does become possible to both draw fluid up through the face of the head into the chambers and out the back, and to push fluid through the chambers and out the nozzle openings in the face. So here-in lies the mystery; how in the love of $*)%! can it become possible for both cleaning fluid, and ink mind you, to both exit and enter the chambers through the nozzle openings, if the chambers are still clogged so solid that they don't fire once back in the machine? It can't of course, which brings us farther down this rabbit hole..
I have been sheepishly dodging my shadows for the past week about the fact that in reality I do not know how these heads work. Not REALLY work anyway. I mean, I have seen plenty of diagrams of piezoelectric nozzles by now. But none of them look like what I see in these X900 heads. So what gives?
I now think there could be two ways ink flows through the last elements of these printheads. I also now think this is why we have the variety of cleanings that we do. What if ....and I realize this is a big "IF".... these flexing chamber walls don't flex at all? What if they're just walls? And what if there is more to these X900 piezo nozzles than simply a hole in the roof at the end of an ink-filled hallway? What if these "steps" are elements of an actual nozzle, supplied not by the ink in the chambers, but by the reservoir below? The successful firing of these nozzles could in some way relate, perhaps via pressure (negative or positive), to the ink inside these chamber walls?
Stay with me for a minute here..
If a pairs cleaning "sucks" ink from the face of the printhead without firing the nozzles, it's main purpose could be simply to draw ink through the chamber passages, cleaning them instead of the actual nozzles ("steps") themselves. It could be that power cleanings, the cleanings that actually fire the nozzles as well, are intended to clear the firing elements of the actual nozzles. Lastly, if heat plays a role in all of this, and we know that it does because anywhere you have movement you have friction, which is heat, added to which we have piezoelectricity which is also heat - then it could be that these chamber walls play a major role in cooling as well as the passage of ink. Let me say that this way, could it be that these chamber walls play a key role in cooling as well as the passage of ink? Could this by why ink has such a tendency to dry up between them, because they dissipate so much heat? ...Especially in power cleanings - which is why deadly clogs often get bigger after power cleanings?
I apologize for all the words. I don't understand this. I am trying to. Definitely I got ink to both enter, and exit the printhead face via pressure from the ink supply nipples in the back of the head. Yet the machine couldn't fire the nozzles. I know ink is intended to pass through those chambers as part of the firing process. How else would the ink help cooling, if it were not moving? That passage of ink through the chambers likely plays two roles. And ink exits our heads from two different routes.
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We need to kidnap an Epson design engineer for the explaination!! :o ::)
To say the least, we can appreciate why these heads are so expensive!!!
I wonder what kind of manufacturing failure rate plays into the price equation?
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Eric
What you have now shown us is how difficult it is to clear a head that is partially clean in the first place but not in what appears to be the vital working area of the head..
And applying pressure through a syringe is not really usefull either as the liquid will flow no problem through the open reservoir area...and bypass the chamber area...
Whatever coating Epson lined the chambers with does not seem to be doing its job
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Yes that seems to be the case - forcing fluid through the head does nothing to clear dried ink in the chambers. And soaking them in aggressive fluids is wicked dangerous. Not sure what step to take next yet.
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New person here, old clog in a 4900. Having read through all of this several times I remain amazed at your individual and collective persistance. Here's a question, and let me know if this is the wrong place to ask it. With one dead channel/color (in my case VLM), might it be possible to re-plumb the head and make use of the fact that there are two blacks, photo and matte? In my mind's eye this is really simple, just a matter of unplugging and replugging two tubes at one end of the other of them. Surely it's more complicated if not impossible. But for those of us that have but one bad color, is it possible to re-map the colors, then for example put a VLM cartridge into the unused black (say the Matte black if we are printing on glossy paper)?
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New person here, old clog in a 4900. Having read through all of this several times I remain amazed at your individual and collective persistance. Here's a question, and let me know if this is the wrong place to ask it. With one dead channel/color (in my case VLM), might it be possible to re-plumb the head and make use of the fact that there are two blacks, photo and matte? In my mind's eye this is really simple, just a matter of unplugging and replugging two tubes at one end of the other of them. Surely it's more complicated if not impossible. But for those of us that have but one bad color, is it possible to re-map the colors, then for example put a VLM cartridge into the unused black (say the Matte black if we are printing on glossy paper)?
Even if you had the confidence to start tinkering with the hardware, I highly doubt this would work. You need to think of the whole process from the image file numbers onward in how the software and printer driver combine to deliver instructions about what drops to put where. If the reproduction of say VLM is needed, I suspect the instruction is being directed at delivering ink from the VLM channel, which is hard wired in firmware, not where you happen to place the VLM cartridge.
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It's an interesting idea. Chasing the option of switching MK with PK at the head and not mentioning it to the machine - for instance if your PK was clogged and you didn't need PK, kind of works in my mind. Only problem is the hoses that connect at the head are not individual lines. They are a bank of nipples fixed in two rows on the head, and a bank of hoses fixed at the base of the damper unit. I can't imagine switching colors would be possible. You'd be better off buying an MK cleaning cart, filling it with PK ink, and charging the line with PK instead. Then just print using "MK". That would handle switching your inks. As far as actually printing on glossy paper while the machine thinks you have MK in the gun, I don't know.. Maybe profiles are different for more than just the blacks when printing on matte papers?
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It's an interesting idea. Chasing the option of switching MK with PK at the head and not mentioning it to the machine - for instance if your PK was clogged and you didn't need PK, kind of works in my mind. Only problem is the hoses that connect at the head are not individual lines. They are a bank of nipples fixed in two rows on the head, and a bank of hoses fixed at the base of the damper unit. I can't imagine switching colors would be possible. You'd be better off buying an MK cleaning cart, filling it with PK ink, and charging the line with PK instead. Then just print using "MK". That would handle switching your inks. As far as actually printing on glossy paper while the machine thinks you have MK in the gun, I don't know.. Maybe profiles are different for more than just the blacks when printing on matte papers?
It also seems feasible that mk and pk are different enough to merit slightly different screening approaches to work with the other colors.
Sal
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I have interesting news. Rather than continue with the guess work I decided to use my brain for a change. I smashed a channel to bits, strategically of course, and combed my way through the wreckage like a forensic scientist. I have confirmed the following:
1 - The chamber walls are not simply for cooling purposes. The power leads that fan out from the base connection at the channel source, rise up through the piezoboard and individually connect to each and every channel wall, separately. The electrical connection to each of the walls make contact at the base of each wall and run for the entire length of each wall.
2 - There are no "nozzles". At least not in the traditional sense. No nozzles in the chambers, no nozzles below the chambers. Not even any power supplied to that area, that I can find. These piezonozzles are a design I have not seen in any literature posted here, yet.
3 - There are (I believe) two ways for ink to enter a chamber - over the speed bump or up through the floor of the chamber directly under the nozzle opening. So, flushing fluid through with pressure can have no affect on the dried ink lodged in-between the chamber walls.
4 - if there were no secondary passages for ink to enter a chamber, then pairs cleanings (where the machine sucks ink from the face of the head) would either suck the dried ink out the nozzle opening, or if the dried ink didn't move at all they would probably end up sucking the floor of a chamber up through the nozzle opening. ....my current bet is the secondary opening in the floor under the nozzle is a one-way valve-type safety mechanism. That's the feel they give when you put pressure on them in either direction. No movement at first, then with more pressure suddenly they begin to flow. Repeat, same thing. Feels like a valve.
5 - there is a clear plastic membrane that seals the base of the piezoboards from the world (chamber) beneath them. Only way into a piezoboard, is through the ink fill port.
6 - there is NOTHING beneath a chamber but a wide open reservoir filled with ink, which runs the entire length and width of the entire chamber deck. Nothing below the "one way valve" into the chamber at all.
I am more confident than ever that those chamber walls are indeed our nozzles. Guess work, flushed..
ps - I have followed the electrical leads up through the chambers, into and through the piezoboards. All the honeycomb holes you see in pics I have posted - I don't know what they are or what they do, but they have no leads. Cooling is a decent guess.
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It also seems feasible that mk and pk are different enough to merit slightly different screening approaches to work with the other colors.
Sal
I think Mark and Sal are close.....yes we can change pipes and chips relatively easily....but what i think will also be needing change are the algorithms to tell the printer to produce the same colours but with different pipes....or different colours with the same pipes...
Its a recalibration of the printers profile really....oh for that cleaning solution.......
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More fun facts for the evening's appetite. On the subject of ink cart shaking, which has come up quite a bit lately, I would like to add the ridiculously appropriate experience of a fellow racer on Luminous Landscape, my new friend Lee.
First off, this is how much Lee knows about what happens to ink left sitting in our carts too long:
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/lee_ink.jpg)
In my book, that's a lot. Lee takes every cart he gets, apart. He drains the leftover ink from them and stores it all in clear plastic bottles, each color separate of course. So I talked to Lee about an experiment I did with an old cart I had hanging around. Told him I cut the plastic cart to shreds, gutted the insides, and cut my way into the foil bag that holds the ink. He interjected "You found not one trace of sediment did you.." I told him no I did not. Then he emailed me this picture taken in his basement. He said "Me either, and I've taken hundreds apart." Lee also told me in all the bottles full of ink that he has stored, the only color he's ever seen settle at all is yellow.
So anyone paranoid about their inks separating and settling in the carts, or their lines, or their dampers, like the muck you need to shake from the bottom of an Odwalla protein drink, I think it's safe to say rest easy. I don't know what Epson makes this ink out of, but that's impressive.
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Interesting. On pages 23 and 129 of the manual for the 4900 Epson recommends that we shake the cartridges gently before installing them. They don't say why.
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Which would lead one to think that possibly the cartridges need to be agitated (even after installation) every now and then. I'm informed the Canon does that normally.
Perhaps I should mention I'm in the market for a 24" printer and after three Epsons I'm very much leaning towards the Canon...and this thread has mostly lead me there.
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Eric - I hope you have the opportunity to tear apart a head from the 3880 which is relatively bullet proof compared to the pro Epsons. It would be interesting to see if there are any obvious design differences that can explain why my 3880 can go 3 years, with 3 year old ink, and never clog.
I've had a love affair with the 3880, but I'm another user ready to move to Canon for a 24-inch printer. Epson finally has serious competition in the wide boy category.
Sal
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Sal, the 3880 is a Pro printer in the Epson line-up. It also qualifies for Epson Pro-Graphics service. There is a definite difference in ease of maintenance between this model (including its 3800 predecessor) and the x900s. There is some opinion that the lower nozzle count per sq. in. may be the explanation but in truth and in fact we don't know. There could be so many differences throughout the whole ink delivery system, from cartridge to paper.
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http://zczy.en.alibaba.com/productgrouplist-214342460/Clean_fluid.html
Red and clear cleaning fluid source. Along with a bunch of other Epson parts as well.
The decryption cards look like a cool bit of something.
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You must have missed this one by me ...
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61585.msg586703#msg586703 The pigments do indeed settle after a couple of months.
Removing the carts too mant times to shake them is a no no according to the manual, as you can ruin the cart seal, which will then allow air into the lines ...
and we are pretty sure that is not a good thing! ;)
David
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As silly as it sounds (I know I thought it was crazy at first), unlock the wheels to the printer stand and gently roll the printer back and forth to agitate the ink cartridges. Switch sides and repeat. This avoids ruining the seals on the cartridges by repeated removal/insertion.
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Direct my cart shaking post toward the person (can't remember who) who recently suggested a schedule of cart removal and agitation that was simply out of control. Anyone in that much of a panic over their inks settling, I hope this settles your soul. Obviously it's smart to agitate, but there is no need to jeopardize your machine over it. Remarkable stuff this ink is.
Next discovery revealed - we know what the honeycombs are for. In fact we know what all the pretty cut-out shapes that surround the flexing chamber wall sections of the piezo board are. It's called "mechanical adhesion". Any time you want to glue one thing to another it's best to prep one or both objects by roughing up their surface - to give the glue something to grab onto. Four minutes after it hit me straight in the forehead again, I took one of the removed printhead faces, flipped it over and examined it's underside. Yep. There are traces of clear glue residue all over the underside of the printhead's tin roof, and it's all in the many funky shapes of the piezoboard's honeycomb surface. Turns out these honeycomb shapes play a critical role in keeping the different inks in our channels from coming together inside the piezoboards.
All these discoveries are great. Learned a lot today. But still not what really matters...
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So anyone paranoid about their inks separating and settling in the carts, or their lines, or their dampers, like the muck you need to shake from the bottom of an Odwalla protein drink, I think it's safe to say rest easy. I don't know what Epson makes this ink out of, but that's impressive.
Actually
I am the culprit who is paranoid about agitation......guilty my Lord....
Bear with me please for going back over old ground but as we all know,the basic makup of ink is just 3 things
Pigment......to paint with
Resin......to stick your paint on to something like paper
Emulsifier....to make the pigment and resin cooperate as they would normally like to go their separate ways...
And water of course is there in abundance too...NO AIR IS DESIREABLE UNTIL THE INK LEAVES THE NOZZLE..a printer in theory should behave no differently to an ink cartridge....
Agitation is the way that the emulsifier gets to bring the pigment and resin together...
But its a subtle problem.....you should not of course expect to see sludge too often....nor would i expect to see anything in the innards of a dissected cartridge (which i have done several times too )simply because one has to agitate the cart to get it opened...
Nor would i recommend pulling carts out to agitate...(i have constantly advised against doing this since i joined this thread..)..its so important .....you will wear down air seals and more importantly you stand a good chance of destroying the cartridge chip sensor in the printer which requires a technician to fix unless you are prepared literally to pull the machine apart yourself ... I had to do that twice...
All that needs doing is GENTLY AND BRIEFLY rock the printer on its loosened wheels...maybe 1 second gentle touch ...in my case one printer had to be placed on a shelf so i made a simple timber base on wheels..put the printer on this base...simple stuff...
Other printer manufacturers have automatic agitation programs built in to the printer and in my humble opinion its for no other reason than to give the emulsifier a chance to keep on top of pigment and resin components drifting apart....my next printer will not be agitated by me...it will have inbuilt agitation ...for sure..
Mark and I have focussed on the servicing needs of 800 and 900
I have been agitating in a programmed way for 75 days (with the previous 210 days as backup experience )with 5 auto checks at 15 day intervals ...4 of the autos were clear first time ...the bad one required 10 minutes time to clear.....no printing (2 a4s)...just stress testing..i never had that clog free pleasure in the previous 6 years of ownership of that printer....
Mark achieved the same result on the 900 by printing 25 prints.....and he knows his printer intimitely...top class management and discipline.......in my case ,a few seconds daily has saved me piles of time and money on cleaning chores..Yes you are thinking that the 800 and 900 are completely different printers ..they cant be compared.....but didnt Epson tell you that the 900 would be smarter and clogs would virtually be consigned to the history books..
BUT BUT
I may be wrong...and i need to know that i am wrong....
SO
TO DISPROVE my agitation theories and consequent paranoia ,i will now do a 75 day test with 5 autos AND NO GENTLE PRINTER AGITATION during this test period ....with zero printing of course...the only factors left in the equation this time will be TURN ON every day and epson k3 inks as usual....i should in theory come back with the same auto results (80% Autos clear first time or even 100% clear first time..) that would then indicate that autos without agitation is at least as efficient or more efficient than autos with agitation....
Will let you know auto results after each 15 day interval so that the 75 days doesnt feel too long...
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Doesn't anyone believe that the Epson design engineers would have thought that one out if it is so necessary to agitate the inks?
I think the simple act of turning on the machine, which pressurizes the carts, is enough to agitate the ink in the carts!
The ony recommendation from Epson is to use the carts up within 6 months of opening, and that probably has more to do with the carrier slowly evaporating and the pigment thickening,which is probably not a good thing.
David
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Last discovery before work - I took Alan's Glycerol mixed with distilled water and spread out a 6x6 puddle of it on the counter, in the sun. Next to it I spread out a 6x6 puddle of water. Two days later Alan's puddle is still wet. The water's been gone since 30 minutes in. My next experiment will be filling a spray bottle with this solution and spraying over the capping station before putting this 7900 to sleep for a week. I wonder if there will be a difference in clogs..
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Doesn't anyone believe that the Epson design engineers would have thought that one out if it is so necessary to agitate the inks?
I think the simple act of turning on the machine, which pressurizes the carts, is enough to agitate the ink in the carts!
The ony recommendation from Epson is to use the carts up within 6 months of opening, and that probably has more to do with the carrier slowly evaporating and the pigment thickening,which is probably not a good thing.
David
Doubtful. the ink is contained within a collapsible bag within the hard plastic shell. It's the only way that ink can flow. A hard bottle won't work as the sides don't contract and a vacuum would form preventing ink flow. Nothing should evaporate from an unopened cartridge (same reason why soda doesn't evaporate from an unopened container).
Alan
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Doesn't anyone believe that the Epson design engineers would have thought that one out if it is so necessary to agitate the inks?
I think the simple act of turning on the machine, which pressurizes the carts, is enough to agitate the ink in the carts!
The ony recommendation from Epson is to use the carts up within 6 months of opening, and that probably has more to do with the carrier slowly evaporating and the pigment thickening,which is probably not a good thing.
David
Keeping the pigment particles in suspension requires delicate formulations of the ink ingredients, the particle encapsulation, its polarity etc. Test involves storing the ink at higher temperatures, centrifuges etc. And yes I have seen yellow inks settle too.
The Epson ink pressure system is very passive on the ink content in the carts. The carts empty from the side of the cart too which does not create much flow in the cart either. HP carts empty at the bottom, the regular membrane pump activity there stirrs the ink at the right spot.
What Epson engineers should have thought about is open for discussion
and there will be patents they have to consider.
Ernst, op de lei getypt.
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http://zczy.en.alibaba.com/productgrouplist-214342460/Clean_fluid.html
Red and clear cleaning fluid source. Along with a bunch of other Epson parts as well.
The decryption cards look like a cool bit of something.
Larry,
I contacted this seller, and this is his response:
Product Name:Epson Original printhead clean liquid.
Volum:1000 ml
Unit price:45.00 usd/1000ml.
Color:Red/White.
Quantity:2pcs (1pcs white/1 pcs red).
Total Weight:2.5KGS
Shippment fee:60.00 usd by EMS. (5-7 days will arrive your hand).
Total amount:150.00 usd.
We haven't MSDS at head for these liquid.All of them are Original.Made in Japan
Epson company.
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Larry,
I contacted this seller, and this is his response:
Product Name:Epson Original printhead clean liquid.
Volum:1000 ml
Unit price:45.00 usd/1000ml.
Color:Red/White.
Quantity:2pcs (1pcs white/1 pcs red).
Total Weight:2.5KGS
Shippment fee:60.00 usd by EMS. (5-7 days will arrive your hand).
Total amount:150.00 usd.
We haven't MSDS at head for these liquid.All of them are Original.Made in Japan
Epson company.
Well I don’t know that $150 is outside of my budget, I can’t speak for others. Hell a couple of carts of ink are more than that.
I have had no problem dealing with these guys; I have purchased a number of things through them with no problems. Case in point 10 ink dampers for my old Pro 4000 printers showed up at my door this evening, $27, free shipping/Post, it took about 9 days from Beijing China. Most of the stuff I have gotten from them has been free shipping/Post. I suspect the shipping cost of the cleaner is due to the hazardous nature of the materials. I ordered some Paper Cutters, Epson made in Japan, for my 9880 are $21 delivered. Got a USB digital microscope for $35.
Later Larry
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This is such a novel idea from our friends in Russia, that I just can't help but pass it along :D
"According to my experience, come to the following: using COCA COLA fresh with a syringe gazom.Esli Epson shake the liquid gently to and fro on the dried up tsvetu.U HP and Canons easier, the cartridge or head put in a saucer of COCA COLA and wait about 5-10 Flushed minut.Zatem distsilirovkoy purged with compressed air contacts and try a test print to the printer - pohaya, cleaning of service a couple of times and back test.I so the circle goes well until pechat.Na Epson may need more than one day, such a procedure."
By the way, the last reply in the thread seems to indicate a 25% solution of the RED (6022802-00) in DI water.
http://forum.a3print.ru/index.php?showtopic=8444
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Larry,
It ain't that novel (wxcept in print here and there) - I was contemplating a tongue-in-cheek suggestion here quite a few posts back suggesting to try Coca-Cola, but I decided not to, because I didn't know how some folks would react to that - but the serious point of it is that Coca-Cola can dissolve quite a bit of stuff. I remember as a kid being told in school it could also dissolve your stomach lining, but I suspect that was a plant from the dental hygienists association who also warned us it would rot our teeth. So gheez, if it can do all that maybe it CAN dissolve some gummed-up ink, plus who knows what else in those printheads - there's the rub. :-) And if the guys at Epson thought Coke could do it, there'd be a brown bottle available from somewhere somehow.
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Has anyone mentioned soaking in, or with RED having adverse affects to the head if exposure was too long?
Mind you the first fluid I tested was Acetone, because I wanted to see what would break first. What broke was the glue holding the channel to the plastic framework of the head, and the glue that holds the channel faces on. I also believe the clear floor of the chamber deck was melted a bit. Valuable test. From what I have heard about RED, what makes it dangerous is it's tendency to do the same thing Acetone did. Just takes longer. How much longer is the unanswered question.
I have traced the breakdown of glue. Typically when you remove the face of the channel, the underlying honeycomb surface of the piezoboard is clean and black in color. But on a chamber that has been subject to aggressive chemicals, the honeycombs are no longer clean or black. Whatever color ink that channel contains, it then mixes with the melting glue and leaves a mucky colored stain across the honeycomb surface. Looks like it spreads like a virus. Or an oil spill. The width of the glued honeycomb area that keeps colors separate is substantial, if such a word even exists in the microscopic world of smallness. So it is of course possible that part of this area could be compromised and the head still may work properly.
I need more dead heads for testing. It would be great to let a channel sit in RED for a few days or so, then do an autopsy on it to find out if the glues do indeed break down from exposure to RED. Then I could test how long this breakdown takes. I could positively confirm this with testing. I have ordered both RED and it's clear sister, last week.
Our problem is simple, we can only reach the ends of our clogs. The body of our clogs are completely isolated from any cleaner we put in the channels. All sides, top and bottom. Our clogs are also isolated from the sucking force of pairs cleanings, and from the movement and firing of power cleanings. Try too hard to fire those clogged chambers and your head goes fatal. It's a conundrum, the likes of which I am about to go Medieval on tonight.
This chemical warfare has me paranoid about dissolving glues, so I am going a different route temporarily - just so we know something else that doesn't work. Chances are highly likely that I am about to supply my own self with another fatal head, in just a few hours.
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It's the dilute phosphoric acid in Coke that's the active ingredient (it's also what causes calcium leaching in teeth). Again, it's not clear from a chemical perspective what the mode of action might be in cleaning Epson print heads.
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I filled an ultrasonic cleaning tank with distilled water and 20% RED, plus a drop of Dawn for Alan. I drew RED into each channel, then suspended the head via wires from above, so just the face of the head sat in the solution. I was afraid of the head touching the machine in any way, even in a basket designed to hold parts in the machine, so I hung the head from the cabinet handle above. Totally hi-tech. I ran the ultrasonic cleaner for ten minutes. It's not an aggressive machine. I had already tested a few open channels in this machine and no damage done. As I watched the head being vibrated you could see fluid movement coming from the tip of the nipples on each color, so there was definitely movement going on inside all of the channels. Once done I drew the clear neutralizer up into each channel. they all behaved the same. I then let the head sit over night, just in case moisture from the ultrasonic process had gotten on the board inside the head. This morning I filled each channel with ink, so as to avoid more and more and more cleanings to charge a head again. It gets expensive all these tests.. Head was reccognized fine. Printed fine. But no change in green.
This is not a good sign
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Eric,
How is the printer allowing you to proceed to print with bad nozzles-channels? doesn't it just continue to give you error messages to clean the offending nozzles-channels?
Are you doing this in serviceman mode?
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You can't print with clogged nozzles David? Maybe because I have auto cleanings turned off it's different for me. I can definitely print with clogs. Just doesn't look so good.. :)
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That's probably why.I have auto checks and clean on in the default setting (I think), of periodically.
If I get a "cleaning recommended" message from the auto nozzle check, the machine will just keep giving me the error and won't print unless I choose to ignore it and choose 'proceed anyway'.
I will always clean at that point to prevent the possability of ruined prints ,banding, or possible further damage.
I figure the machine is smarter than me ::), knows there is a problem, and I allow it to fix itself .
I really believe that these machines are somewhat self aware and better off allowed to do their own thing even if it wastes a little ink, instead of risking the possibility of fatal clogging;-)
David
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Hey Everybody
I've been following this thread for a while, and wonder why there is no activity anymore?? ;)
/Spock
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Hey Everybody
I've been following this thread for a while, and wonder why there is no activity anymore?? ;)
/Spock
It could not be a lack of clogged heads to experiment with one would think. Not to mention odd solvents.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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Eric is probably doing some heavy thinking.
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Thanks for the poke(s).
Truth is I screwed up, and I'm really bummed about it. That's why the quiet. I grew up reading a poem my mom hung on our wall. You all know it too. Something about two roads diverging in a wood, and me taking the one less traveled. Sometimes I love her for that poem, other times I wish I grew up illiterate. I've been a builder since my early 20s. That means five days a week I walk through life solving problems with the 28oz framing hammer hanging inches from my finger tips. That's the good side of being a builder. The bad side is seven days a week I walk through life feeling I can solve problems by smashing them.
I am much better now. Rarely am I bit by the smash it monster. But I lost it in that last experiment. Truth is I only told half the story. What really happened is worse...
I took the dead green head, filled it with RED, sat it's face in the ultrasonic cleaner, ran it for a while, rinsed it, then installed it. Everything went fine. Machine recognized it, set itself back up and was ready to print. Typically I do pairs cleanings to get ink in the head again, in service mode, which I did this time as well. I was anxious to see results. More than usual actually. In fact this time I was sure there would be a difference. I didn't know what that difference would be of course, I just knew it would be. Then the machine stopped me - it asked for another maintenance tank before it could do the pairs cleaning. As you might imagine, I face this challenge regularly. Once I worked my way past the maintenance tank warning I was greeted by an LLK cart stop. I keep one spare of each color so this was not a problem. ...Until the machine couldn't recognize the new Epson cart. WTF. This took some scavenging but finally I robbed a cart with enough ink left to do the pairs cleaning. ...then I got a Cyan stop. WTF, again.. I put my new Cyan cart in the machine and got my second cart failure message in the same night. Can't be I thought, so I put the new cart in my 7900. Same message. This really pissed me off, because I don't have any Cyan carts to scavenge for. So the test is over, just inches from the result I've been working toward for over a year now. You don't even want to know what that felt like. I definitely didn't.
Enter, the framing hammer.
I pulled the head, forced Cyan ink (that I had pulled from an "empty" cart last month) into each channel, then re-installed the head. I knew under service mode I could force my way past the unavoidable cleanings in regular mode, but I also knew I couldn't print a nozzle pattern. I created a full page 8x10 doc in photoshop, with vertical bands of enough different colors and shades that for sure each channel would be fired. This would be my nozzle check. All bands would be Cyan of course, but at the very least I could tell, tonight, if any of the "green" nozzles were firing. Genius right? Yea, no. Not genius. Let me tell you something about service mode which you might not know - it's a LOT like walking through life, after work, with your 28oz framing hammer still hanging inches from your finger tips. Yes you can swap PK for MK in service mode, and yes you can avoid the unavoidable cleanings that regular mode forces the machine to run. Yes you can print in service mode too. You can do a lot of things in service mode that you can't do in regular mode - including even forcing your way past some menu stops which would otherwise dead-end you. That kind of makes you feel like you're smarter than the machine, after a while. Trust me you are not. In regular mode the machine steps in, kind of like a big brother. It warns you of things, it reminds you of things, and most importantly it stops you when you should probably be stopped.
I clicked "print". The machine went to work. Everything was Cyan. Bands grew from page bottom like the dream I've longed for. I watched the first inch with a big smile. Mind a few drop outs (with no cleanings yet) it seemed my plan was working. I was confident that at least some of the green nozzles had been rescued from their mummified tombs. Now I'd let it fill the page with Cyan. Eventually each channel's true colors would begin to show, but for now I didn't care about color - just nozzles firing. With 3/4 of the page printed, suddenly everything stopped dead in it's tracks. A fatal error message flashed across the menu, reading:
- - - This is Japan - - -
- - - Don't look surprised - - -
- - - You knew we were coming - - -
- - - This is no place for you - - -
- - - nor for your hammer - - -
- - - Go home now - - -
- - - and take your fatal error head with you - - -
All air left, my sails went limp. I shut the machine off and went to bed. Next morning I strapped on my belt, slid my hammer through the loop, and dove back into a world where I belong.
Since then I've got a few emails, "What's up? What happened?" I even got a "Don't give up".
This morning I pulled that print from the machine. I think now all nozzles did actually fire, at least at the beginning of the print, but slowly it seems most all of the channels ran dry of ink. The cyan bands get lighter and lighter with each pass that the head made. After about six inches of printing at least two went completely dry, which I assume is when the head overheated. I doubt in regular mode this would ever have happened. Instead the machine would have stopped itself with a menu warning.
So I blew it. But at the same time, I think I might have solved it. I won't know until I get another head, and try again.
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This is very poetic Eric. It's a great read and I think you would make a wonderful author if you don't end-up cutting it as an expert on making Epson print-heads behave like the proverbial cat with nine lives. I also admire your persistence. I would have given up a multitude of pages ago. That head is probably totally fried by now - if indeed you have broken through all the protections the firmware has built-in to prevent those things from happening. I'd like to recommend a slight re-orientation of your research: the extent of the original green blockage in that head may have been at the extreme end of anything anyone could ever encounter - who knows, maybe 0.1% of total 7900s out there. The more interesting cases are the ones that are "seriously clogged but not irreparably so" because those would represent a somewhat higher percentage of 7900s out there, the people who own them have a serious interest in fixes that go beyond what the manual in all its conservatism (for good legal reasons) tells them to do, and they don't have access to ready service at an affordable price. So if you can attract into your "lab" several printheads that fall into this category and see whether any of the concoctions and techniques you've tried actually do clear them, you'd have a big achievement under your belt.
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Epson Haiku:
Inspiring Prints
Cleaning cycles be d*mned, 'til
Fatal Head Error
Eric-- even though I've moved on to the Canon 8400 and am quite happy, I'll reiterate a previous thought: for me, the long-lasting impact of this thread isn't going to be decided by whether or not there is a universal solvent and method to unclog permanently clogged heads. It's that you've already done a huge amount to help a community of people understand their printers-- including maintenance that can help us avoid that dark place of perpetual clogging in the first place. I bet we all could put together a one page summary of printer maintenance and suggestions with clogging. e.g. prior to this thread, I had never heard of a wiper blade or the idea of a holiday mode or how power cleanings without printing in between can actually help to drive the printhead to its fatal error end. This thread has also inspired some people to successfully repair their printer themselves (which is definitely not for everyone) (and to write bad haiku).
So don't give up on finding a solution, but for me, the thread has already served a great purpose-- so thanks.
p.s. I have to think that the only reason why Decision One takes the old printhead back is that someone back at Epson is doing similar experiments to you as well as just examining printhead failures. It's unfortunate that the cost of official Epson/D1 repair is frequently greater than the cost of a new printer as Epson corporate won't ever good numbers on the failures . . .
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Eric
Try again
Remember your mum telling you there is no shame in tryng and failing
The shame is in failing to try
Remember Edison and the light bulb
Follow your dream not someone elses
Your a winner
Lets get to act two.......
Matt
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Hi Eric,
Did you ever create the tutorial for replacing the print head?
Bob
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Sorry Bob haven't finished it yet. All the mechanical processes are in the can but I need my partner here to shoot the new head syncing process. He has a pc, which we need to do this. I only run Mac. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but he fell in love six months ago, so i have no genius buddy anymore. Oh the power of women... If you can sort your way through the manual for the synching process, I can cover you on the mechanical parts - which are about 95% of the job. Let me know.
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I have good news. No I didn't clear a head yet dammit. Is that the only good news you could think of? Come on now let's use our imaginations..
How bout this - I took the money that you fine friends in the struggling Epson X900 clogmonster community have donated to the wiper exchange video fund, and put it to good use. I purchased a domain and am in the process of building a website based exclusively on successfully running, and maintaining, these X900 printers. All of the great discoveries that we have explored together will be organized in one special place. It will be simple, easy to navigate, and use. So it's kind of cool, the money formed a circle - made it back home. How many times does that happen in a week..
So I'm putting this out there; anyone with ideas on what should be included in this X900 site, your opinions are very welcome.
Like I told Chaddro tonight, I wish I found myself today when I was googling myself silly with clogs a year ago. Not that I would be any better off, but at least I would have found myself.
The other good news I have is I found my genius. He showed up for dinner last night. I nailed him down about shooting the last part of the head changing video, THIS WEEKEND. Yey Bob!
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Looking forward to that video. Thanks Eric.
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BUT BUT
I may be wrong...and i need to know that i am wrong....
SO
TO DISPROVE my agitation theories and consequent paranoia ,i will now do a 75 day test with 5 autos AND NO GENTLE PRINTER AGITATION during this test period ....with zero printing of course...the only factors left in the equation this time will be TURN ON every day and epson k3 inks as usual....i should in theory come back with the same auto results (80% Autos clear first time or even 100% clear first time..) that would then indicate that autos without agitation is at least as efficient or more efficient than autos with agitation....
Will let you know auto results after each 15 day interval so that the 75 days doesnt feel too long...
I completed my first fifteen day auto test last week......without any printer "rocking " of any description......just turn on printer daily....no printing.......result was completely successfull auto test on the first try after a lapse of 15 days since the previous auto test...so far no advantage for rocking ....
Printer starting up beautifully...16 degrees Celsius 53 humidity.......rather a cold room but the inks seems to like it....dark room facing north...never any direct sunlight.......
Be back after stage two which is now well under way......
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Which printer is this again Blue moon?
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Eric
The 7800....
My other 7800 has 3 blocked nozzles for two years..(i think that it has all the hallmarks of the 7900 clogs ).hoping to get Photoflo by Kodak soon and i will make up a concoction on the lines of Alans suggestions (post 1373) ....except i will leave out the isopropyl as bacteria is not a problem here...
My mixture will be :
Kodak Photoflo
Glycol/Glycerol ...(epson cleaning solution)
Water...
Very large syringe as i am going to use a " drip " method directly attached to a nipple on the head....i wonder if the larger syringe might just add a bit of extra gravitational force to the soaking process..a drip feed approach...
Two things i have noticed on this thread so far....
1 power cleans can be powerless when a clogged chamber is heavily outnumbered by free chambers..poor leverage on the clogged chamber..
2 soaking a really bad clog might be better than forcing liquids through the head.
Eric
The work that you have been doing is priceless to us all in being able to " see" the effects of using certain solutions on the gadgetry in the head...and on the clogged inks in that head....you are turning lights on for us.....please do not stop now...
If i cannot free this bad clog on my 7800 will you accept the head as a donation for your valuable research.....i suspect its just the same as the 7900 with 99 % of the nozzles working and 3 chambers packed with hard ink that power flushing cannot get near......maybe you cannot handle the older machines and thats ok too
Matt
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i suspect its just the same as the 7900
Matt
Matt, I believe the x900 heads have twice the number of nozzles per sq.in. compared withe x800 heads, which would likely entrain other design differences as well. Various materials used may also have changed between the models, as one can infer from various announcements and product descriptions seen about the time the newer models came to market. Whether this makes a difference to Eric's research I would have no idea.
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The 7900 / 9900 have been around since 2008. Lets hope Epson releases new models in the near future that correct these reliability issues. We know they can do it... the previous generation of machines where much better in terms of clogging.
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the previous generation of machines where much better in terms of clogging.
No they were not. The 4000 was a clog monster, and the 4800 considerably improved but not ideal either. The only models of the Epson pro-graphics line that have been truly stellar in this respect are the 3800/3880. They hardly clog and they can sit for very long periods of time unused, and still not be clogged on resumption of use. This is quite widely known, so the question is - and I have no doubt Epson knows the answer - why the stellar performance of these models could not be replicated in the x900 series. Clearly some intentional design differences had this side-effect. I have no idea what, however.
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Blue moon, sometimes people contact me offline to talk about their problems. And sometimes those problems are even about printers. One guy recently contacted me about his 7800. He told me his war stories, one of which included reviving it's dead head. I guess he figured he had nothing to lose so after doing the typical paper towel and windex procedure, he actually removed the head and injected windex into it through the nipple plate in the back. He used a syringe to do this. He let the head sit overnight, then installed it again the next day. His 7800 has printed clog free ever since.
I imagine the difference between printhead generations here may be the size of the chambers. Being larger in the 800 series heads, maybe this leaves the dried ink more vulnerable to the cleaning solution, whatever it may be. This is just a guess, I have never taken an 800 series head apart.
This will be a big weekend for printhead exploration. Yesterday my new Epson carts finally arrived, and also my RED. Plus I am shooting video of the head syncing process tomorrow, and then taking apart my first "Fatal error message" head. I will release the video at the same time as the new X900 site. No champagne, but maybe umbrella girls.
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Eric
Good on you
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Holy hell I just finished a 24hr run at this head changing video production. For what it's worth, and I'm not actually proud of this fact, I can do a 79/9900 printhead head change - start to finish - in just 35 minutes real time. But in video time it apparently takes me a lot longer. This head changing video is 48 minutes long. I guess I'll have to host it in segments. Just titles and color correction then I'm done. It came out well.
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Eric, I see a great future for you as an Epson printer technician!!!
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I think that they should hire him as a "production engineer" so he can solve thier problem. Epson sure can't seem to do it!
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You guys are way too kind. and I've never had a white collar job in my life. What would I do with myself..
The video is DONE. It's exporting now. It won't be on our site until the morning though, my upload speed is cripplingly slow. The new X900 site is up, it's called MYX900.com (http://myx900.com/). It's an infant now. It will be a work in progress for some time I imagine. I plan to add to it regularly. Please offer any suggestions/questions/requests that you have. That's how it will grow. I am hosting the video content for MYX900.com, on vimeo. They have no time limits with their free account, which is what I am using. I'd host it on the background of my race site but some have emailed me saying they can't view the format that I hosted the wiper change video in. Maybe people will have better luck this way. I hope the site will maintain itself through donations from those who draw helpful knowledge from it. If it weren't for blind passion none of this would exist.
The video came out very well, almost entertaining. As involved as the head swapping process is, it'll be easy if you're following this video.
This is the first video production I've taken on (minus the 3 minute wiper change video) since my gear got stolen over a year ago. Feels good to be back.
Thanks for your patience.
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Wow...what a great webpage. No. Really. Eric, if we ever have the opportunity to meet, the first (name a small to large number) are on me.
My clogged 4900 (and I) thank you.
Allan
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Eric,
I am very curious as to how you are dealing with the touchy subject of the proprietary software necessary to do the installation of a new head?
do you expect repercussions from the "parent company" since other sites have pulled all their info off their site due to worries about copyright infringement? Site looks fantastic! Luv the machines clogs.
David
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That's a good question David. I hate both ends of legal fights, which is why I never signed on to the class action suit against Epson. I created this video to help X900 users who find themselves helplessly pinned in a corner, facing doom, with no hopeful way to get out. This is not my business, in fact this only costs me. Obviously Epson knows common people have access to the servpro.exe program. You can't install a new head without it, and they sell X900 printheads to common people. I don't plan to offer the program. I don't need any more challenges than I have already.. :)
It is a good question. I hope someone else has a better answer.
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The big question I have is
After a year of your time and effort, do you still feel it is cost effective to even attempt to replace a head and possibly other ink related assemblies (Cap station -Dampers) while your inside the machine, with a possibility of something else screwing up, rather than for a few hundred $ more, just start from scratch with a new unit and warrantee?
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The hidden drive behind my making this video is that I find a cure for clogged heads. Then users will be able to remove them solo. Apparently I am delusional because I still feel confident that a cure is findable. If this happens, this video makes a lot of sense. Even if it doesn't though, installing a new head for $1,400 still saves the machine in my eyes.
Far as something screwing up, once you watch the video you'll understand for yourself - there are no mysteries to this process. Just steps. I am not a big risk taker. If swapping a head yourself was a throw the chips in the air and hope they land right process, I'd be long gone a while ago.
Interesting point about the damper unit. One thing I plan to do in the future is take apart an old, used, damper. I'd like to see why one would need to be replaced. What exactly is the difference, old to new. I had an Epson tech on the phone just the other day who told me straight out that all the damper unit replacement "mumbo jumbo" was crap. This guy was running his machine with dampers from 98, no problems. I won't even get into what he said about using out of date ink...
By the way if you want to replace your damper unit, this same video will do you justice. Premier Pro just exported it at Vimeo codec - it's 1.7gb. That's too big. Where's my framing hammer.
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Did I just say I am not a big risk taker?
I am again now one of the struggling masses. I just sold our perfectly repaired, perfectly functioning Epson Stylus Pro 7900. I have now re-inserted my neck in the noose. The only X900 here anymore is a "fatally" clogged one...
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The elephant is finally off my back.
...at lest one of them is.
Remember to go full screen, full HD. Because why wouldn't you
LEARN HOW TO CHANGE YOUR OWN 7900/9900/11880 PRINTHEAD (http://myx900.com/change-your-own-printhead/)
I love you too..
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Since I started all this. (Sort of)
I need to be the first one to respond.
Great job!
Look forward to more.
Thanks for all your efforts.
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Eric, that is just so well done! When Spielberg sees that, yer outa here, dude!
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The elephant is finally off my back.
...at lest one of them is.
Remember to go full screen, full HD. Because why wouldn't you
LEARN HOW TO CHANGE YOUR OWN 7900/9900/11880 PRINTHEAD (http://myx900.com/change-your-own-printhead/)
I love you too..
Eric
Not in the least bit surprised....its absolutely brilliant.....
Success with knobs on...
Love the damper cap device.....what a clever stroke !
What are you going to get up to next
Well done for all of us
Matt
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This:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/91839121/EPSON-Pro-7900-and-9900-Field-Repair-Guide
might be of some use together with Eric's excellent video.
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I'm really glad you guys like the video. Thought about it all day doing the framing hammer thing. It's not perfect of course, already I see that I left out the part about unplugging the machine after power-down. I'll have to add that clip and upload it again.
enduser, thank you for that.
Next project - back to clearing X900 heads again. I have new found motivation, since I don't have a functioning 7900 anymore.
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Interesting - one cornered X900 user in Canada contacted me a week ago asking if the printhead video was done yet. He told me he had just received his new head from Epson, but that it's part number was different than the part number we have been using. The part number we have mentioned on this thread many times in the past is F191010. But his replacement printhead part number is F191040. When I do Google searches for this different part number I only get results in a foreign language, which Google Translate indicates is Italian. I wonder what the difference is
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Good job Eric. Very well done. I wish you have made this video last august when i,ve changed my damper assy. You,ve spared me me a lot of mess and emotions.
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Could be he received the wrong head ... aby normal :o
Another possibility is there has been a revision done to the head and given a new code #
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I thought these articles from Jon Cone are helpful tips on printer maintenance: http://www.inkjetmall.com/wordpress/category/maintenance/
...notably on humidity, infrequent printer use, and head strikes.
I haven't had any problems with my 9900, but I also use my 9900 very regularly and humidity levels are kept fairly constant in studio...
ken
Really helpful.....thanks Ken
Matt
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I'm getting the cold shoulder from Sigma Aldrich on the X-100 order. It seems automated though, they're asking for documentation confirming this is a business, and they refuse to ship to a residential address. I'll head underground and work this out another way tomorrow.
Guys
Got the Photoflo from Kodak yesterday !(6 weeks ordered )
Will be " drip-feeding " a largish mixture about 2 feet above the disconnected head made of gylcol ,glycerol ,(epson clean solution ) Photoflo and water early next week ......down directly through a nipple on the disconnected head.....quickly followed by a back-syringe suck out through the same nipple....in a very gentle way....anyones guess what might happen..
Quite pleased by the power of gravity generated from that distance above the head...
Alan ....any idea of the amount of Photoflo that i should start with on experiment 1
Matt
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Hello there-
I feel that if you can completely bypass the wiper blade you are setting yourself up for success.
Erik....yes or...... If the wiper blade could be persuaded to have a bath more often..
I also feel that if you can keep something moving through the print head while the print head is not in use (perhaps dial in the cleaning solution that has been mentioned here before) then you are creating a situation where there is a low probability for a clog to form inside the nozzle.
Erik....Superb idea...
. On the other hand, chamois cloth is much more expensive, but worth it for this stage of the solution process, as a means. Chamois cloth is designed to clean fine surfaces and cutting up the cloth into smaller pieces, and giving the print head a careful "shoe shine" is what I have in mind.
Erik...If you could get the head cleaned without too much rubbing.....dont forget that your idea involves doing this often and the less friction the better..
While this is a subtle attempt the long term solution would be a pump with an auxiliary set of nozzles attached to the print head that gently (like 3ml a day gently) pumps a cleaning solution through the print head while the printer isn't in use.
Erik...It happens in water filtration systems where there is a reverse flow of water every 6 hours to clean out dirty filters...its called a " backwash system ". Would work with printers ...the backwash would need to be a solution based liquid...and indeed the pumps already in the printer could be harnessed to do the backwashing...we would need to bypass the maintenance tank and go directly to a sink if possible....
Really enjoyed going through your concept Erik.....i am going to try doing the same approach but by means of gravity flow and drip feeding....same system as used on patients in hospitals....and of course the old syringe for pulling at the block from the opposite direction...will let you know what damage i can manage....
The beauty of your approach is that it would become a built in automatic self cleansing system.....rather a new concept for an Epson product...
Would love to see you make progress with this new approach...happy skiing....enjoyed vale etc a few years back now....great sports up there....
Matt
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" the long term solution would be a pump with an auxiliary set of nozzles attached to the print head that gently (like 3ml a day gently) pumps a cleaning solution through the print head while the printer isn't in use.
Erik...It happens in water filtration systems where there is a reverse flow of water every 6 hours to clean out dirty filters...its called a " backwash system ". Would work with printers ...the backwash would need to be a solution based liquid...and indeed the pumps already in the printer could be harnessed to do the backwashing...we would need to bypass the maintenance tank and go directly to a sink if possible"....
Pretty daft idea if you ask me.
Most people here are complaining about wasting ink and a method such as this a surefire way to accomplish that!
Putting cleaning solution through the head at a regular interval means you would be flushing the existing ink out,then the head would need to have the cleaning solution flushed out with ink, and re charged with even more ink before printing. ::)
That's equates to three times or more the amount of ink going into the waste tank or "down the drain"
Not to mention more nozzle checks done before printing to make sure that there are no clogs or drop outs.
Sorry...
Back to the drawing board!
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What if clogging is just what happens when a nozzle and/or its channel has simply reached the end of its life? What if clogs begin when a nozzle just doesn't fire anymore?
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" the long term solution would be a pump with an auxiliary set of nozzles attached to the print head that gently (like 3ml a day gently) pumps a cleaning solution through the print head while the printer isn't in use.
Erik...It happens in water filtration systems where there is a reverse flow of water every 6 hours to clean out dirty filters...its called a " backwash system ". Would work with printers ...the backwash would need to be a solution based liquid...and indeed the pumps already in the printer could be harnessed to do the backwashing...we would need to bypass the maintenance tank and go directly to a sink if possible"....
Pretty daft idea if you ask me.
Most people here are complaining about wasting ink and a method such as this a surefire way to accomplish that!
Putting cleaning solution through the head at a regular interval means you would be flushing the existing ink out,then the head would need to have the cleaning solution flushed out with ink, and re charged with even more ink before printing. ::)
That's equates to three times or more the amount of ink going into the waste tank or "down the drain"
Not to mention more nozzle checks done before printing to make sure that there are no clogs or drop outs.
Sorry...
Back to the drawing board!
Yes as you say this is drawing board stuff.....but dont knock Erik out of hand either......why ? Well you see you dont really have to let the cleaning system take over either.....for example who says that you need to run your backwash every 6 hours like in a water plant ? Could you run it say once a month if you wish....once a year if you wish.....you will notice that Erik is visualising an adapter unit that will hold both his 7 ink pipes and his 7 solution pipes that all come together at the head ....or at the damper unit.....who says you have to let all the solution pipes take over at the one time either....and run all 7 solutions at the one time .....why not do your nozzle check first and decide that you want to direct your solution pipe at say M only ? Why not have just one solution pipe serving all the ink lines but just one damper at a time being serviced by the solution line......use your solution line at your discretion...this is last resort stuff when you have tried all the hygiene routes and failed...
Now the less ink that needs wasting requires a switch tap that is closer to the head unit and of course the more sophisticated the pipe line adapter unit design plan would naturally have to be ...totally beyond me to design....i have the gear got for the 7800 to simply pull out the " bold " cartridge unit at the front......put in a solution cart in its place at the front ...i intend permanently fitting an extra pipe line (filled with solution only with its own damper unit ) that runs with the other 8 lines .....pull out the " bold " damper unit....push in the solution damper unit in its place ...the printer will never see any difference as it still has 8 dampers to look after ( requires a chip change out front )....the only ink waste would happen as the solution damper feeds solution directly into the head for that channel only.....when block fixed ,reverse damper and cartridge and off you go......i have seen a lot more ink wasted following Epsons clean and double clean and powerclean and SS CLEAN techniques (plus maintenance tanks )when they use resin coated ink to unblock resin problems....btw Epson would argue that even the bit of ink that you lose from the damper switch is not waste.....its properly used ink lubricant.....there is no waste ever...
To summarise........i personally would see air infiltration as problem no 1 .....an air-sealed ink cartridge kept in your fridge will easily last 5 years without hardening.....some of the more up to date printers are clogging ink after a few months......
Problem no 2 is that Epson has never ever put the slightest time or thought or intelligence into how to safely sanitise a resin coated wiper blade....as a child my dad would have clipped my ear if i left a paint brush unattended to after the joy and excitement of using a brush to paint....cleaning a paint brush was just boring.....NOT TO HIM IT WASNT.......
Matt
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What if clogging is just what happens when a nozzle and/or its channel has simply reached the end of its life? What if clogs begin when a nozzle just doesn't fire anymore?
Such an important question to ask !!
Seem to recall one of Erics Epson connections saying that this is indeed a possibility but in his experience not very likely.....personally , i am very hopeful that Eric will be able to do the business with his " red " bottle......if he does , then we will know for the first time ever that unblockables are beatable........then we could all use " red " and by deduction discover that a nozzle and /or channel was dead........just imagine all the ink ,cleaning solution ,maintenance tanks ,time ,frustrations that Eric would save for all of us with his little " red test " technique !
Matt
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Guys
Got the Photoflo from Kodak yesterday !(6 weeks ordered )
Will be " drip-feeding " a largish mixture about 2 feet above the disconnected head made of gylcol ,glycerol ,(epson clean solution ) Photoflo and water early next week ......down directly through a nipple on the disconnected head.....quickly followed by a back-syringe suck out through the same nipple....in a very gentle way....anyones guess what might happen..
Quite pleased by the power of gravity generated from that distance above the head...
Alan ....any idea of the amount of Photoflo that i should start with on experiment 1
Matt
Photoflo is extremely gentle (as are virtually all non-ionic detergents). Photoflo contains between 5-10% detergent according to the MSDS and is also 25% or so propylene glycol so you need to figure that in as well in terms of what you mixture is. For normal film work (eliminating water spots from processed negatives) the dilution is 1:200 but that's going to be way too weak for what we are looking at here. I suspect that you can begin with a 5% amount of photoflo and see if that works (this would give you a final detergent concentration of 0.25% which is similar to what one gets when washing dishes!). Having never seen a head in real life, I wonder if they are immersible in a cleaning solution without doing any damage. This way one could use a warming bath to improve the cleaning process (much the same way as warm/hot water helps remove crud from dishes without scrubbing). Eric might have a better feeling for this.
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Photoflo is extremely gentle (as are virtually all non-ionic detergents). Photoflo contains between 5-10% detergent according to the MSDS and is also 25% or so propylene glycol so you need to figure that in as well in terms of what you mixture is. For normal film work (eliminating water spots from processed negatives) the dilution is 1:200 but that's going to be way too weak for what we are looking at here. I suspect that you can begin with a 5% amount of photoflo and see if that works (this would give you a final detergent concentration of 0.25% which is similar to what one gets when washing dishes!). Having never seen a head in real life, I wonder if they are immersible in a cleaning solution without doing any damage. This way one could use a warming bath to improve the cleaning process (much the same way as warm/hot water helps remove crud from dishes without scrubbing). Eric might have a better feeling for this.
Alan
Much appreciated....will stop to think before i jump in
Matt
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Yes I agree on the reverse flow and sucking fluid from the face of the head as well. My only worry is when doing so you have to make certain small particles like lint or debris from the air that can land in the container of liquid cleaner your using aren't pulled into the front nozzle's along with the fluid cause then your going to get some more clogging. I also thought you could always take an old capping station apart and make a small desktop cleaning station for the head that could seal up against it while your cleaning as well as you could pull liquid thru the capping station head via the black tube that runs to the pump for that shared channel as you use a syringe on the nipple side of the head and put a rubber plug over the other shared nipple to stop it from pulling air. Not sure if that makes sense but I see it in my mind. Maybe I can draw something up later but im trying to think of ways to minimize creating clogs and treating it as if its in a clean as possible environments so as to not create more issues and have a controlled test.
Higgy
How are you getting on with your new desktop cleaning invention......would make a very clean safe environment to pull solution backwards through the head.....how would the reinvented capping station get its supply of solution to suck into the station ?
Thanks
Matt
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Hi All
As Epson are so good at making nozzles many in their next series of printers they could have a separate set to spray cleaner at the print head as it or before it docks or when the wiper blade cycles.
Just a thought it could be 2 channel and spray the red and then neutralise it with clear.?
Jon
btw epson you heard it hear first
Yes as the head returns to the parking station a simple spray gun squirts ...........
the wiper blade and bottom of the head simultaneously......
You are then told to replenish your little solution reservoir when the solution level in the tank drops below a minimum level.....sounds just like what we do every day to deal with dirty windscreens in our cars.....
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Ok, so here's where I am with my 9890.
I had a clog in the Y channel, with about 30% of the nozzles clogged. Tried cleaning, power cleaning, SS cleaning and nothing changed.
Called Scott at American Inkjet Systems (who has been very helpful) and got some of his cleaning fluids. Tried spraying the capping station per Scott's suggestion with CPL 007+, no changes. Then Scott suggested soaking a paper towel in CPL 007 and parking the head over it for at least 5 hours. This, I feel was a mistake. The head sucked up some fluid and I think it broke some of the clogs free which when I did a cleaning proceeded to ram themselves into a bunch of new previously unclogged nozzles. I now have 8 clear nozzles on my Y channel. Every other colour is perfect.
Scott is sending me some cleaning carts but I think the odds of anything happening with this clog is slim to none. If I were to try and fix this again I would first run the cleaning carts and then try the paper towel trick hoping that whatever clogs are dislodged from the nozzles would be broken down by the cleaning fluid the head is loaded with. As is stands, I don't think there's enough free nozzles to ever be able to clear the head and lines of the ink and fill the head with cleaner.
At the risk that you have replied later.....did you get your cleaning solution....did you get success ?
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Chaddro,
All these places that sell these cleaning "solutions" always have a disclaimer that the product will not be effective if you have burned out the head. Even Ericks guy "Oh Canada" had this disclaimer on his site.
I may be wrong but I believe that most people that have serious "clogs" and have done multiple power cleans have already done too much damage to their head, and cleaning is no longer an option. It all boils down to just how much repetative, consecutive cleaning, will do damage to the head.
I hope I'm wrong...
David
David
Even if you were wrong you are still right in so many important ways....i print rarely but i am constantly reminded to power clean on the 7800 ...i have been told that the printer is programmed to remind us to do power clean even though i know that the printer is spotless....there is a program running behind the scenes that is looking at
average not exceptional situations...this program is guessing when i need a power clean and i am quite happy that it has no real idea of the condition of the head day to day....you are all aware that i have spent the last year passing through nearly perfect auto clean tests month after month.....guessing here but i was probably reminded
A dozen times during the year to power clean....bizarre
So ....totally separate to Erics breakthrough (hopefully ) I know you will agree with me that the whole area of power cleaning and its associated risks and procedures will need to be carefully spelt out to all of us....we need education on power cleaning no matter how successfully and separately we crack the clogs issue...
One thing confuses me on the 900 and the power dilemma......we know that the 900 does not charge the piezos when it power cleans ( except in SS mode )......so if piezos are dormant when fluid is sucked out of the head where i wonder could the damage to piezo unit actually come from ?
Matt
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I have something interesting to share. Potentially critical to 9900/11880 users. I got a call from Edward the juggler at work Friday. He's got an 11880 now. He's been printing fine since spending $3,000 on a D1 new head install. But suddenly, after doing a few 60"X90" prints, his drive band snapped. Not sure of the proper name yet, but it's the steel band that drives the carriage left to right as the machine prints. He asked if I had heard of this happening before. I told him no, but that I knew why it broke. I've taken three 7900s apart by now, and one 9900. The head (carriage holding the head and damper unit), once released, slides effortlessly on the rails on the 7900s. This is not the case on the 9900 that I took apart though. I will look into why but for now my suspicion is most prints we run on the wider machines are not always wider prints, so the rails don't get lubed as often - way out on the run. Like maybe in the 30 to 60" range. I don't know what type of lube the rails get, yet, but I will. Perhaps this lube dries out. I can tell you definitely there is a huge difference in the resistance that I feel sliding released heads on the two different machines. This 9900 even gave out a very quiet squeak or two first time I drove the head through it's full range of movement. This added resistance is easily the reason for Edward's band breaking.
So the warning here is release your head and slide it through it's range. If it feels like butter you're alright. If it doesn't, you need some lube. Exactly what lube, and how much, is something we need to find out.
I talked Edward through disassembling the right side of his machine so that he could manually cap his new $3,000 head. With access to the rear of the pump and cap assembly it is possible to manually roll the cap's drive gear until it draws up to the head. This process gave him a good look at the band, and what it will take to replace it. He is confident that he can do it on his own. We'll see if Epson will sell him the part.
We now have two things to keep from drying out on these machines.
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I'm really glad you guys like the video. Thought about it all day doing the framing hammer thing. It's not perfect of course, already I see that I left out the part about unplugging the machine after power-down.
Eric
A bit of advice please if you would...
After power-down and plugs pulled out of the wall.......i seem to recall you being advised by another expert to watch out for capacitator risks even after power-down.....i think the advice was to press down the ON button after power-down and cables disconnected to release any static electricity left in the capacitator.....what do you think..
Thanks in anticipation
Matt
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The need for capacitor discharge applies to just about any electronic device before attempting service , some more than others dependant upon the size and actual storage charge of the capacitor (farad rating). Flash capacitors which store a lot of energy or are used in power supplies, are especially nasty if you don't discharge before completing the circuit with your fingers :o.
most circuit boards with small capacitors won't do any harm.
Static electricity on the other hand can fry some chips so that is more of a worry.
Always discharge your body by grounding before attempting any work on or near the circuit boards ;)
David
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I completed my first fifteen day auto test last week......without any printer "rocking " of any description......just turn on printer daily....no printing.......result was completely successfull auto test on the first try after a lapse of 15 days since the previous auto test...so far no advantage for rocking ....
Printer starting up beautifully...16 degrees Celsius 53 humidity.......rather a cold room but the inks seems to like it....dark room facing north...never any direct sunlight.......
Be back after stage two which is now well under way......
Hi Everyone
just finished second 15 day auto test today..no printer rocking , no printing......k3 inks.....daily start up....7800...
16 celsius 56 humidity.....cold dry room....
Absolutely perfect auto test.....first go....and each days start up was sweet.....knew there would be a good test...
Could be eating my words about rocking....
What a beautiful printer Mr Epson.......
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The need for capacitor discharge applies to just about any electronic device before attempting service , some more than others dependant upon the size and actual storage charge of the capacitor (farad rating). Flash capacitors which store a lot of energy or are used in power supplies, are especially nasty if you don't discharge before completing the circuit with your fingers :o.
most circuit boards with small capacitors won't do any harm.
Static electricity on the other hand can fry some chips so that is more of a worry.
Always discharge your body by grounding before attempting any work on or near the circuit boards ;)
David
David
Thanks
Matt
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This is exactly the type of stuff we need - community efforts. I can't do this alone, and get it all right. Thank you for this and any other tips, suggestions, changes, whatever. I will make the changes. But what exactly please. How do we purge the machine of any charge? Hitting the power button after un-plug, does that really do it? What's the best way to ground yourself to rid yourself of static electricity? Does rubbing a balloon on your head do it? Dragging your shoes on the carpet? I want to get this right..
The need for capacitor discharge applies to just about any electronic device before attempting service , some more than others dependant upon the size and actual storage charge of the capacitor (farad rating). Flash capacitors which store a lot of energy or are used in power supplies, are especially nasty if you don't discharge before completing the circuit with your fingers :o.
most circuit boards with small capacitors won't do any harm.
Static electricity on the other hand can fry some chips so that is more of a worry.
Always discharge your body by grounding before attempting any work on or near the circuit boards ;)
David
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I have something interesting to share. Potentially critical to 9900/11880 users. ...
Thanks for this Eric, I'm using an 11880 as well, and even though this thread details 7900/x900, series I found the info here very helpful, especially the videos -- great for understanding the general process of assembly/disassembly, capping station, wiperblade change of the 11880 as well.
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Erik,
Dragging you shoes on a carpet, stroking your favorite furry friend ( I won't even go there ::)), or rubbing your hair with a balloon, is exactly what not to do. This builds a charge, (especially in cold dry weather). You essentially become a capacitor storing the static energy, and waiting for a discharge .
You may or may not actually have a charge built up and it wont hurt you in any way most of the time but it pays to play it safe around circuit boards with components that may be sensative to static and be fried in the process.
The best conductor to discharge yourself on is a METAL cold water pipe, as they usually go directly into the ground at some point.
Most electrical circuit board panels anywhere, have a heavy copper (wire or braided) that is clamped directly to a cold water line or a metal stake directly into the ground which becomes the ground conductor.That would also be a good choice. Once done don't do any of the above or you will once again build up a charge.
Eric, ask one of your electricians on a job site to show you one.
As far as whether or not the printers discharge when powered down as Matt said ,I have no idea.
As long as you don't touch any of the circuit boards terminals (solder joints), there should be no problems.
David
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Although barely humor, and definitely twisted, you of all people davidh202 must know the balloon was a joke. I mean I'm dumb, but I aint stupid.
...wait a minute.
I like the cold water pipe over the earthing electrode. I can see people tripping over old wheelbarrows walking down forgotten alleyways looking for their grounding rod.
Thanks david!
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"Although barely humor, and definitely twisted, you of all people davidh202 must know the balloon was a joke".
I knew that ;)
"I mean I'm dumb, but I aint stupid".
your very far from either !!
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"More to come" ....came tonight.
and with it it brought new news
...and new rules.
I just took the framing-hammer fatal error head out, and apart. It's all together mostly, minus a few fatal things here or there. First of all my hopeful suspicions were correct, I did clear it, and it did print. But my fears were correct too, I did damage it as well.
All along, since printing my test page with it, I've held a sneaky suspicion that while it did print 75% of a page before it blew up - it did after all blow up. Initially I felt it ran out of ink, then overheated. But ever since then I've been asking myself, "Why in the hell did it run out of ink? I primed it after all... something must be wrong."
The autopsy results are now in, so speculation is over - it did run out of ink. But you'd never guess why. and I mean you would never, guess, why.
First of all tonight's autopsy positively confirms my ink-flow theory. Ink DOES indeed flow over the speed bumps on it's way to the nozzle openings, just like I drew it. So if that chamber is clogged solid with dried ink, your nozzle is shut down. Period.
Second of all tonight's autopsy confirms my next fear - Ultrasonic cleaning is OUT. You'll learn why in a minute, for now though suffice to say it's too much vibrating for these teeny chamber walls to endure.
Third of all tonight's autopsy confirms a new challenge, at least for me. Forcing fluid through the head, even gently, is also OUT.
Now on to what I saw:
The following damage illustrates the result of too much pressure applied while forcing cleaner through the head. The chamber deck floor is blown out. This missing floor gives a clear view of the enclosed reservoir that runs under the chamber deck. The broken piece of chamber deck laying on top of the chamber walls also gives a clear view of the electrics running across the bottom of it. This proves electric charge makes direct individual contact with each and every chamber wall, all along it's length. I can only speculate at this point but charging a chamber wall at just one end mostly likely wouldn't make it flex throughout it's entire length, which I suspect chamber walls do. Electrics running the full length of each wall supports my suspicion that the entire wall flexes, which creates positive pressure, which fires the "nozzle".
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/failed_head/_80E6677.jpg)
This next image illustrates what I suspect is the result of ultrasonic cleaning. Perhaps the vibration is just too much for the ends of the chamber walls - which extend out from the speedbump and into the main ink reservoir. It's either the pressure of the thick ink vibrating the wall to death, or the wall vibrating itself to death in the thick ink. Either way death is the result.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/failed_head/_80E6675.jpg)
The third image, here, is most fascinating to me. Also exciting. Look at those short black lines lodged between some of the chamber walls. Those are more than black lines, they are the broken ends of the chamber walls. To me this confirms my theory that the ink flows from the main reservoir, over the speed bumps, and to the nozzle opening - because these chamber wall ends obviously got sucked in there as they followed the flow of ink. Sure, this is exciting, I guess. But this is not what I find fascinating. What I find fascinating is the fact that this is the green chamber, of the 9900 head with the entire green channel missing in nozzle patterns. Why am I so excited you ask? Because if the chamber wall ends got sucked into the chambers, GREEN INK WAS INDEED FLOWING (even though it was cyan in this test..)
Ladies and gentlemen, we (almost) cleared an un-clearable head.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/failed_head/_80E6676.jpg)
This last image does not confirm any theories, instead it solves a mystery. Tonight I learned what the extra chamber walls which are not related to any nozzle openings, do. I also learned what the zig zag walls are on the OTHER side of the nozzle openings. I now think these secondary chamber walls are essentially pumps. I suspect they pump ink (or in this case "coolant") through the back side of the nozzle end of the chambers. The more I study the images, and illustrations that I have made, the more this new cooling theory makes sense.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/X900_printhead_closeups/failed_head/_80E6680.jpg)
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Erik,
As far as whether or not the printers discharge when powered down as Matt said ,I have no idea.
As long as you don't touch any of the circuit boards terminals (solder joints), there should be no problems.
David
Eric and David
I have no idea about discharging the capacitator or the printer on shut down by pressing down on the ON switch after the current has been turned off at the wall socket..it was HIGGY who brought all this up about frying stuff.....
You guys in the States are on 110 volts ...right? In europe we are on 220 volts ....so we might need to be more careful !
What i have also picked up about static in our bodies ( as well as what David told me in his last post ) is
1 turn off the On switch on the wall plug first.....leave the plug in the wall socket.....just make sure there is no current coming out of the wall....the fact that the cable is still plugged into the socket on a completely dead plug allows you just to touch that dead wire on the outer plastic and this will give you the facility to ground yourself on to the earth wire that seemingly is still an earth even though there is no current coming through that cable....sounds weird....
2 turn off the printer ON switch next
3.pull out the live wires plugged into circuit boards.....just in case
4 cold taps sounds super....also touch yourself off the main steel frame of the printer often....and tools too....rub them off the steel frame of the printer....everybody and everything has to have the same voltage running through themselves....no variations in voltage
5 timber floor good
6 humidity ( i have no idea ) between 40 % and 60% ....static does not like high or low humidity..
I am an amateur electrician since i was 9....not to be trusted...........
Hey Eric...
You know your brilliant idea for magnetising a long stem screwdriver by rubbing it on a broken speaker magnet...i just wonder would static like that particular friction going on....David might tell us if he would recommend making sure that you ground the magnetised screwdriver on say a cold water tap next.....or use an ordinary screwdriver when you have to poke about possible static places....just a bad thought !
Btw...i bought a beautiful tiny circular magnet with a hole in the center that slides the magnet right down the shaft of a posi 1 sized long stem screwdriver.....as you get down into the bowels of the printer....just slide the magnet down the shaft to catch the screw before it falls off....the magnet unit also have a circular plate that completely neutralises the magnetic field if you just want to focus on one screw but nothing else.....you probably have a great range of those magnets where you live.......just thought i would mention it....also it wont work if the space is too narrow ...back to the magnetised screwdriver on its own....
Thanks
Matt
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Eric
You never surprise me...
Look at the amount of knowledge you gained from twisted metal....that what started out being a twisted piece of metal and a fed up Eric in actual fact turned out telling you about ink flows..in ways that would never be indicative or conclusive from smooth head operation alone...you now know why things work and dont work for the first time......
You are learning more from the rough than the smooth..
.... You will probably end up being a forensic scientist in no time...
Are you completely against pulling ink backwards through the head or is it just pushing ink forward thats a no go...need to know before i photoflo into the unknown.......i am definitely going to drip feed with an elephant syringe....but will i power syringe backwards after the drip session....what do you think ?
Thanks
Matt
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Eric,
I have a question on that first image of the chamber and pieces.
It appears that the ends of the channels are balled up. is that just balls of ink at the broken edges, or is it what I am thinking as actually melted metal, same as the ends of a light bulb filament when it blows out due to burning not breaking?
If it those edges are melted, then they were fried before you did the ultrasonic, and the ultrasonic simply broke the already damaged parts apart and left scattered pieces within the chambers!
David
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davidh202, I combed over the images again this morning - looking specifically for balled over chamber wall ends. I find only hard edges, either of the original ends which are tapered actually, or of the broken edges. I actually have yet to find visible evidence of anything melting in these piezoboards.
Blue moon, the only sucking that goes on in these machines comes from the pump and cap assembly. It builds negative pressure once sealed against the face of the head, then sucks ink through the face of the head in the direction that ink flows during printing. I see warning signs surrounding the idea of creating negative pressure "artificially" against the face of these heads, and sucking ink (or cleaner) out manually. One of the most sensitive parts of these heads is the bond between the printhead face and the top of the piezoboard. I don't plan on jeopardizing that. I've done enough jeopardizing...
thanks for the props guys, it helps maintain motivation.
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This just in from the Juggler about his 11880. Epson tells him they won't sell him the replacement steel carriage drive belt. They directed him to nationalparts.com, who have the part listed on their website. Nationalparts tells him it's out of stock, he has to pay for it fully before they'll check with Epson to see if/when they can get it. "Could take weeks."
I feel bad for our friend the Juggler, he can't wait a month he's got jobs to do, so it's back to Decision1 for him. They just left his place with 3 grand a few months ago. You might think during a service call they'd lube his rails too. What the hell they replaced his pump and cap for no apparent reason.
Oh and Decision1 told him they plan to change his pump and cap assembly again when they come to install his drive belt, and that they'd bring a new head just in case. WTF does an X900 pump and cap assembly have to do with a broken drive belt?
There has GOT to be a better way.
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There has GOT to be a better way.
While this parts supplier http://www.gedat-spareparts.com/epson/Inkjet_Printers/STYLUS_PRO_11880/list
is based in Germany they do list the drive belt as follows:
"Reference: 524 STEEL BELT ASSY.,TB-31686" for 98,92eur plus shipping. not sure if they ship to the USA.
The reference 524 refers to their pdf exploded parts assembly document here: http://www.gedat-spareparts.com/ex/stylus_pro118800.pdf
hth, Brian.
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Awesome Brian, I will ping the juggler now.
many thanks brother
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I feel bad for our friend the Juggler, he can't wait a month he's got jobs to do, so it's back to Decision1 for him. They just left his place with 3 grand a few months ago. You might think during a service call they'd lube his rails too. What the hell they replaced his pump and cap for no apparent reason.
Oh and Decision1 told him they plan to change his pump and cap assembly again when they come to install his drive belt, and that they'd bring a new head just in case. WTF does an X900 pump and cap assembly have to do with a broken drive belt?
There has GOT to be a better way.
That's a total load of horse pucky as Sherman T Potter used to say!
Did he try Compass Micro in Oregon? 503-408-8725
appears to be same 524 part # on their diagram on page 3 if I am reading correctly.
http://www.compassmicro.com/files/SPro%2011880%20exploded%20diag.pdf
these guys may not stock all parts but order on an as needed basis from Epson .
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The thesis below is a big read, but a fair bit of info in it nevertheless.
http://doc.utwente.nl/58366/1/thesis_Wijshoff.pdf
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While this parts supplier http://www.gedat-spareparts.com/epson/Inkjet_Printers/STYLUS_PRO_11880/list
is based in Germany they do list the drive belt as follows:
"Reference: 524 STEEL BELT ASSY.,TB-31686" for 98,92eur plus shipping. not sure if they ship to the USA.
The reference 524 refers to their pdf exploded parts assembly document here: http://www.gedat-spareparts.com/ex/stylus_pro118800.pdf
hth, Brian.
Guys
If you want i can get it posted to me in ireland and express it out to the states....delighted to help...
Also a great london epson parts supplier is
UNICOMP LTD
BOURNE ESTATE
BOROUGH GREEN
KENT TN 15 DG
UK
TEL. + 44 (0)1732 781400
Fax. +44(0) 1732 780643
Email sales@unicomp.co.uk
Web. Www.unicomp.co.uk
They are OFFICIAL epson part suppliers for the British Isles......
They will definitely post to me. Ok?
Matthew Deegan
Cloonederowen
Moyard
Co.Galway
Ireland...
353 87 2583833
353 56 7721781
mattdeegan@eircom.net
Glad if i can be of any help for Germany or the Uk....good luck...
Thanks
Matt
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I texted the Juggler with your awesome offer Matt. Thank you. I also have a call into HAL. Whichever route gets a drive band to him first is the route we will take. Stay tuned and thanks again!
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The thesis below is a big read, but a fair bit of info in it nevertheless.
http://doc.utwente.nl/58366/1/thesis_Wijshoff.pdf
Glad you read it too...
As you know, this thesis is about piezo technology in general and has no direct connection with epson printers..
Did you pick up in the thesis that photographs have been captured showing air bubbles being recycled backwards into the head nozzles to no doubt cause obstruction and trouble in due course...
And of course we as printers got some of the blame for dirty print heads which is a a breeding ground for air bubbles ( these scientists claim ) ......now a dirty print head wouldnt have anything to do with a dirty wiper blade would it ?
Impossible .......
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Matt-
Thank you for the reply. I appreciate it a great deal. I am also glad you got some value out of it. And I appreciate the terminology...it helps when I solicit my friends in engineering (for the town) to assist me in creating the solution.
I'm in a holding pattern right now, waiting for the "Red" cleaning solution from the link I found here. I ordered it a couple weeks ago and was informed because of chinese new year that the item would ship around Feb 27. 7 days from today. Another 10-14 in shipping. Strangely, I'm emotionally unavailable to gripe about things like that. Par for the course it seems (in relation to printer diagnostics).
On a brighter note, I skied Vail last week, pretty good skiing.
And thank you for what you contribute Matt. You offer great insight here. I appreciate being a part of this process.
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Did he try Compass Micro in Oregon? 503-408-8725
appears to be same 524 part # on their diagram on page 3 if I am reading correctly.
http://www.compassmicro.com/files/SPro%2011880%20exploded%20diag.pdf
these guys may not stock all parts but order on an as needed basis from Epson .
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I think we may have the Juggler covered. HAL stepped in and effectively hit the "delete bs" button.
Good point Erik Ulstad, Matt's been contributing a lot of good stuff here. You too with that pdf, but I gotta tell you reading stuff like that all the words melt together for me and spell the same thing page after page "You're a moron".
I do realize it's written in my native language but somehow I still need an interpreter.
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I think we may have the Juggler covered
Eric
I think that you are a bit of a Juggler yourself ;D
-
SUCCESS!
I just got a message from Kip, who is one of the users that I rushed the printhead changing video for. He's been idle sitting by waiting to take on the challenge of a new head swap on his 7900. The manual was too elusive for him too apparently, so he decided to wait for the video. Kip is drunk tonight. He's eyebrow deep in whiskey, celebrating his first 100% clear nozzle pattern in far too long. Kip says he barely used the manual at all, instead he followed the video.
How cool is that..
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SUCCESS!
I just got a message from Kip, who is one of the users that I rushed the printhead changing video for. He's been idle sitting by waiting to take on the challenge of a new head swap on his 7900. The manual was too elusive for him too apparently, so he decided to wait for the video. Kip is drunk tonight. He's eyebrow deep in whiskey, celebrating his first 100% clear nozzle pattern in far too long. Kip says he barely used the manual at all, instead he followed the video.
How cool is that..
This is NOT for Eric but the rest of us ...
I am probably way out of line but what would you think of setting up a BUST UP fund (separate to the video fund ) for Erics use that would allow him to cover the cost of bust up heads and inks etc. He could then proceed to destroy heads and inks in a predictable way on a long term basis,so that at the end of it, he would be able to tell us x minutes on a drip y minutes on a syringe and z minutes soaking in the bath.....whatever...we have seen a lot of dollars lost here on time out ,inks ,heads ,dampers ,park stations ,rips etc...because we have had to guess our way along the route..
Eric is showing us how to do things on his own very valuable time...and there is no doubt in my mind and i know you will agree that each of his ideas and experiments is notching all of us to a different place......I hope that i am not a million miles off the mark......
If we all put a little towards the project it will yield huge dividends for all of us.....
Any takers ?
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That is very thoughtful of you Matt. Maybe not necessary though, at least in that form.
It was suggested more than once that we corral all the vital lessons learned in this thread and put them into one organized place for both ourselves, and for future fellow X900 users also facing the special challenges of (successfully) owning/running/maintaining these machines. The idea makes a lot of sense, there are far too many pages in this thread to effectively find what you need. So I created MYX900.com. It's a slow build but already I've been contacted by people who have benefited greatly from it - like in excess of thousands of dollars benefited from it. While this is inspiring to me, inspiration alone won't keep MYX900.com running or building or helping people.
Like I mentioned many pages ago, I am indeed a dreamer. I do it all the time. The current dream here is that this effort supports itself, through donations. I haven't had a safe/easy system in place to accept donations until today, but it's up and running now. It's under the "FERTILIZER" tab. The page is called "MANURE REQUESTED (http://myx900.com/manure-requested/)". I am hopeful that people who benefit from the effort will contribute to the effort. I've paid for all this up until now with my framing hammer. If we do this different from now on, together, MYX900.com will pay for itself.
This has been a great experience. I thank all of you, even those who stay quiet in the background, sincerely for your help.
Eric
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It took my hammer hitting me in the head this afternoon for me to realize I was wrong to say I've paid for this entirely with my framing hammer. In fact many of you have already donated to the cause, after the wiper exchange video. Time to put a thank you page together. Sorry I neglected to acknowledge that in the previous post. What a jerk.
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Alan
THE PHOTOFLO MIX
Remember your recommendations for the above
6 parts water
2 parts isopropyl
2 parts glycerol
1/2 part photoflo
What do you think of the photoflo concentration in my attempt as follows ...ps. .i am in no way going to hold you responsible for any destruction that i can manage...i am already set to install a new head ( its 250 dollars for the 7800 if i blow the current one to bits )
8 parts Epson Cleaning Solution for aqueous inks.....footnote #1
2 parts isopropyl footnote #2
1/2 part photoflo
Warm rather than cold solution......
Footnotes
# 1. Composition of Epson clean solution for aqueous inks is :
Dietheylene glycol. < 45%
Proprietary organic materials 0- 5%
Glycerols. About. 15 %
Water. Balance
# 2. I read somewhere this week that bacterias love to eat glycols...you may be able to confirm that......anyway i thought i would then go back to your original recommendation to include isopropyl in the mix as i believe it likes to eat bacterias !
Thanks for any advice you might offer and your help up to now as well
Matt
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Eric
Just a quick one....i know your mind is probably somewhere inside a 7900 head right now scouting for a clog to destroy.....
I am only asking a view....its my responsibility if it fails ...
Is a gentle suck back of clean solution from front nozzle to back nipple with a small syringe and long pipe highly risky at this point.....
Just a view.....nothing else.....as i said to Alan i am ready to replace the head if i fail ..!
Thanks
Matt
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From what I have seen, pressure is NOT our friend. While I am aware of the fact that our machines create negative pressure to suck ink out of the heads in the direction of printing, I am not yet aware of how much pressure. And I know no pressure is ever applied in reverse, by the machine at least.
The last head that I performed an autopsy on showed evidence of pressure damage. I am the only one who applied pressure to that head, and I was very gentle. The current strategy I am developing avoids any pressure in any direction.
The weakest part of an X900 head is the chamber deck floor. Beneath this floor, which is so thin it's actually transparent, is a sealed reservoir that runs the length and width of the entire deck. Too much reverse ink flow pressure, applied to a clogged chamber wall, pulls the chamber deck away from the surface of the printhead face - which causes it to collapse into the sealed reservoir.
The X900 machine sucks ink through the head in the direction of printing, which I believe is safer because the chamber deck gets pushed up against the face of the printhead, which it is already in contact with (the top of each and every chamber wall is actually glued to the printhead face).
This is a work in progress, I only started this morning. Take a look at this X900 PRINTHEAD REVEALED (http://myx900.com/x900-printhead-revealed/) page and you'll get a better idea of how the chamber deck can collapse with negative pressure drawn into the printhead face.
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The last head that I performed an autopsy on showed evidence of pressure damage. I am the only one who applied pressure to that head, and I was very gentle. The current strategy I am developing avoids any pressure in any direction.
You have put more thought into this than anyone else........so i am going to hold back on photoflo until i see what your line of attack is going to be.....
Thanks
Matt
-
Alan
THE PHOTOFLO MIX
Remember your recommendations for the above
6 parts water
2 parts isopropyl
2 parts glycerol
1/2 part photoflo
What do you think of the photoflo concentration in my attempt as follows ...ps. .i am in no way going to hold you responsible for any destruction that i can manage...i am already set to install a new head ( its 250 dollars for the 7800 if i blow the current one to bits )
8 parts Epson Cleaning Solution for aqueous inks.....footnote #1
2 parts isopropyl footnote #2
1/2 part photoflo
Warm rather than cold solution......
Footnotes
# 1. Composition of Epson clean solution for aqueous inks is :
Dietheylene glycol. < 45%
Proprietary organic materials 0- 5%
Glycerols. About. 15 %
Water. Balance
# 2. I read somewhere this week that bacterias love to eat glycols...you may be able to confirm that......anyway i thought i would then go back to your original recommendation to include isopropyl in the mix as i believe it likes to eat bacterias !
Thanks for any advice you might offer and your help up to now as well
Matt
I think your proposal makes sense. You can delete the glycerol since the Epson cleaning solution already contains it. Isopropyl alcohol is a germacide and a little stronger of a solvent than the glycols in the Epson solution. We don't know the proprietary organic molecules in the Epson solution but I wouldn't be surprised if they are not some form of detergent.
Alan
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Alan
Thanks for that advice...
will wait to hear from Eric about pressure problems...then i will try the phoflo with his method..
will keep you informed
matt
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Initial signs suggest it's not a waste of time. Only live two weeks. Awesome!
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/myx900_traffic.jpg)
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Blue moon - I've done that:)
Small pressure didn't hurt my head but didn't help to clear my clogs either. Big pressure however blew off 90% of the channel. The funny thing however is that when you push the liquid with a syringe it appears to be flowing through all nozzles. However the test afterwards shows that 90% of the channel is dead.
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Blue moon - I've done that:)
Small pressure didn't hurt my head but didn't help to clear my clogs either. Big pressure however blew off 90% of the channel. The funny thing however is that when you push the liquid with a syringe it appears to be flowing through all nozzles. However the test afterwards shows that 90% of the channel is dead.
Thanks for that
The only method that i would consider now is a drip setup...
But will wait for Eric to see what he has up his sleeve
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The funny thing however is that when you push the liquid with a syringe it appears to be flowing through all nozzles. However the test afterwards shows that 90% of the channel is dead.
I've had the exact same experience jack777. Barely any pressure at all and ink comes out of all nozzles. This suggests a few scenarios to me, and likely a few I haven't even considered yet. Either the nozzle face is lifting from the top of the piezoboard, allowing ink to flow above the chambers and out of all the nozzle openings, or it doesn't take a floor to ceiling full of dried ink to keep chamber walls from firing, which would allow some ink to flow through a chamber with enough artificial pressure applied.
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Blue moon - I've done that:)
Small pressure didn't hurt my head but didn't help to clear my clogs either. Big pressure however blew off 90% of the channel. The funny thing however is that when you push the liquid with a syringe it appears to be flowing through all nozzles. However the test afterwards shows that 90% of the channel is dead.
Just a thought...
With small pressure applied is it possible that solution strength is not powerful enough to shift the clog...in other words ,does there need to be a relationship between solution strength , pressure applied and for how long is pressure applied.....
Possible to ask you what you fired through the head for solution ?
Eric and yourself seem to be getting on well ..wouldn't like to be in the clog family....
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I spoke with Eric a few weeks ago on the phone about this matter and thought maybe I should present my view on this to the group.
I've had dropped nozzles/clogging issues on a few 9800's. So severe that I decided to do some drastic cleaning, possibly taking the chance of ruining the head. I'd read about using Windex or Simple Green, doing the soaked paper towel method. That didn't work out, so I removed the head and injected Windex directly into the ports. It took a couple of tries and eventually I got it clean.
(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/head-syringe.jpg)
We know Windex loosens dried ink. Try squirting some on a dry print and rub it. Then try it with your favorite head cleaning solution. I'd bet Windex dissolves ink better. The expensive pro cleaning solution I purchased did virtually nothing. Contrary to many who claim Windex will ruin your heads... baloney. The heads are still working fine two years later.
My view on this head clogging is this... Use the machine! A lot. I wonder if any here, who use the machine on a daily basis have nozzle clogs that they can't clear up with a regular cleaning?
If you don't use the printer a lot ( like me ), then I personally think the following approach is the best ( for now ).
Rinse the ports with distilled water, inject Windex, let it sit for a day, periodically shaking the hell out of it and then rinse. Repeat for two more days. This way, the cleaner will slowly attack the dried ink and loosen the clog. You would think ultrasonic cleaning would be the trick, but it must do some internal damage. I have a friend who claims he fixed his desktop printer head using the ultrasonic method but I wasn't about to try that first. Now... If your head has rows of clogged nozzles or you've already done way too many power cleanings, you may have damaged it beyond repair.
After doing this procedure, use the syringe and pre-fill each port with the proper ink color before re-installing the head so you don't waste a bunch of ink with the printer filling up the head.
I do have one other comment on a previous poster who claimed a power cleaning only sucks ink into the head. On the 9800, that's not the case. A power cleaning, as with any cleaning, the head fires all nozzles, just lots more. I've had the side cover off mine and watched it spray a whole lotta ink during a power clean. Also, I bet you didn't know that every time the head comes off the paper to the right, it squirts ink out of the nozzles into the flushing box. Thanks Epson.
As to the nozzle plate 'lifting', I've had it happen to two heads ( out of four x800 machines I've bought used ). One was loaded with Chinese aftermarket ink and the other using dye sub inks ( I've read this is quite common with dye sub ink ). The plate de-laminates from the head and ink flows into adjacent ports. With the right glue, these might be repairable.
Wonder how many Epson owners this has happened to? ( When I called Epson on a couple different occasions, the techs said they'd never heard of this. Yeah, right...)
(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/de-laminated-head.jpg)
P.S. Eric... What happened with the guy in Denver? I was hoping you'd give him a call and email back.
Lee Hagen
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An interesting diagram of the pump mechanism of the Epson 3880 (3850 in Asia). You may already be familiar with it, but I wasn't.
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=57914#p57914
Brian A
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We simply used water.
Another thing I forgot to mention. When the tech came and plugged in his computer to our printer it turned out our cleaning pump motor was at 200% of it's expected lifespan. The important thing now is that the printer won't tell you that - only with the secret tech soft you can access that data. However if one more part will run out of it's lifespan (sorry, forgot which one) you'll get an error and won't be able to print.
So one day when your printing the most important job in your life your printer may say to you without any warning "Hey! It's time to replace my cleaning station."
After that I had a little talk with the tech:
- If the pump is so tired did it kill my head?
- This is highly unlikely.
- So why are you replacing it even though you didn't know it was so old before you came here?
- Our experience shows it's better to do so.
As you may see the tech wasn't too effusive. I also asked him is there any other part that I need to worry about. And you know what? The next part on it's list was carriage motor. And it was at 18%. At that point I asked WTF? pump is at 200% and the next thing is at 18%? "So the printer says"
Also the tech was refereing to the entire cleaning station as pump and he replaced the entire cleaning station. I can't say exactly how but it's slightly different than the old one. Nothing major but for example the cloth that collects the gunk from the wiper blade seems different.
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(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/head-syringe.jpg)
My view on this head clogging is this... Use the machine! A lot. I wonder if any here, who use the machine on a daily basis have nozzle clogs that they can't clear up with a regular
(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/de-laminated-head.jpg)
Lee Hagen
Lee
Dont mean to contradict you here...it seems you know how to look after your 9800 better than most....and there is hundred different ways to get to the same end result...
You may (or may not ) have noticed that i am in the middle of testing a 7800 for clogs over close to a year now....the printer has only printed two a4 in that time...i think that conventional wisdom would say that printer has to be in serious trouble by now...it does get a daily startup and a 15 day auto test...all winter it has been enjoying about 16 cel plus 55 humidity ....for most of the year it also got a gentle shakeup daily to keep pigments stirred up...right now i am trying to disprove my little theory about shaking up pigments by not shaking the printer and it is behaving as well as ever...in a months time i will be able to say something more definite about pigments settling and causing trouble....
I am beginning to have a view that a consistently coolish air space is good for inks...around 16 celscius with no direct sunlight hitting windows if possible....or possibly shades blinds etc to keep temperature consistent....probably not practical if you live in the States in the summer...
By inference if there is no major trouble being caused to this printer through inactivity and pigment settling problems then that would lead me to thing that more of the running problems may be developing by coming up into the head from the park station ,wiper hygiene matters ...rather than from sticky ink coming directly from the cartridges....a hunch....
BTW
your windex routine is cool.....like the idea of rinsing the head first with water and then filling the head with ink after the third windex syringe push through...question....would you recommend rinsing the head with distilled water after you have finished with the windex and before you load the head again with inks...i will try the photoflo soup first and hopefully it is better than pro fluid on its own...then i will move on to windex...then...
Thanks
Matt
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More thoughts...
Humidity.
If you take a good look at the pump/cap assembly and really understand how it operates, you'd probably realize you're wasting your time on keeping humidity up in, or around the printer.. By design, it's marriage with the head is completely sealed. If the rubber cap seal hasn't been damaged, the head lives in a moist environment. When the head is parked, it sits atop all that water based ink that has soaked the pad in the cap. If you don't think it's moist enough, do what I do when I don't plan on printing for a while. I move the head out of the way and squirt water to puddle the pad. Wipe the excess at the bottom and then re-park the head.
Pump cap assembly.
Not sure about the x900 series, but for x800 owners who are convinced their pump is bad... Don't bother replacing it. It's also an extremely simple design and not prone to wearing out. Basically, it's a rolling pin that rolls in a circle and squeezes a latex hose. How long do you think it would take to squeeze a latex hose 'til it wears out? One of my printers had 40k+ prints on it when I bought it and the pump is fine. Epson must make a fortune ripping off users convincing them they need a replacement.
One thing you can do is give it a good cleaning. Remove the pump assembly, remove the circlip and gear ( yellow arrow ), make sure the screw ( red arrow ) is good and tight and then use a powered screwdriver and to run that gear counterclockwise while flushing the pad ( green arrow ) in Windex and then hot water.
(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/pump-clean.jpg)
While on the pump thought, Matt's correct in thinking the wiper most likely plays a part in nozzle clogs. Ink slowly dries on it over time and then it goes and wipes itself across the head. Not real smart. This may not be an issue if the printer is used on a regular basis but if it sits for a while, the wiper really ought to be cleaned with a Windex soaked Q-tip before ( or after ) every use.
Settling in cartridges.
I don't think this is really much of an issue. If there is settling of pigment, it shouldn't find it's way out of the cart because the outlet is not on the bottom of the cart. Ok, so maybe you shake them once in a while? Anything thick enough to plug a nozzle should get trapped by the extremely fine filter in the damper. Speaking of dampers... Don't bother replacing them. Clean them with Windex and then hot water, using a syringe. I made the dingus below to suck ink out of "empty" carts but it works for this too. Make sure you suck the fluid from the output side as there is a one way valve which prevents pressure from the inlet side.
(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/damper.jpg)
Matt: Yes, rinse with water and then fill with ink.
Lee
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To hearken back to the idea of a program that runs a print of all inks on a regular basis to prevent clogged nozzles. It may work to prevent permanent clogs, but I don’t think that it will do much to prevent minor clogs.
Yesterday I did a nozzle check on a Epson 9890 about midday. I did little printing that afternoon, perhaps 8-10 prints for a total of 12-16 square feet, but did note that the LLK cartridge went down from 2% to 1%.
Today I did paper work in the morning, then some sheet prints on another printer. In the afternoon I did a nozzle check on the 9890. The LLK pattern was incomplete in three places. I repeated the nozzle check print, hoping it would clear and knowing a pair cleaning would involve replacing the LLK cartridge. There was only one incomplete line in the pattern now, but five more nozzle check prints did nothing. I printed an A4 sized test image with a good gray ramp, still no change to the pattern. I was left with no alternative but to install a new cartridge and do a pair cleaning, which did then produce a clean nozzle check print.
I do a nozzle check every working day. Sometimes, such as around Christmas and New Year, the printers may go a week or more without printing or a nozzle check and still show a clean print when started up. But you can print one day and have a minor clog the next, and I presume that major clogs start with minor clogs that go untreated.
Brian A
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More thoughts...
Humidity.
If you take a good look at the pump/cap assembly and really understand how it operates, you'd probably realize you're wasting your time on keeping humidity up in, or around the printer.. By design, it's marriage with the head is completely sealed. If the rubber cap seal hasn't been damaged, the head lives in a moist environment. When the head is parked, it sits atop all that water based ink that has soaked the pad in the cap. If you don't think it's moist enough, do what I do when I don't plan on printing for a while. I move the head out of the way and squirt water to puddle the pad. Wipe the excess at the bottom and then re-park the head.
Lee.....
I have always felt that a really well kept clean moist park station plus " head in bed " on that station is an air tight bond (between station and head ) should give somewhat the same performance as ink sealed in a cartridge is expected to give..there really is no diffference between the environment in a cartridge and a sealed park station is there ?
So i personally see your point that with a good rubbarisd seal , humidity should not be a threat to inks....on the other hand you will notice earlier in this thread from people in the ink business that its possible to get extra life from colder ink...store spare ink in a fridge for example...Eric has built a protective barrier to control humidity...suppose i could persuade him to include say 16 celscius as his temp for the coming summer....inside the barrier.....sounds impossible......where i hunch that temperature really affects the smooth running of the nozzles is with the spilt inks left uncleaned on the nozzle surface....the warmer the climate the faster will a clog build...
To summarise : printer design i feel are nowhere near healthy when one considers how do we dispose of surplus to requirement inks left on heads blades park stations etc.....the current way of thinking is use use use resinised inks to keep the fluidity in the flow line...you are the first to say clean up the park station gear after each days use...i really like that approach...its just sensible.....like a meat shop cleans up every night before closing
Matt
While on the pump thought, Matt's correct in thinking the wiper most likely plays a part in nozzle clogs. Ink slowly dries on it over time and then it goes and wipes itself across the head. Not real smart. This may not be an issue if the printer is used on a regular basis but if it sits for a while, the wiper really ought to be cleaned with a Windex soaked Q-tip before ( or after ) every use.
Settling in cartridges.
I don't think this is really much of an issue. If there is settling of pigment, it shouldn't find it's way out of the cart because the outlet is not on the bottom of the cart. Ok, so maybe you shake them once in a while? Anything thick enough to plug a nozzle should get trapped by the extremely fine filter in the damper. Speaking of dampers... Don't bother replacing them. Clean them with Windex and then hot water, using a syringe. I made the dingus below to suck ink out of "empty" carts but it works for this too. Make sure you suck the fluid from the output side as there is a one way valve which prevents pressure from the inlet side.
(http://home.roadrunner.com/~archome/images/damper.jpg)
Matt: Yes, rinse with water and then fill with ink.
Lee
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Sorry Matt race season is upon me. The walls of time are closing in on me so I have to make this quick:
1 - measurable difference using my moisture barrier cover over the 7900. I'd say it clogs 60-70% less.
2 - It is possible to clear a clog in an X900 head. We've proved that. What we haven't done yet is clear a clog without damaging the head. I am building a prototype machine to clean the next head I get, which is on it's way to me now. New strategy will include no pressure, no ultrasonic vibration. Instead I am focusing on circulation. Movement of the cleaning fluid passed the face of the head while it is submerged, coupled with a reservoir attached to the nipple plate filled with extra fluid. There's more to it than that but you get the idea - steady flow.
3 - In the background I have been working on a capping station theory which compliments Lee's suggestion. Good time to mention it now I guess. I plan to modify the right side cover on this 9900. I will make it easily removable. Idea is to release the head, slide it to the side, roll the capping station manually into view, check that it's clean then spray it with a mixture of distilled water and glycerin - a humectant. This will have to be tested of course but the hope is it will help keep the head from drying.
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Hello All,
It's been quite a while since I've contributed to this thread, but I usually check in 2-3 times a week for updates. As we all appreciate, Eric and his genius buddy Steve have certainly done a stellar job of R&M(research & maintenance) on the X900 printers. I was just about to make a donation, but decided to write this first. I put my 9900 into operation on April 20, 2010 and simultaneously started a "Printer Problem Log", which I have been adding to as necessary. I now have exactly 100 entries and will shortly be adding to that. All of this due to the various posts on this and another forum before I bought the 9900, thus I was somewhat prepared. I say "somewhat prepared" because after using two 7600s for many years I was quite astounded at the frequency of issues with the 9900. The most prolific of course being the ubiquitous head clogs and seemingly unending cleaning cycles necessary to finish a job that had been started only after making sure I had a good nozzle pattern. One job consisted of 10-24x36 prints. Near the middle of the job I noticed the colour shifting slightly warmer than the first prints. After a couple more prints I ran another nozzle check and found both the C and LC had many dropouts. After two cleanings the LC was gone completely. Eventually I was able to finish the job, but the dumped ink and wasted time certainly cut into the profit margin as you might expect. I won't go into any more detail at this point, except to say that the next few months were full of wasted time, paper and ink. On Thursday, Nov.26, 2010 I talked with a tech at Epson and arranged a service call. Here in Canada the service company is Glodyne Decision One and the following Wed a tech arrived. He installed a Pump/Cap Station and a new Print Head. The printer couldn't communicate with the new head at all, so he reinstalled the original head and it worked fine. For the next couple of months I experienced the usual nozzle dropouts, but nothing a few pairs cleanings couldn't take care of. Mar. 29,2011 I started having massive dropouts in the LLK and could NOT solve this issue. April 5, 2011 was my second service call. This time another NEW Print Head and this one worked. Also, the damper assembly was replaced. Therefore, I had 2 service calls and various parts replaced within the first year of use. By the middle of April I was starting to see banding in the blacks, as well as an issue with the overall quality of the printed image. Looked rather "grainy", as if printed at 360dpi. April 28, 2011, another service call. When the tech removed the Pump/Cap Station from the box there were several pieces broken and had to be returned. He did install the new Wiper Blade in the older Pump/Cap Station. Ran several head alignments and the mechanical alignment as well. Through the summer months there were the usual nozzle dropouts, accompanied by more frustration and wasted time, paper and ink. Hmmmm, I guess this is becoming too long a read now, so I'll skip to the chase. Had to take 6 weeks off due to health issues and then back Dec.1. I believe the printer had worn me out! Near the end of Dec I noticed escalating issue with the Y ink, dropouts more often and difficulty clearing the problem. Checked the ink bay and was pretty sure there was a problem with the Y connector seal. Jan.17 2012, another service call. Replaced the left ink bay and yet another Pump/Cap Assembly. From that point on I dealt with air pockets in three ink lines along with the accompanying clean cycles and wastage. Epson replaced some of the ink wasted in these situations without any discussion. Other related issues as well, including a sever banding issue in the MK. And the saga continues. During the following months the dropouts continued, as did the seemingly never ending cleaning cycles, including several power cleans. Through Christmas 2012 the printer seemed to behave quite well and then into the new year also. However, last week I noticed a banding issue appearing in the blacks, although all of the nozzle checks were 100%. Could not get a solid deep midtone through highlight, especially in a B&W print. Also noticeable in full colour prints, but rather subtle in some. Called Epson two days ago and the next service call will probably be Wed, Mar. 6. It's a slow process here in Canada it seems.
WHEW!!! Sorry to be so long winded here, but this has definitely been a long journey and I have tried to keep it as short as possible, leaving out repetitive issues. I started this post with the intention of offering only one piece of advice to anyone in the market for a X900 large format printer, but also felt that some history might help along the way. My advice is as follows, quite simple actually - RENEW YOUR WARRANTY TO THE LIMIT!!! I was reluctant to lay out that amount of money until three service calls later. They would have paid for a new printer easily, so it was a no-brainer at that point. I now have one month left on my final warranty extension with Epson, so I'll be relying on Eric's site for guidance from that point forward. I have at least done the Wiper Blade cleaning but not much else, since the machine is still under warranty.
Once again I will repeat - RENEW THE WARANTY!!! It's an insurance policy well worth the money. Believe me, I know from experience.
Thank you Eric, and now back to your site to leave some $$$.
Gary
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....wow
What a story Gary. Definitely not too long. The more detail the better.
I commend your perseverance, and your positive attitude.
Gary just paid MYX900.com hosting fees for a year!
Dream, realized.
Thank you Gary
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You are MOST WELCOME Eric, and I hope everyone reading and contributing to this thread will do the same. This is a very valuable thread for all of us, especially those of us without warranty coverage, the rank I will be joining soon unfortunately. However, I just heard from the tech at Glodyne Decision One and he told me that I should have a service call possibly by Wed next week. NOT good enough by any means, but little choice I suppose. They are going to install another new print head, the third one. Didn't mention anything about the Pump/Cap Assembly, which is the standard go-to part with them it would seem. I imagine Epson will be VERY glad to see the end of my warranty extensions.
I have recently cleaned the Wiper Blade for the first time since the last Pump/Cap Assembly was installed. It was actually surprisingly clean, but even better now of course. All of the tests I've done concerning this latest issue have been printed on 8.5x11 Prm Luster, the size I generally use for most of my testing(5-2x8" tests per sht). Now get this, the tech said the latest issue could have something to do with that paper size. I then replied that I have never seen this problem before. His reply to that was that no one uses that size paper on a 9900. I agree it is perhaps a bit of overkill to be printing an 8x10 on a 44" printer, but WTH does that have to do with anything? I ask you Eric, WHAT? I could hardly believe my ears when I heard him say that. So I suppose Epson should include that caveat in the Users Manual, the 9900 should be used only for paper sizes larger that 8.5x11. Otherwise one might expect problems. I believe the more appropriate Epson warning would be to NEVER, under any circumstances, rely on anyone at D1 to actually know WTH they're talking about. Perhaps this is stepping a bit over the line, but past experience has made me very reluctant to trust that company for any sort of reliable information or service. They will definitely NOT be getting any business from me after my warranty has expired. I will be relying on your site and my own mechanical experience to solve my problems as much as possible. Your vids are very easy to follow and I know a print head replacement is not out of the realm of possibility.
Well, I really must get moving here for now, but I will post agin soon to ask another question.
Again, I salute you for your work and imparting the knowledge you have accumulated to this community Eric. Take care!
Gary
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Sorry Matt race season is upon me. The walls of time are closing in on me so I have to make this quick:
In the background I have been working on a capping station theory which compliments Lee's suggestion. Good time to mention it now I guess. I plan to modify the right side cover on this 9900. I will make it easily removable. Idea is to release the head, slide it to the side, roll the capping station manually into view, check that it's clean then spray it with a mixture of distilled water and glycerin - a humectant. This will have to be tested of course but the hope is it will help keep the head from drying.
Interesting ideas Eric and Lee. As a matter of fact I was about to ask if you might entertain the idea of putting together a video on replacing the capping station at some point, but this certainly seems very plausible as well. Reminds me of my approach to my two 7600s, one of which I still use(sold the other one a couple of years ago). After using the printers for a couple of years and removing the right end cover to gain access to the cap/pump assembly and clean the wiper, I decided one day to leave the cover off permanently. Mounted the control panel on the front metal body just to the left of where the cover would normally reside and have been working that way ever since. I keep a piece of plastic over the workings to prevent dust etc from accumulating, but this way I can remove the cap station, clean it and the wiper and reinstall within half an hour, no problem. What you are proposing sounds somewhat like an offshoot of what I've been doing, so I'm anxious to see the final results of that research as well. I'm sure that whatever you do will work very well and will benefit all of us.
Good luck at the track Eric. Keep focused on the vehicle and leave the X900 where it belongs. There's a great little book I read a while back, might interest you as well. "The Art Of Racing In The Rain", an interesting read and I'm pretty sure could identify with it in many ways.
Gary
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Is there a sado masochistic relationship between Epson, its wide format printers and customers? Are printers ritually dissected? Do service men appear in black leather or vinyl to repair printers? Are fines paid to continue this torture? Not even Epson seems to mind the exposure of this relationship. No cries of disgust are heard when torn apart parts are shown in gory detail.
I read this thread less and less but I can not resist the temptation to look for a new episode from time to time. It is true, I am a voyeur and not one with compassion for victim or torturer. Being confronted for years with stories like this you can only think they must like one another for some reason.
Next time I might consider another perspective; similarities in The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha and Epson 7900 from the inside - out.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
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This is meant in the kindest way, but doesn't the word "Canon" reverberate in the heads of those in trouble like Garnick?
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Is there a sado masochistic relationship between Epson, its wide format printers and customers? Are printers ritually dissected? Do service men appear in black leather or vinyl to repair printers? Are fines paid to continue this torture? Not even Epson seems to mind the exposure of this relationship. No cries of disgust are heard when torn apart parts are shown in gory detail.
I read this thread less and less but I can not resist the temptation to look for a new episode from time to time. It is true, I am a voyeur and not one with compassion for victim or torturer. Being confronted for years with stories like this you can only think they must like one another for some reason.
Next time I might consider another perspective; similarities in The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha and Epson 7900 from the inside - out.
--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.
Hello Ernst,
I agree with much of what you write. To some extent tongue in cheek, but I think more a serious tone than not. I too will admit to not reading this thread daily, but I certainly do tune in on a regular basis to more or less catch up. As I mentioned in my post, I will soon be part of the great unwashed as well, those without warranty. And, having traveled down a rather rocky road, mounted atop my trusty steed Rocinante(my new name for the 9900 by the way), I will have to take the time to contemplate which windmill I will tilt toward next. Draw my rusty sword and step up to the challenge. Yes indeed, sometimes the service techs do appear clad in their leathers, wielding their tools and gnawing at the opportunity to delve once more into the heart of the Epson beast. Now of course all of this is said due to my own particular experience with my printer. Let me say upfront that this 9900 has NEVER been abused in any way. Always kept in a clean environment and handled with care. However, as we all know, there are simply some occasions when a piece of equipment seems to be possessed. Hmmm...perhaps an Epson exorcism is in order here. Maybe I could convince Eric to don his robes, bring his hammer and take his life in his hands in the Great White North. Say a few choice words over the 9900 and hope it does indeed do some magic. Oh ya, I've done that many times without success(sans robes and hammer), but definitely the 'choice' words. Oh no, I wouldn't dare approach it with hammer in hand, too tempting. Actually I'm somewhat surprised that you read this thread at all Ernst, being a HP/Canon devotee(sorry, I don't remember which). Well actually, perhaps I do understand, a gleeful glint in your eye as you peruse this thread and inwardly chuckle at the woes of us lowly Epson followers. Tongue in cheek on my part there Ernst, since I don't believe you are the sort of person to belittle the problems of others. At this point the only thing left is to make light of the situation when possible, and this is a good outlet. Thanks for the post Ernst.
And to 'enduser', the answer is YES! There, satisfied? I have indeed given that a lot of thought. However I doubt that I will be working at this for many more years, so I suppose I'll stick with Epson until it wears me out completely. Then they can stuff us both in the same box perhaps and ship us back to the manufacturer, whomever that may be. Of course there is another reason for my stubbornness. I get all of my Epson products at dealer net, so that's quite an incentive. There's also the fact that I have been using Epson printers for many years and have NEVER encountered the volume of issues that have occurred with the 9900. There are a lot of X900 users who experience none of these problems, at least not to the extent I have. As we all understand, there are simply some pieces of equipment that should come supplied with a can of Lemon coloured paint and a brush. Call it what it is, but don't speak too loudly. I'm of the impression that it also has ears.
Thanks to both for the interesting posts.
Gary
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Starship 7900, Captians Log, stardate 3/2/2013 -2/3/2013 whichever ...
Upon executing a PK to MK maneuver and proceeding to Canvas 1620 in the Epsonian cluster, a red alert was sounded that there were missing nozzles in MK and the Cyan channel had dropped out completely :o
Cyan at 1% too low- too clean, so a new cart was placed in the bay by the engineering staff and charged up to do a standard C/VM pairs clean and test run,Thinking this could be an Canon/HP attack I procceded with phasers and photon torpedoes ready to do a powered clean, just to be on the safe side.
This failed to materialize the cyan channel :'(
Shut down all non essential life support systems and rebooted.
Had the engineering staff engage another standard C/VM pair clean and test.
Cyan back on line, and all MK nozzles clear,Put the old 1%cyan back in...
Good work Scotty!
A sigh of relief could be heard throughout the ship ,and we resumed course to Canvas 1620 in the Epsonian cluster, and a rendevous with Starship 9890 later in the day.
I have only experienced complete and large channel dropouts when carts are at 1%.This is a ink delivery -pressurization problem not a nozzle problem!
Doing power cleans, especially in rapid succession, is a sure way to destroy the nozzles
Never freak out and do power cleans when you get a complete channel drop out , give it a chance to come back on it's own ! ;)
David
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Good job Captain David(AKA - James Tiberius). Indeed those red alerts can often invoke actions unsuited to the Epson Starship, but a bit of intergalactic fun is nothing to be concerned about. So in the words of Jean Luc - "Make it so!" Warp speed and onward. And of course the best of them all, Mr. Spock's words to all of us star travellers....Live long and prosper! Great words to travel by, except that I believe the Borg Collective has now taken control of the Starship 9900 and indeed, resistance IS futile. I could go on like this all night long, activity truly unbecoming an old Trekie. But why would that concern me at this stage? Only Kirk would know the answer to that, and he seems to have left the building.
Good advice and indeed, Live long and prosper, all Trekies!
First Officer Gary(well I can pretend can't I?)
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Does anywone know of software that will make a 7900/9900 print separate color bars for each of the 10 inks for test and purge? MIS had a program for the 2400, but doesn't seem to have one for the 7900.
mzf25
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Does anywone know of software that will make a 7900/9900 print separate color bars for each of the 10 inks for test and purge? MIS had a program for the 2400, but doesn't seem to have one for the 7900.
mzf25
Try this (http://lucbusquin.com/content/purge-all-epson-x900-ink-channels).
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Hi Everyone
I am new and came across this forum because I have the 7900 woes.
I bought one used and am not able to get past an error in the boot up phase.
If anyone can shed some light on my problem I would appreciate it.
Here's what happens:
If I insert the ink cartridges in, up to 10, the machine will recognize them and accurately show their ink amount and the one empty bay saying:
"No cartridge Install ink cartridge"
As soon as I push that last one in, the printer does its little boot up procedure and them announces:
"Ink cartridge error Replace ink cartridge" and flashes ALL compartments as empty with the red circle and white cross; not one cart is seen.
It does not matter which cartridge is left as the last one to be inserted. They all register accurately until that last one is pushed in.
I believe that the machine is satisfied they are all present and filled enough and moves on to its next boot up item and flashes this error.
It is so fast but I imagine I can see the display showing the carts are ok before the "Ink cartridge error Replace ink cartridge" but it might take some slow motion photography to confirm this.
Nevertheless I am stumped.
The cost of parts alone is $1200 and for a tech to knock on the door $100, to come in and cough $175 per hour.
If that gets resolved there is no guarantee the head will print.
I am sure it is worth every penny but I have so few these days.
So can anyone offer some insight into this mysterious behavior?
Thanks in advance, Peter
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So can anyone offer some insight into this mysterious behavior?
Did you try booting the printer up in service or maintenace mode? Does it make a difference?
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I can boot up in whichever mode the right arrow, the ok button and the down arrow is.
But that does not help me get in "Ready" state
Thanks though.
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Have you read through the service manual? I looked it up for you and it suggests four things to do when you get the "NO CARTRIDGE INSTALL INK CARTRIDGE" message:
1 - (and this is clever) Install the ink Cartridge.
2 - Remove the Ink Cartridge once, and install it again correctly.
3 - Check the connection between the Ink Cartridge and the Main Board Assy.
4 - Replace the Ink Cartridge with a new one
You say you bought it used - did you see it run before you bought it? If so maybe it's #3, a loose connection. Could be it got dislodged while moving?
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Try to press the ink output hole on the cart with a paperclip and blow some air in the nipple near by with a tube to eliminate bubles in the cart. It is explianed in the service manual, page 226.
Error Message: INK CARTRIDGE ERROR: REPLACE INK CARTRIDGE Explanation of Error:
The CSIC Chip reports ink in the Cartridge, but the Ink Out Sensor (located where the ink leaves the Cartridge) reports no ink.
Cause of Error:
Tiny air bubbles in the Ink Out Sensor. Repair Strategy:
Remove the tiny air bubbles from the Ink Out Sensor. Repair Detail:
. Use the paper clip to open the Ink Valve, and release a small amount of ink and the trapped air.
This Cartridge did contain air bubbles in the ink. The small amount of air in the ink is enough to cause the error.
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John Caldwel just had this on a brand new 9900. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=75136.msg599240#msg599240
D1 replaced the main board,but they just love to replace parts willy nilly, especially when Epson pays for them under warrantee.
Try jiggling and reseating the ribbon cables on both cart bays and the main board and also the bay doors interlock, especially the one that you are closing last that gives you the error, before you resort to parts.I recently had my 9890 do the same thing when booting up ,turns out the right door was ajar (I wonder how a door can be a jar?) ::)
I don't believe one bad cart would cause all to show as not registering, especially if you change the insertion order.
David
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I installed a new wiper blade in my Epson 7900, and when I shut down from Service Mode and restart in normal mode I get a white screen with "Code 1489" and the message that I should try restarting again and if still a problem call Epson.
Gulp….
Everything appeared to go smoothly and easily, however:
* I was a little surprised that when I "snapped" the wiper blade assembly into place, the assembly wasn't at a uniform distance: slightly more towards me at the bottom than the top, but it did "snap" into place. I can't remember what it looked like before I started. I have tried fiddling it to see whether I can get it to be a uniform distance and don't seem able to do this; it does seem to be naturally "seated" where it is and I don't want to force anything.
* It required me to agree to "Cleaning", and I then had to change two of the ink cartridges, and then it appeared to clean ok in Service mode, though possibly with a little more sound effects. But as noted, I can't get back into normal mode without the white screen Code 1489 appearing.
Any ideas would be much appreciated, as I am stopped and at my wits end as to what to do here.
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Hi
Thanks for all your responses.
I like the one about the cables and the door ajar.
Eric, I do have the service manual but nowhere does it allude to any 10 carts being inserted with success, in any order, and the printer going only wacko with the 11th and saying there are no carts all. 8 of the carts are brand spanking new and I burped the not-so-new ones.
I bought the printer and the owner mentioned this problem as to why he had put the printer out to pasture but exclaimed, when I was buying it, that the problem was no longer there. That was probably because he was a cartridge short and so the remaining carts were registering just fine.
Any way, one of the doors is just a tad wonky and I think I will shake that tree and see what fall out.
Thanks and any other suggestions would be appreciated.
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I cannot find 1489 error listed in the manual ???
Just a wild guess, but try the pause- cancel job button on the panel and see if you can cancel and reset before shutting down then restart. Or...
Try leaving the printer unplugged overnight. Some errors retained in flash memory might possibly will dissappear after the power is off for more than a specified time and the printer returns to defaults. Worth a try!
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Hi
I bought the printer and the owner mentioned this problem as to why he had put the printer out to pasture but exclaimed, when I was buying it, that the problem was no longer there. That was probably because he was a cartridge short and so the remaining carts were registering just fine.
You didn't see a print come off the machine before you bought it?
I hope you have recourse with the former owner, or has he already skipped town?
I have a bridge for sale, Interested? ::)
David
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Hi David
Where's that bridge located?
I'd love to come and check it out.
How much do you want for it?
Actually, anyone on this forum would have done what I did.
Let's just say it was priced accordingly.
Now I have this monster printer sitting in our small living room, in between our 2 couches, so if anyone sits in them they have to peek through the Epson stand to converse with each other.
Wife's not too happy.
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So, in my service manual for 7900 on p.39 it says:
"*2": The all LEDs flash when a service call error is occurring.
It's a little cryptic because there is no "*2" in the text.
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jmlamont
I had this happen when I first cleaned the wiper blade. Can't remember if that was the error number I got but the wiper was not seated all the way. It looked like you describe yours, being not down at the bottom if I read your posting correctly. I had to press very hard to get my wiper seated correctly and get the error to go away. My error was that the wiper would not initialize.
Hope this helps, Dennis
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jmlamont
I had this happen when I first cleaned the wiper blade. Can't remember if that was the error number I got but the wiper was not seated all the way. It looked like you describe yours, being not down at the bottom if I read your posting correctly. I had to press very hard to get my wiper seated correctly and get the error to go away. My error was that the wiper would not initialize.
Hope this helps, Dennis
I just checked the service manual and error 1489 is "The home position of the Wiper is not detected." That is the same error that I received. I presume that your problem is that the wiper is not fully seated like mine was when getting that error.
Dennis
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I agree with Dennis - I think Jim installed his wiper assy cock-eyed. The machine likely detected this and did a hard stop, probably because it wouldn't retract properly. I think if Jim rolls the wiper assy back into position by manually turning the drive gear back by the pump and cap assy he will be able to get the wiper back into view, so he can re-install it. Should be an easy fix I think so I've been directly coaching Jim through email about the process of taking half his machine apart, in the living room, while his St Bernard is watching. All I asked for in return was the video. :)
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you may have a cart that loses pressure. or a bad chip.
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Thank you all for all your help with this problem. I especially want to thank Eric. I could not have solved it without him and would not have even dared to try.
As I write this, my printer has now gone through the final Head Alignment and it appears all is well. After taking the machine apart and re-installing the wipe blade assembly, early this morning, it took two Normal Cleans to get a Nozzle Check without breaks. The first Nozzle Check had almost no ink printing at all; second almost all ok but still a few breaks; third perfect. Elated is an understatement; I had resigned myself to likely losing the head, and hence the machine, since it had not been able to cap itself for roughly 10 hours because of the wiper assembly issue.
The problem may have arisen last night when I think I may have installed the new wiper assembly under the Flushing Box rather than to its right hand side. There is a gap there that is very similar to the gap for the wiper assembly, except that the assembly doesn't quite flush align in it, just as it didn't for me last night. Installing the wiper assembly this morning in the correct gap on the other hand was extremely straightforward (that is, after I had partially taken the printer apart with Eric's remote guidance, to rotate the assembly down into position), with absolutely no tendency to mis-align. Perhaps after I took the old one out last night and stepped aside to get the new one, I confused where to put the new one. If that is the explanation, I am astonished it did not break the machine outright since both gaps move and installing the wiper assembly under the Flushing Box would presumably prevent the Flushing Box from traversing its full trajectory. Anyway, things appear to be back to normal, and I now have a new wiper blade installed.
Once again, thank you all, and especially Eric.
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Hi Everyone
just finished second 15 day auto test today..no printer rocking , no printing......k3 inks.....daily start up....7800...
16 celsius 56 humidity.....cold dry room....
Absolutely perfect auto test.....first go....and each days start up was sweet.....knew there would be a good test...
Could be eating my words about rocking....
What a beautiful printer Mr Epson.......
Hi everyone
Just completed 3 rd 15 day auto test today ....NO PRINTER ROCKING.....k3 inks ..daily start ..7800 ...17.5 celsius ...57 humidity...cold dark dry room as usual..
NO PRINTING ....during 7800 test...
Anyway auto test was NOT good....in fact i could not get a clean auto test at all.....machine shut down without clearing the head.....had to wait until next day to get a clear auto test ..which i will admit happened quickly enough...
I have not had this experience when i was mildly shaking printer regularly....
Already the "printer shaking "side of the camp is slightly ahead of the "no printer shaking" side...with over half the comparison test over....
To be honest not looking forward to the last two 15 day tests...time will tell....
2 more 15 day auto tests for me to come to a personal conclusion as to whether printer rocking is a distraction or not...
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Hello All,
Thought I'd add a bit to my ongoing saga of the 9900. As you are aware, Ive been awaiting yet another service call. My first call to Epson for this latest issue was placed a week ago yesterday and the service tech finally arrived about an hour ago. So that's a week and a day after the first call. Hey...just saying. I was originally thinking I would post this outside of this thread, but then decided it might get more input here.
Just a short recap of the present situation. About a week and a half ago I noticed a light band on a print about 1/2" from the lead edge. Ran a nozzle check and everything was 100%, so another print and the same thing again. Now, at this stage I'm going to cut to the chase. Suffice to say that after trying everything the manual has to offer for banding issues and then talking with Epson and sending them a test showing the problem as well as a perfect nozzle pattern, the service call was ordered. And to the point of this post - one of the first things the service tech noticed and questioned me on is that fact that I was using a couple of "expired" carts. Now I can't say that his comment was in any way surprising. I can say that I've been using expired Epson carts on my two 7600s for many years without issue and on the 9900 as well. However, with all of the service calls I've had on the 9900, I don't recall the cart expiry date ever being mentioned. Perhaps this is some sort of new edict from Epson to make sure their cart sales are maintained. Cynical...who, me? I realize this is something that's been covered in the past, but most replies were of course anecdotal by nature. I suppose what I'm looking for here is some replies from those who might have experienced issues that were proven to be directly related to using expired carts. The explanation from the service tech(echoing that from Epson obviously) was that the ink can settle and cause a type of "sludge" in the print head once the expiry date has been exceeded. I suppose that to some extent that explanation does make some sense, although I have used carts in other Epson printers, 4000,7600s and 9900 for many for many years that were past their 'best before' date. And I'm reasonably certain that routine is quite common through this community as well. However, be that as it may, some actual evidence of a relationship between expired carts and print head problems would definitely add some credence to this claim. When the Tech came in this morning I first ran a nozzle check and as usual it showed no problem at all. My next test of an 8x10 neutral grad image showed very noticeable horizontal banding, the reason for the original Epson call. The Tech performed a number of other tests and then finally installed the new print head. Problem solved! Not sure why, but it works. I would love to know if Epson ever runs any sort of diagnostics on 'dead' heads to perhaps discover the cause if their demise.
Anyone experiencing issues with expired carts, please reply. Anyone still using expired carts without noticeable problems, please reply.
Oh yes, one more interesting note here. Well interesting IMO. I have a humidifier running close to the printer and try to keep it above 40% when possible. I asked the Tech his opinion on what effect humidity has on these printers, expecting him to say that it must be maintained at a certain level. His response was actually rather cavalier, as he said that in his experience humidity levels are not terribly critical. Go figure!
Thank you for your patience.
Gary
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Hi Everyone
Finished another 15 day test (no 4 of5 ) without any pigment stirring...just daily turn on...no printing either...
7800 fired a blemish free auto patch on its first effort without any difficulty ....very cold in ireland 16 celscius about the average without agressive heating....really surprised at how the printer recovered itself from the last auto test which was the worst test in about a year of not printing....ink in the printer behaving like ink in a cartridge....
Some of the older printers really require very little attention....its truly amazing.....they are hardy machines..
Seems to me most of the problem with printers is coming from poor hygiene techniques by both Epson and our good selves..especially me..
Delayed Photoflo tests until now.....will have results definitely by the time last auto test happens in 10 days time..
Matt
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Planning on replacing head on 7900. Have watched Eric's brilliant tutorial on vimeo. Before I buy head I need to know where to get the servprog.exe needed as outlined on end of tutorial. Does anyone know where to get it? Thanks
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A mysterious .exe file. Other hardware such as disc drives and flash memory controls use the same file name.
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Most interesting news I have is of the first X900 terminally clogged printhead actually being cleared! This particular user contacted me through MYX900.com asking for advice about his clogged 4900. We were working out a plan that would involve me lending him my cleaning carts so he could run solution through his machine, when he tried one last ditch effort on his own. He ran a series of "Initialize Cartridge" procedures on his 4900 which took a serious amount of ink - but holy mother wouldn't you know it this eventually worked for him. His 4900 is now printing clear again..
There's a WTF moment for you!
highway0691 contacted me offline and I directed him where to go. He's all set.
I get contacted offline often now with different users experiencing different problems. Some from here, others from MYX900.com. I've sent my custom nipple plate around the world a few times by now too - for people now swapping heads on their own using the video. So far everyone who has attempted the head change has been successful. I never charge anyone for the nipple plate, it's more of an honor system. I mail it out, they use it for the head swap then mail it back, and always they donate to the cause whatever they feel the help was worth. The last time I mailed the nipple plate out kind of sucked though - after a bunch of friendly emails back and forth I sent it to a troubled 7900 user in Australia. Things went dead after that, I get no responses now and I never got the nipple plate back. No big deal, I have another and I don't plan to stop offering it up.
Anyone needs help, you know where I am.
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Hi Eric - nipple plate. Is there an alternative thingo that I could whip up at home? Or is the nipple plate an essential item that cannot be replicated? Cheers Mate!
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It's not essential. If you're doing a quick head swap there's only a brief moment the lines are open. If it'll be longer though, you need to plug the lines. A nipple plate is not the only way to plug the lines, but it's the best way I have found.
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Most interesting news I have is of the first X900 terminally clogged printhead actually being cleared! This particular user contacted me through MYX900.com asking for advice about his clogged 4900. We were working out a plan that would involve me lending him my cleaning carts so he could run solution through his machine, when he tried one last ditch effort on his own. He ran a series of "Initialize Cartridge" procedures on his 4900 which took a serious amount of ink - but holy mother wouldn't you know it this eventually worked for him. His 4900 is now printing clear again..
There's a WTF moment for you!
The last time I mailed the nipple plate out kind of sucked though - after a bunch of friendly emails back and forth I sent it to a troubled 7900 user in Australia. Things went dead after that, I get no responses now and I never got the nipple plate back. No big deal, I have another and I don't plan to stop offering it up.
Anyone needs help, you know where I am.
Two things Eric. Where would one find the "Initialize Cartridge" command? I suspect in maintenance mode, but I haven't done much there except for cleaning the wiper. I suppose I should peruse that section further and find out what might be of interest, but of course not initiate any procedure until I have first researched the possible ramifications.
Now to the Nipple Plate THIEF! That is simply SHAMEFUL, and I know that most everyone on this forum would agree with that statement. Of course that doesn't do anything toward getting it back to you, and I know you wouldn't be the one to "OUT" that member, but perhaps a friendly word to the forum moderator would be the first step. Get that person out of here, QUICKLY. Perhaps some may see this as an overreaction, and of course everyone has a right to their own opinion. That's mine and I stick by it! We do NOT need people like that here, and until I'm proven wrong through some mistake in shipping etc, that shall remain my opinion. Good luck with that Eric.
Gary
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Hi Forum,
Not sure if this is the right thread to post this to, but I've been loosely following the thread since it's inception... but faded off...
I called Epson recently to find out IF my 9900 head was to die, could I purchase a head replacement and for how much money.
Here's the response from Epson America
>>>>
Joyce_Thacker@ea.epson.com
to me
Hi again, I got a bit more information. The price for the print head is $1,299.00 however they are currently out of stock with no current ETA.
Joyce
>>>>>
I've sent a follow up email. No stock and no idea of replacements??
2 Epson tech supporters told me they are now keeping a tight control on every 9900/7900 head, due to their technology.. they don't want it getting out
of their control
Nice, huh?
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Hi Forum,
Not sure if this is the right thread to post this to, but I've been loosely following the thread since it's inception... but faded off...
I called Epson recently to find out IF my 9900 head was to die, could I purchase a head replacement and for how much money.
Here's the response from Epson America
>>>>
to me
Hi again , I got a bit more information. The price for the print head is $1,299.00 however they are currently out of stock with no current ETA.
Joyce
>>>>>
I've sent a follow up email. No stock and no idea of replacements??
2 Epson tech supporters told me they are now keeping a tight control on every 9900/7900 head, due to their technology.. they don't want it getting out
of their control
Nice, huh?
I've just ordered a new head for the 7900 and I'm told the eta is 35 days. So this may be why.
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That "ea.epson.com" doesn't lead anywhere.
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Ok, thanks on the ETA update. I'm surprised you received an answer... as currently they have no answer for me...
The email from Joyce is correct. I've been dealing with her since last year on faulty 700ml cartridges. She handled the
replacements and shipping.
I contacted her when Diana TenCate would not return my calls. I've been told Diana's in the support department at
Epson's Indianapolis location and handles the 9900 heads. Still waiting on her to contact me about a purchase...
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Great thread this, thanks for all good info and effort. It made me change a printer head on a 9900 after I tried different cleaning methods suggested in this thread. Worked like a sharm. Only did two c2 cleanings and nozzlecheck was OK.
So when a 7900 had the same problem and no cleaning methods worked I changed the head but after several cleanings including powercleanings only half of the nozzels worked. Ordered a damper assembly(Selector Unit) and following the service manual I wrapped some paper aroud the tubes. Cleaned the o rings with windtex and then I took away the paper from the tubes, it hade sucked out quite amount of ink of some tubes. With wisual air pockets. Put it all together and did one powerclean. No ink at all on the nozzle check. Did some other cleaning and again powerclean. Nothing! I can see on a tube with lot of air in it nothing hapens. Finally I did an initial fill and wasted a lot of ink. But it didn't help at all. No ink on paper.
I need your help. What can be the problem?
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2 Epson tech supporters told me they are now keeping a tight control on every 9900/7900 head, due to their technology.. they don't want it getting out
of their control
This is obviously a total sham. Absolutely ridiculous! The only thing Epson is trying to protect is their relationship with Decision One. Personally I will never deal with D1 again. They have been extremely careless with their database and have lost all of my contact information(including address) twice, as if I didn't exist. During the three year warranty on the 9900 I have had to deal with them far too many times unfortunately, so the fact that they lost all of my information is inexcusable. Or perhaps it was done purposely, who knows? Notice I haven't mentioned the D1 techs. The two fellows that I have dealt with were, for the most part, efficient and fairly knowledgeable concerning the 9900, but the practice of throwing the same parts at it repeatedly was not what I would expect from a service company or from Epson. I hope when the day arrives that I'm in need of another new print head(the fourth one) there will actually be one in stock from my local supplier. I'm on my own now, so every morning I push the power button and wait to see what the latest breaking news might be. So far it's been good news and hope that continues, but experience is the best teacher and I have learned to expect just about anything when it comes to this printer.
Gary
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mhakansson
I'm no expert but have you checked to see if the cartridges are pressurized. The 7900 uses a pressure system to get ink into the heads. You should hear the pump run at startup and then stop when the system is at pressure. Perhaps there is a leak in the pressure line somewhere.
Dennis
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I only "know" what I've been told, and by now I've been told a lot about these printers, and Epson, and these X900 heads. Considering why Epson now so closely regulates who they sell replacement heads to (and who they don't) - here's what I've been told:
Unless you can give them the serial number off your machine, and it checks out on their end, they won't sell you a replacement head. Why not? Apparently you get a pretty sweet deal on your head when you buy a new Epson. Other manufacturers who use X900 heads in their machines have to pay Epson a whole lot more for them. So.... think about it for a sec and it'll all make sense. It's not their technology they want to protect, that's what patents are for. It's the Epson user discount they're trying to protect. I've taken these heads apart, pretty impressive stuff inside. $1,350 is a bargain in my eyes.
mhakansson - until your lines are clear of air pockets, your missing nozzle problems are most likely further up stream than your head. Do you remember if there were air pockets in your lines before you replaced your head? Gotta find the source of all that air.
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mhakansson - until your lines are clear of air pockets, your missing nozzle problems are most likely further up stream than your head. Do you remember if there were air pockets in your lines before you replaced your head? Gotta find the source of all that air.
No there were no air pockets before, as in the picture in service manual page 98 I wrapped some paper on the tube ends when I replaced the Damper(Selector). When I removed the paper to reassembly the tubes on the Damper unit It had sucked out quite a lot of ink to it so some lines where empty of ink 2-3" from the end.
When I did the powerclean and later initial fill the lines didn´t fill up at all, there were still empty lines.
What can be wrong?
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I'm in the process of replacing the head on my 7900 and this has only been possible via Eric's generous sharing of his knowledge. When I say I'm in the process I mean waiting... waiting... waiting for the head to arrive from some magical place where Epson store their mythical heads which takes 35+ days to get to me and that's good apparently as I personally know an Epson dealer who has also helped me.
Now 35 days of non-operation is an expensive wait. 35 days of not having prints ready to sell (that's how my business runs mostly) I find this very arrogant on Epsons part making loyal customers wait, I've been using Epson printers, ink and media for 10+ yrs. Should I need a new car part, a new blade for my framing guillotine, service to my Canon Cameras or a new computer part I wouldn't have any issue waiting a week or 10 days but 5 weeks?
Had I known this from day one of the breakdown I would've just bought the Canon 24 inch printer. I have done my homework on Canon and with the same problem I could have the same print head replacement problem sorted for less than half the price and changing print heads by users is not only plain common maintenance, it's about the same complexity as changing an ink cartridge. Also print heads are on shelves of dealers and most users keep a spare anyway.
So regrettably I've committed to the print head purchase as I paid (and found out about the 35+ day wait later) but as soonas I have a good enough excuse to jump Canon's way I will do with no hesitation. The final straw for me was personally viewing some prints from a Canon 24 inch printer - they're awesome!!
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Alan
THE PHOTOFLO MIX
Remember your recommendations for the above
6 parts water
2 parts isopropyl
2 parts glycerol
1/2 part photoflo
What do you think of the photoflo concentration in my attempt as follows ...ps. .i am in no way going to hold you responsible for any destruction that i can manage...i am already set to install a new head ( its 250 dollars for the 7800 if i blow the current one to bits )
8 parts Epson Cleaning Solution for aqueous inks.....footnote #1
2 parts isopropyl footnote #2
1/2 part photoflo
Warm rather than cold solution......
Footnotes
# 1. Composition of Epson clean solution for aqueous inks is :
Dietheylene glycol. < 45%
Proprietary organic materials 0- 5%
Glycerols. About. 15 %
Water. Balance
# 2. I read somewhere this week that bacterias love to eat glycols...you may be able to confirm that......anyway i thought i would then go back to your original recommendation to include isopropyl in the mix as i believe it likes to eat bacterias !
Thanks for any advice you might offer and your help up to now as well
Matt
Where can you buy a new print head for a 7800 for $250? I'm tired of fighting my 7800, I think it might be time to just change the head.
Thanks
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Wow, what a great thread. Wish I had this a few years ago when I had to have the local repair guy come out to replace my original 7900 printhead.
I got through page 5. Where are the capping stations? They are invisible to my 4000 and 7600 trained eye.
I'm trying to find the capping station to put solution in it in an attempt to fix my clogged Green (blank thru many lines in a nozzle check printout)
Green looks like this:
--------------
-- ---
---
--------------
Also, anyone have a link to the service manual or can PM me a copy?
Cheers and thanks,
David
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Where can you buy a new print head for a 7800 for $250? I'm tired of fighting my 7800, I think it might be time to just change the head.
Thanks
Sorry not to get back to you earlier...
Unicomp.co.uk
If you live in the States....they will not post to you...
Ps its euros not dollars !
Thanks
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Sorry not to get back to you earlier...
Unicomp.co.uk
If you live in the States....they will not post to you...
Ps its euros not dollars !
Thanks
That would be 'mail', if you are in the States. I still have to correct the wife, who uses 'torch' for flashlight, much to the amusement of the locals. She is from the US but did her graduate work in the UK. :)
Brian A
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That would be 'mail', if you are in the States. I still have to correct the wife, who uses 'torch' for flashlight, much to the amusement of the locals. She is from the US but did her gradute work in the UK. :)
Brian A
Thanks Brian
Will remember that when next i chat with my American mates
;D
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Was about to start printing 60 inch again after almost a year of only printing at 24, 36 inch width. Then I remembered Juggler's belt broke because too much tension (possibly from lack of use):
page 66 of this thread:
"So the warning here is release your head and slide it through it's range. If it feels like butter you're alright. If it doesn't, you need some lube. Exactly what lube, and how much, is something we need to find out."
The procedure to release the 11880 print head is found on page 312 of the "Pro 11880 Field Repair Guide". It slightly different process than the x900...
Here's a link to the field Repair Guide 16mb.pdf http://hotfile.com/dl/118283068/7b918f2/pro11880fg.zip.html
DO NOT POWER OFF WHEN THE DISPLAY SAYS "POWER OFF"!!! OPEN THE 11880 FRONT COVER FIRST, THEN POWER OFF.
Once its shutdown and your 11880 door is open, you can manually slide the print head carriage along the rails to the far left and see if there is any noticeable resistance --mine was like butter, so I slid it back to the right , closed the door and powered up (with a new roll of 60 inch canvas).
Thanks again for the tips Eric, et al.
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I'm a fine artist and am getting close to purchasing a 7900 here in San Diego, CA. I'll primarily be printing Fine Art Rag paper, 24" rolls. What is the real world print time of say a 20x30" print? I'm trying to get an idea because we usually print 15-16 images from a 50' roll. Just want an idea of the time involved. If it makes any difference, I do all my printing out of lightroom.
Thanks.
also any 7900 or 9900 owners in San Diego area? Would be nice to know someone local.
Marc~
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I've just spent the last few minutes searching for postings/threads where someone mentioned they were potentially not going to be able to purchase a replacement 7900/9900 print head in Canada.
Does anyone know what happened with this? Are these replacement print heads available to purchase still (especially in Canada)?
I've recently come across a 9900 with a possibly clogged/faulty head that I could buy for potentially very little and perhaps try to repair. But if I can't get the parts....
Thanks
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That would be 'mail', if you are in the States. I still have to correct the wife, who uses 'torch' for flashlight, much to the amusement of the locals. She is from the US but did her graduate work in the UK. :)
Brian A
Right, that's why we get our mail from the Mail Office. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to push my frame into the lift so's I can hoover my flat. Oh no! I left Lorrie in the lorry! :D
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Right, that's why we get our mail from the Mail Office. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to push my frame into the lift so's I can hoover my flat. Oh no! I left Lorrie in the lorry! :D
It is getting a little off topic, but I will play; it is Saturady night:
There are arbitrary things, that have no significance, like the left/right driving and light switches working upside down. Then there are very strange differences, like those between bills and acts of congress and parliament. But surely the greatest difference is the act of tabling.
No one in Europe would have the space to even consider a table a form of storage. So I was extremely confused, when fresh off the boat three decades ago and trying to understand the US political system, to hear of proposals that where tabled, and seem to have been shelved. To table a motion, in English, would be to put it on the table for discussion, if it then went nowhere, it would be shelved.
Then there is the system of weights and measures in the US, which is invariably called English. And yet 20 ounces is a pint, not 16. One of my few lingering problems is when I order a pint and it comes in a glass that would only be 16 oz if filled to the brim and actually only holds 14 ounces*.
As Julia Child said (and perhaps she was quoting predecessors): a pint is a pound the world round, but only in America.
I could quote Wilde, but I’m sure you have heard it before. I am just glad I am a polyglot, I do both English and American – but, unfortunately, I am good at neither.
Brian A
*Told to me by a German friend, when discussing the markings on the side of the glass: In England, if the beer doesn’t come up to the pint measure etching on the side of the glass, after the head dies down a little, you take your glass back to the bar and you ask (and will be given) a top up – right up to or beyond the legal marking). Are ya, he said, if the beer wasn’t filled to the legal mark in Germany, the police would be around in three minutes and the bar closed down.
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It is getting a little off topic, but I will play; it is Saturady night:
Off topic, perhaps, but I was running a few prints on my Epson while I posted. I had just taken all of my cartridges out for a shake and was subsequently presented with a clean nozzle check. Gonna be a good night, Tater.
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Could someone please post a link to the 7900 service manual?
I'm unable to find it online...
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How do you get the capping station to reveal itself on the 7900?
Rather I will tell you that the next thing the Epson manual, and anyone you call and ask advice from, suggests is to replace the "Capping Station". Here we go again right - WTF is the capping station? Here is the capping station:
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/DSC_1145.jpg)
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Actually
TO DISPROVE my agitation theories and consequent paranoia ,i will now do a 75 day test with 5 autos AND NO GENTLE PRINTER AGITATION during this test period ....with zero printing of course...the only factors left in the equation this time will be TURN ON every day and epson k3 inks as usual....i should in theory come back with the same auto results (80% Autos clear first time or even 100% clear first time..) that would then indicate that autos without agitation is at least as efficient or more efficient than autos with agitation....
Will let you know auto results after each 15 day interval so that the 75 days doesnt feel too long...
Hi Everyone
Finished my 75 day "DO NOT ROCK THE PRINTER ' test couple of months ago....been away a lot so did not get around to analysing results until now...
The last 15 day test on the "no- printer shake "cycle turned out poor.....making two of the 5 "shake free "exercises rejects as against only 1 minor reject when i was shaking the printer on its test period...so my verdict is that shaking the printer did not do any harm and non -shaking the printer did not do any good....
One of our contributors wisely pointed out that the dampers would pick up sediment before it got into the head. right on.....but if printers are left idle for a long time it may be that ink might coagulate from damper to nozzle.....just guessing.....also i wonder with you guys using 900's if the 360 nozzle unit is a more refined filter system than its damper is able to filter out? Also a lot of us have said that you cannot see sludge in the ink carts so there must not be a sludge...but maybe there is still a degree of separation of pigment that we dont really see with the human eye but which the refined piezo system regards as stale or sour or sludgy ink....and will not co-operate with us as a retaliation...in other words the printer maybe has to deal with inks that are degenerating from good quality back towards stickier ink quality...only Epson know this for sure.......
Back to my humble 7800....
autos since the non shake testing has ended are also poor.....i may have made life difficult for myself doing this test in the first place....what i would say is that light users of their printer should occassionaly rock the printer but not the cartridges individually..heavier users are going through their inks faster and can forget this type of exercise imo...i have a few days of a window to go at photoflo and windex before heading off to Scottish Highlands and Bergen Norway with a camera under my arm.....poor me ....what a boring life !
funny thing is there is an offer of 750 euros to trade in the 7800 against a canon 24 inch....Canon that does its own shaking...i must be mad in the head not to run with it.....what sort of hold has Epson got over me ?. off to Erics website now to make sure i dont mess up on the head removal
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I just spoke to an Epson person. She was very good at going through the possible costs if I let Epson techs repair my 7900. The range of costs cited by the person that I spoke to was between $150 and $2000. I did not give my credit card number to this person as I did not want to give Epson a blank check to use in emptying my credit card account. As you can imagine, I am very interested in this thread and give much credit to the OP. I am usually able to repair problems of the kind described in this thread. Age and various injuries have caused my back to be in about the same shape as my 7900.
I generally respect copyrights. However, my respect for Epson has reached a nadir. Epson seems to be quite willing to take advantage of its customers, and I do not want to enrich Epson. I only wish that my 7900 was as reliable as my 7600. The 7600 had its share of problems, but they are as nothing compared to my 7900. Good luck to those of you who who get out their tools and start digging around inside of their 7800 printers.
Joe
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I just spoke to an Epson person. She was very good at going through the possible costs if I let Epson techs repair my 7900. The range of costs cited by the person that I spoke to was between $150 and $2000. I did not give my credit card number to this person as I did not want to give Epson a blank check to use in emptying my credit card account. As you can imagine, I am very interested in this thread and give much credit to the OP. I am usually able to repair problems of the kind described in this thread. Age and various injuries have caused my back to be in about the same shape as my 7900.
I generally respect copyrights. However, my respect for Epson has reached a nadir. Epson seems to be quite willing to take advantage of its customers, and I do not want to enrich Epson. I only wish that my 7900 was as reliable as my 7600. The 7600 had its share of problems, but they are as nothing compared to my 7900. Good luck to those of you who who get out their tools and start digging around inside of their 7800 printers.
Joe
Joe
thanks for encouragement and hopefully you will be back on track with your 900 soon....
yes Eric is amazing and has been a breath of fresh air to all us...
Matt
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Hi everyone
More failure....
PHOTOFLO 200
ISOPROPYL
EPSON CLEANING FLUID
ALL MIXED TOGETHER...NOT WORTH A CURSE IN TERMS OF UNBLOCKING A CLOGGED NOZZLE !!
Alan thanks for helping with the compound advice ...appreciated...very rigourous test indeed...no damage done at least...
Will try a good dose of SIMPLY GREEN NEXT
IF THAT FAILS WILL GO ON TO ...
HOUSEHOLD AMMONIA AND ISOPROPYL MIxture
CALLING MY MATES IN THE STATES....WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE MAIL ME A VERY SMALL BOTTLE OF WINDEX...WILL REFUND WHATEVER COSTS ARE GLADLY....THAT WILL BE MY FINAL BASIC FLUSHOUT ATTEMPT...
So far I can only advise people not to waste good money on cleaning gimmicks....including Epson cleaning products....it may be that my bad three nozzles are electrical failures that could never be cleared by any cleaning products....but I will see this exercise right through to the bitter end !!
KEEP YOUR WIPER BLADE CLEAN AND MOIST...YOUR PARK STATION THE SAME ...
DETERMINED MORE THAN EVER..
MATT
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Windex is just Windolene anywhere else in the world. I don't think it will fix a dead channel.
I own 10 Epson large format printers. 5x 7890 - 3x 9890 - 1x 11880 - 1x 7800
If you completely loose a channel and can't get it back with SSCL, colour pair cleaning, power cleans etc, you are unlikely to get it back without getting a new print-head installed.
Our 7890's have all been fine, the oldest one is nearly 3 years old and they are all in constant use in our busy LFP print shop. The 9890's are another story, all bought around 2.5 years ago. One is on it's third print head, fortunately the second one was fitted while still under warranty. The first time the cyan channel went, the second time it was magenta. Another is on it's second print-head (cyan channel went). The third one is still going OK but I know it will most likely need a new print-head within the next year.
We also had a 9700 that was not able to be fixed as Epson had no print-heads in the UK. That one lost the cyan channel permanently. I gave it to our service engineers for spare parts.
I just had the third print-head fitted in one of them this morning and spoke to our service engineer asking him why the print-head always needs replacing every time we have totally lost a channel. He said that basically, the channel loose the ability to draw ink through. Doing cleaning pushes (or sucks) the ink through at more pressure than when printing. So although you may get a a few nozzles printing after doing intense cleaning, it is unlikely to fire those nozzles during normal printing. He said he didn't know why this happens, it just does and always with these *900 and *890 machines.
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I've just spent the last few minutes searching for postings/threads where someone mentioned they were potentially not going to be able to purchase a replacement 7900/9900 print head in Canada.
Does anyone know what happened with this? Are these replacement print heads available to purchase still (especially in Canada)?
Sorry to be so late with a response, been away from this thread for a few days. Of course I don't know where you are located here in Canada, but yes, you can indeed still purchase the 7900/9900 print heads. If you think you might want to try an installation yourself you can get the head through a Toronto company named Access at http://www.access.on.ca/. Their website isn't as full of information as you might want, but you'll find the phone numbers etc there and you can give them a call. Ask for Eddie Pascua. He's very helpful, I just ordered 3 wiper blades. One warning though, be prepared for a 6-8 week wait for the head. Epson seems to be back-ordering all of their parts recently, as you may have read on this thread a while ago. I talked with Eddie about this yesterday. My 9900 has had 3 print head replacements in 3 years, all under warranty. Various other parts and issues as well, but enough said about that. The warranty extensions were costly, but as it turned out, good insurance. I'm tempted to order another print head just to have on the shelf. The warranty extensions were $1050/year, so for another $250 I have a back up print head. The only problem with that scenario is that Epson only warranties the head for one year from date of purchase, so if I don't need it for a year it's not warranted at all. However, my understanding is that if it's not installed by a certified Epson tech the warranty is void regardless, so it's basically a saw off situation. Not sure what I'll do yet. A 6-8 week downtime would be disastrous for my business.
I hope this is of some help to you and good luck. Keep us informed.
Gary
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Windex is just Windolene anywhere else in the world. I don't think it will fix a dead channel.
I own 10 Epson large format printers. 5x 7890 - 3x 9890 - 1x 11880 - 1x 7800
If you completely loose a channel and can't get it back with SSCL, colour pair cleaning, power cleans etc, you are unlikely to get it back without getting a new print-head installed.
I think you are right....am quite happy to re-head the 7800
But using this head as an experiment....one of our recent contributors got his 7800 going again with windex....so his problem obviously was not electrical /mechanical...i suppose that i cannot guarantee that my nozzle clog is an electrical or mechanical issue.....wish i could....really delving into the respective strengths of cleaning solutions on the market
Its such a long shot......i am progressively upping the " caustic " emphasis to see if it is a clog on this individual nozzle....
Will use the windolene as a final "swansong "
Thanks again for the advice
Matt
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Blue moon, where are you based?
Our service engineers often have second hand print-heads that they take out of machines that have other faults. I paid £120 for the last second hand one we got off them.
98/7800's are workhorses compared to the new gen machines!
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Thanks AMC-PHOTO
simplest address on the globe
MATT DEEGAN
MOYARD
CO GALWAY
IRELAND..
ITS ACTUALLY CONNEMARA
ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES ON THE GLOBE
THANKS FOR ALL
MATT
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Our service engineers don't have any second hand 9/7800 print heads at the moment. I called them this morning. New ones are £400+VAT.
They also said you could send it to them and they could try to clear it for you. That way (if it's fixable) you could put the same print head back in without the worry and hassle of coding a new one in properly. They charge £60+VAT per hour. They've never charged me more than an hour labour for any job, even print head replacements. I can PM you their details if you're interested.
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AMC- PHOTO
Thanks
Please do as they sound like a very reliable contact
Thanks again
Matt
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AMC-PHOTO
forgot to add in last post that i have been quoted €250 for a new head from Unicomp
Surprising how prices vary so much
Thanks anyway for going to the trouble of finding out
Much appreciated
Matt
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If Unicomp have one at €250 grab it. That's what they used to cost until about a year ago when Epson hiked the price. Unicomp must have had some stock from before the price hike.
I still have one 7800 that is still going strong after 5 years. If you get a good one of these they just keep going. It's only had a maintenance kit done twice and is still on the original printhead. I just checked it's usage count and it's done 795,000 cms.
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Did anybody actually bother to read the title of this thread that Eric started?
To the people that have continuously interjected enough x800 crap into this long enough winded thread, (namely Blue Moon), you need to take your shaking experiments and X800 head expertise, and start your own thread! This is known as hijacking a thread. The x800 series is not the x900 series, never was, never will be ...
Respectfully...
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I wonder if I might ask a question that is not strictly related to 9900 head clogs, but is related to the other insides of the beasts?
We've had some flooding here, and my 9900 took on water up to about 2.5 inches (6 or 7 cm) from the bottom of the main printer body. The maintenance tank bays got soaked, and the ink cartridge bays too. I've dried everything out, and it seems to be working fine, except that it occasionally reports various ink cartridges as being bad (they are fine if I remove the cart and wipe the contacts down). I haven't taken it apart, but going from memory from Eric's fine head replacement video, I am thinking/hoping that the other things that got wet might have been mostly plastic, like the damper assembly, and probably OK.
Any thoughts from someone who's seen the inside of a 9900?
Thanks!
John
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Hello brothers and sisters, it's been a while. Sorry
Never being one to embrace (admit) defeat, it's been more comfortable for me to consider the ever ambitious clog clearing journey of my genius buddy and mine, in a state of re-grouping rather than abandonment. But really these heads destroyed us. Ironically it was that last head which I truly think I cleared - but also damaged - which killed it for me. Something in the message that flashed across this 9900's screen "FATAL ERROR" really sank my heart. So much money, so much time, I was destroyed. But I also learned from that experience that we can indeed affect an un-clearable clog, just not safely.
...At least not yet.
(http://www.gotagteam.com/epson/_D3X1056.jpg)
Walking past my dismantled 9900 reminds me each morning of my unfinished work. And it reminds me to think. Which I do. As a result here is where I am at:
1 - don't apply pressure manually to these heads. Too hard to regulate, too sensitive, too dangerous.
2 - don't force your way past the machine's automated safety warning-stops by operating in maintenance mode. Without warning-stops, you instantly die.
3 - don't just keep doing power-cleanings (which after two or so most likely won't work anyway). Print in-between cleanings.
4 - when you feel like you are pouring very expensive ink down a very expensive drain, you most likely are.
Typically people contact me through myx900.com now. Most are questions or requests, some are thank you's, a few are donations, and every once in a rare blue moon (not that Blue Moon) I get a very helpful suggestion. One of these suggestions has had me thinking now, for quite a while, about a new approach..
John Schwaller, an Epson 4900 owner who found himself cornered by un-clearable clogs one unfortunate month, went back and forth with me for a while about what he should do next. We talked about lots of stuff, some of which was not appropriate because apparently the 4900 has a different menu system/options/functions which I cannot relate to because I've never had my hands on one. I offered to send John my cleaning carts (I only have four) if they would help him. Maybe some cleaning fluid too. But rather than listen to my suggestions John tried something on his own. What a fool? After way too many power cleanings, standard cleanings, pairs cleanings and so on, John performed a few ink charges. Talk about flushing ink down the drain, my lord I commend his enthusiasm. But check this out - this revived his 4900 back up to 100%. And check this out on top of that - this ink charging process does not fire the nozzles, therefore it does not heat the heads, and therefore I am left to assume that it is the safest process left to pursue.
My idea is to remove our Epson Ink carts all together, and our maintenance tanks. Purchase a complete set of cleaning carts and a resettable maintenance tank. Fill the carts with Epson's RED cleaning fluid and do a few initialize ink charges. Follow this by firing a nozzle pattern. Since the solution is red, it will be readable. Once the machine fires 100%, replace the RED with WHITE and do one last ink charge. Maybe two for good measure. Reinstall our original Epson ink carts and do one last ink charge. Back to printing.
...at least that's the idea :)
One last detail which I have not solved yet is how to get a 79/9900 to do an ink charge through the menu system (or any system). John tells me it's an option on the 4900 in the menu system. I don't find that option on the big machines. Yet. If I can solve this last hurdle I am prepared to buy the carts, I already have the cleaning fluid. If this works I am willing to put this together as a kit, we can ship it all over the planet. I have been burned a few times by now with people requesting things, promising things, offering things - and then disappearing. Whatever, plenty of $hit heads in this world, it's not gonna get me down. If this works we can come up with a system to cover potential losses. What we first need to do is get it to work. Like I said I'll buy the carts, what I need now is a head. If you've used my video to replace your head (which thankfully a good number of people from different parts of this planet successfully have by now), and you have an old (potentially repairable) head sitting in your drawer, mail it to me. If I clean it I'll mail it back to you. $hit heads need not apply.
It's just clogged ink after all. Be nice to finally beat this. ...batter up
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John, sounds like your contacts are corroded. Pull out an error messaged cart and check it's contact points. It is possible that sliding the cart in and out temporarily clears the corrosion and gives you what you need to run. But it's temporary. Do you see any corrosion evidence on the cart's contacts? If this is your problem you might be able to put something on the contacts of an old cart and install it, to help clean the contact points in the machine which you cannot reach (if you indeed cannot reach them, I have not checked)
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Eric,
I'm going off memory, and I may even be mixing up different Epson printer models, but I think the command/setting you want is "Initial Fill." Might need to access through Serviceman mode?
ken
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John, sounds like your contacts are corroded. Pull out an error messaged cart and check it's contact points.
Thanks for the message Eric!
I think that the contacts were just getting condensation on them, 'cause the ink bays were still pretty damp. It turns out to be pretty easy to get at the contacts, and to wipe them with a bit of contact cleaner, so (cross fingers) the ink carts have been registering properly for a couple of days now.
I was more wondering about stuff getting wet where you can't see it without taking the panels off. Maybe I should just start unscrewing stuff, and see for myself if there's anything that's not plastic in the lower three inches or so of the machine.
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Good for you John. Hope it works out. I'd be seeking a source for compressed air if it were me, maybe blow the bottom of that beast out.
Interesting Ken, I did a search in the repair guild and get this - could be it:
Pro 7900 and 9900 Field Repair Guide
Maintenance
Tube Exchange: Sequence, Counter Clear
Wiper Exchange: Sequence, Counter Clear
Pump Exchange: [Enter] Start
Press Pump Exchange: [Enter] Start
Selector Exchange: Sequence, Counter Clear
I/H Exchange: Sequence, Counter Clear
Head Exchange: [Enter] Start
Cleaning:
Std. CL1
Std. CL2
Std. CL3
Init.Fill
SSCL
A/B (C/M)
C/D (Bk/Lk)
E/F (Or/Gr)
G/H (LLk/Y)
I/J (Lm/Lc)
Parameter:
Update: InkParameter: Init. Fill: (Set, Reset) (Reset, turns off the initial fill)
Display: (nnnn)
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I'd be seeking a source for compressed air if it were me, maybe blow the bottom of that beast out.
Did that, thanks. Gotta love compressed air. My air line just reached to the printer, so I blew everything out right away, which is how I discovered that the ink carts aren't sealed - when I blew the water out of the seams along the edges of the carts, they puffed right up.
It turns out that after a flood, there's all kinds of uses for compressed air!
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For ink charge, Eric, check page 306 of the Field Repair Guide.
Dennis
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Perfect Dennis. On top of that Damian Kelly, from Australia, contacted me last night offering to send me his clogged/replaced 7900 printhead. Damian used the head replacement video successfully three months ago and has been happily printing ever since. I am ordering the cleaning carts tonight. Thank you.
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My Epson 9890 has been flawless and resolution is best of all my LF printers. They have got the droplet situation down. There is no better quality inkjet printing in the world.
But there has just got to be a better way. Wouldn't it be fine if they also came out with print heads we could pop in in 5 minutes like our Canons and HPs ? That would remove all the fear of buying and using their machines. I don't understand why it can't be done with Piezo heads too. The 9900 and 7900 printers do so many things perfectly but they are just over engineered and push their head capability to the very limit. Please Epson make your heads user friendly and replaceable and you will stay in first place.
john
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Just got on today to see if there are any updates, I should have looked sooner Eric cause I have the 9900 series refillable cartridges and the respecters for both the ink carts and Maint tanks, your more than welcome to use them for free. I'm still close enough to you drive wise you could get them anytime.
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Hi,
New Member.. Have problem with my epson 9900. Bought it Used and print test shows clogs all over the place. Did remove the printhead followings Erics movie instruction (Thanks!). Now injected using syringe to head with epson cleaning solution. All line flows nice. Now installed and did the test print clogs are gone except for one color missing "Green". Did 3x of pair color and couple of Power clean. and still no Go. Notice have air bubble on the line before power clean and seen it moves up. Still no Green on my last test.
Do you have any other solution or ill just do another power clean again until all my ink is empty. Dont want to waste my expensive ink thats why maybe somebody has same problem and manage to solve the issue.
Thank you
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First thanks to the great work Eric ad made :)
My 9900 is working ok, i have buy it used with around 47.500 prints yes 47.500 :) :) :) and i don´t know more about is history service of any kind.
So because of that... i have checked my wiper blade and it was with some dry ink in it and some sighs of use (i will buy 2 or 3 for stock a and one for my 4800 also), other than that the caping station and pad are ok.
Here is my first test with a 36" roll that the seller offer me :) :) :)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/267148_3318077448251_1256230726_o.jpg)
Cheers to all from Portugal
Pedro
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Any 7900/9900 users here in San Diego? I'm involved in fine art and will be running a 9900. Just thought it would be good to network with any San Diego users.
Marc~
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If anyone wants to try to replicate Eric's work, I have an Epson 7900 in La Crosse, WI that you can have for free.
I can't get the Vivid Light Magenta back using regular cleanings. It could be a print head, wiper, pump cap assembly or all of the above?
This printer has seen substantial use, but is in otherwise good condition.
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Hi Pedro! Great work brother!
What Pedro neglects to communicate in his post here is that he successfully changed the printhead on this 9900, all on his own using our head changing video tutorial as his only reference (that and a few emails back and forth but who's counting). How cool is this..
Thanks for the offer Higgy. I decided owning the set of cleaning carts is better (in case we end up mailing them around the globe) so I ordered them and now have the set in hand. Also thanks to Damian Kelly (damiankellyphotography.com (http://www.damiankellyphotography.com.au)) we also have a terminally clogged head to test this new procedure with. FINGERS CROSSED that this will work!
Funny story, swear it's true. Like I said I sold the infamous 7900 that this thread was based on. It's still printing happily. Part of the reason I sold it, before getting our 9900 up and running, was for inspiration. I actually want a reason to keep working at this so effectively I have no printer now, still, which is fine I am not a professional photographer or printer. But I do love (to struggle at) both. So this past Saturday my wife was kind enough to stand near a door for me dressed like I don't even know what, and who would go out half dressed like this anyway but whatever "It's creative" I told her. She looked back and rolled her eyes at me saying, "Yea, and you'll print it for me right - with that oversized pile of broken printer plastic over there?"
I'm not kidding you that is exactly what she said to me. WTF
Just in case you think I am making this up,
here's the shot I took just a fraction of a second later
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/tracyweb.jpg)
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I wouldn't keep a woman as beautiful, waiting too long for a print I would also be shooting more of her and less landscapes;)
David
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Wow, three days to read all 72 pages.....Massive effort for all who contributed, especially Eric.. What you have accomplished is nothing short of amazing.
I don't (yet) have a head clogging issue, but I may have a head replacement issue. Thought I would post here so you would know the updated pricing from D1.
I've got a 5 year old 7900 and this weekend it started displaying a "Call for Service - Error Code 1A37" message. According to the service manual, 1A37 is a thermistor sensor error on the print head. Options are re-seat print head cables on main board and/or print head, replace main board or replace print head.
The estimate from D1, as of yesterday (13 Aug):
Call Out $100
Hourly Rate: $175, with a one hour minimum
Main Board $495, plus labor
Print head $1,623, plus labor
Pretty steep; especially when I can get a new 7900 from B&H for $2,699, free shipping and no tax until the end of the month.
I'm leaning toward a new printer, but thought the group might be interested in the current pricing from D1 for out of warranty service.
PS: If any one has experience with B&H's shipping of these printers could you comment?
Thanks. Randy
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$175 an hour. ???
What ever happened to the normal contractor pricing of 3 times the technicians hourly salary. (I am a contractor and that is how it is done around here.)
The tech might be making $30 to $40 an hour I doubt more. That comes to maybe $120.00 an hour.
I guess it's called no competition.
I called D1 when my 9900 was out of warranty just for some rate information and the conversation became somewhat contensious when I started drilling her on justifying their pricing.
We can only charge a little over double our craftsman hourly rate hear in se Pennsylvania. $45.00 an hour in our cabinet shop and this is the kind of craftsmanship you get for that money.
We tried several times raising our hourly rate to $50.00 an hour and lost over 50% of the quotes. But then again we are in the middle of the Amish heartland.
Guess I am just in the wrong business.
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I'm having the exact same problem, I've been trying to fix for a week. Eric, how did you solve this problem!? I'm on a deadline, I'm dying of frustration and wasting so much ink... your response would make me over joyed.
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Just came to say that after nearly 6 months of research (and mostly waiting on epson to figure out how to manufacture enough printheads for their customers) I have successfully revived 3 printers (2-7890's, 1-9890) by replacing the printheads using this thread/ community and Eric's awesome video over at myx900.com
So, Eric, HUGE thanks to you, Steve, and the community here for helping me along and demystifying these machines.
I am now moving on to my 11880 which died today. And after removing the head and cleaning I went from only missing 2 colors in nozzle check to having none...Huzzah!! A new challenge...
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Hey All.....
Like most I'll start by saying I have read every post, thread, comment and opinion from Jan 26 2012 when this first started until today. Taken me all of 3 weeks but worth every minute.
I myself have had over 40 of these wide format Epson printers over the past few years and that's just the X900 generation, if we included the 7800 and 7600 series then I dread to think how many we've had. Right now we have 5 x 7890 and 2 x 9890 (we have had the 7900 too but we honestly CANNOT see any visible advantage having orange and green.
Anyway, we have so many of these because of the amount of use they get, every printer prints roughly 60-80 metres of media PER DAY, so our machines don't have the issue of not being used enough. We tend not to have issues with the smaller 24" machines but we have the exact same issue over and over with the larger machines, it's ALWAYS the Light Magenta and Matte Black that block, and always in the same places too, it's about 50% of the nozzle that gets blocked rendering it almost useless.
So today after a few emails back and forth with Eric I decided to go for it and try and save myself some money. I had two goals here, firstly see If I can take apart one of the 9890, clean the head and put it back in and see what happens, if that fails then remove a head from a 7890, put that into a 9890 so then I only have to buy a new 7890 saving myself £2k ($3000) in the process.
Here's what happened, I stripped the 9890 down and got the head out.... This is what it looked like....
(http://i39.tinypic.com/2zs90eg.jpg)
A mess....
So after cleaning off the obvious gunk I soaked in the Red Epson cleaner I bought from Gedat for about an hour, then syringed back and forth for another 20 mins or so, I could clearly see the jets were all spraying nice underneath, all looking good.
So I let it dry for an hour and placed the head back in..... No difference whatsoever.
So I then removed it again and this time went for a more forceful technique, I figured the head is knackered anyway I may as well treat it as a learning curve. So this time I hooked it up to some tubing and at the end of it a steam cleaner, I decided on this as a few companies I spoke with had said the only way to clean and dissolve dried pigment ink is with hot water. So distilled hot water in the steamer and let it do it's thing for about 10 minutes. All looking good so head back in.... And Voila.... The head is F****d... Fatal Error.
So anyway, I expected this, now onto my second goal, try and swap heads with a smaller machine, I removed the head from a 7890 (by now I have the dismantling process down to less than 15 mins), this one looked worse than the one above (I forgot to take pics, although I did video it), so I gave it a clean up and placed it into the 9890.... Two major things happened... Firstly when I turned the printer on it worked straight away, cleaning, nozzle checks and printing, not what I expected, I thought I needed to use this servprog.exe software to register the new head but NOOOO, I did not.... Secondly the head in the 7890 had about 7-8 lines blocked that had been blocked for a long time, after cleaning the face of the head the nozzle check is PRISTINE.....
So today I learnt 3 things....
1. I can take the head out of a 7890 and put into a 9890 very easily
2. I can clean the odd line caused by blockages to the front of the head (presumed).
3. Steam cleaning doesn't work
So now I have learnt how to easily strip these things down I am going to service them myself, I am sure with the state of the head you saw above which was from a printer only 4 MONTHS OLD that after a year it will be totally covered and blockages almost a certainty so maybe we won't need to buy as many printers now??? they normally last us about 8-10 months and seeing the head I can now see why.
Another thing I found was the software servprog.exe that certain people may or may not have got hold of covers the Epson 7700, 7900, 9700 and 9900 and NOT the 7890 and 9890 so I had to buy this from a certain not be named site for $50, and I didn't even need to use it (yet).
So from now on is my larger machines get a problem, I'll be swapping out the parts from a 24" one and save a fortune.... (why is the 44" version more than twice the price of the 24" version anyway???, they share the same electronics and printhead just a bit of extra metal and plastic in the middle).
A HUGE thanks to Eric, I wouldn't have even attempted this without the video (donation to the cause on it's way now), one thing to note is the 7890 and 9890 have an extra ground wire that needs disconnecting to remove the carriage and damper assembly, connects at the top by the 3 ribbon connectors (unless I missed it in your video somehow).
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I am also seriously considering buying one of these.
I am thinking along the lines of prevention and not fixing.... If I remove the head every two moths, give them a good clean with this machine (not the ultrasonic method, just pumping cleaning fluid and water through it)...
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/printhead-cleaner-for-seiko-konica-xaar-epson-printhead/573824802.html
Thoughts?
Who knows maybe I should save the second head until I get one and see if it can also fix it???? (Dreaming too much???)
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Damian thanks for adding your experiences to this long running thread, given that each machine is printing about 4-6 rolls of media each day there's no case for low use being the issue with clogged heads, on the other hand paper/media dust build up might however be a factor.
I'd be interested to hear what your experience with the older generation printers, the 76xx, 78xx and 788x models was, did they clog as often, any particular channel colours that cause clogging issues?
Are you using genuine epson inks or 3rd party inks, are you using paper or canvas media or combo of both?
The head cleaning machine as you suggested might be a good investment in your case, extending the service life of a head by 6-12 months would be a substantial saving in your production environment.
Thanks for your efforts, makes interesting reading.
Cheers,
Brian.
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Congrats, Eric, for acquiring over 200 thousand views on this thread!
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Hi,
Has anyone successfully unclogged the 7900 yellow nozzle clog of death?
Thanks!
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You obviously have not read the thread from pg1...
so I'll save you a lot of time...
The answer is NO if it is a complete clog, and not just a temporarily dropped channel!
The only real useful purpose to this thread any more is Erics valuable link to his My X900 site where he goes into great detail in his videos as to how to REPLACE your head and wiper blade. and we all salute Eric for the effort he put in! http://myx900.com
Unless your willing to waste a lot of time and ink don't bother to try and unclog it.
You will wind up replacing your head in the end, if you are willing to do the labor, and capable of taking on the expense of a new head
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I appreciate your response. I'll admit digesting all the pages has been a chore and I failed at it. Interestingly I am familiar with you site and was about to contact you also. I too applaud the work that Eric put into all this. It was just wishful thinking that someone somewhere might have actually figured out the actual cause(s) of the clog, that is from an engineering point of view. Like everyone else I'm frustrated by Epson's lack of response. In fact I would suggest that they are guilty of somewhat of a fraud in not disclosing the caveats in owning a 900 series machine.
Why hasn't everyone grouped together to demand compensation from Epson?
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Nope I'm not dead yet. Neither is my 9900. It isn't printing yet, which is a bummer. But I haven't given up, which is not.
I've had a box staring me down from the center of a room I avoid like the plague. It's the 9900 room. If you walk through the kitchen on your way out it's like the 9900 doesn't even exist. That box either. Truth be told my 9900's been apart since the day I got that fateful "You're an idiot" message on the display. If this journey has taught me anything, it's to never feel over-confident about anything related to clearing nozzle clogs on an X900. But that day I screwed up. I actually thought I had it beat. When that message flashed at me it broke me. and so it has sat..
What's in the box in the center of the room you ask? A full set of cleaning carts. Any more boxes in the 9900 room? Yea, more of Epson's RED and CLEAR cleaning fluid. Ok so I've avoided the room like the plague, but I haven't avoided spending more money. What's the idea I've got brewing...? it's interesting actually.
By now more than a few have contacted me through this forum and myx900.com, talking about clearing impossible clogs on their printer. It's actually quite a lot more than a few, from basically all over the world. Yes Alaska, and Africa, of course New Zealand, Japan which is ironic, and many more including even Brazil - which is sexy. Yet no one has ever cleared an un-clearable clog, except one. John Schwaller did it on his 4900. How you ask? I've mentioned this before - re-charged the machine with ink. Did it a few times actually, which cost quite a bit, but not as much as a new head...
So I've been thinking since then, what if I set up a machine with cleaning carts filled with Epson's RED? No ultra sonic vibration violations, no excessive pressures applied by manually forcing liquid through a head, no foreign chemical violations, and perhaps no frying heads from too many power cleanings. Only worry is HAL's warning that nobody really knows how long you can expose an X900 head to RED. The glue is the suspect weakest link in the "what will break down first" chain. That nozzle plate comes un-glued from the chamber walls and 360 tiny nozzles just became one. So I looked into it, with my microscope.
Turns out the glue on a nozzle plate, left exposed to pure RED for 24hrs straight, was not compromised in the least. Over the course of this epic journey I have been sent a few dead/clogged/fatal error message heads. I took the nozzle plate off one two nights ago. I combed over the patterns of glue residue left in the shapes of chamber walls and cooling fins, I took visual notes of not only the appearance of the glue left over on the face, but also of it's consistency, how well it was stuck to the face, and how it reacted to my metal razor blade when I touched the two together. Before RED or after, it's just the same. This is very good news.
I took all of my RED, filled each new refillable cart with it, and put them in this 9900. Then I hit a temporary wall - one of the chips isn't being read by the machine. I re-set it, still nothing. And one of the carts doesn't seem to latch properly. I'll have to chase down replacement parts tomorrow morning. For now though, I am adhering to my self learned rule - no getting excited this will work. However I do feel this has the best chance yet.
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On signs forum there is also a guy who has recover an cloged epson solvent head by printing with specific cleaning fluid.
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Could you give me a link to that thread iladi ? I've searched unsuccessfully.
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Shure:
http://www.signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?111350-Bringing-a-head-back-to-life!!!-You-have-to-check-this-out!
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Thanks iladi. Feels like we're getting warmer. My replacement carts should be here any day now, then it's time to blow up this 9900!
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If anyone is interested I put a ton of microscopic images with descriptions of our piezoelectric heads on the myx900 site HERE (http://myx900.com/x900-printhead-revealed/)
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Great video.
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WTF!
He is using a Roland solvent printer.
This has no relationship to an Epson Pigment Inkjet.
aren't we going around in circles here Eric?
On the very first pages of this thread you stated that buying refillable carts and trying to flush the head was a total waste of money and time!
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Yes David, I am going in circles. Again. Which is kind of scary, yet also comforting. I race motorcycles after all, we do lots of circles.
If you think of this in a negative way I could be circling the drain on my way down it. On the positive side however I could be circling in on this like a pack of wolves would a wounded Caribou.
It is true, two years ago I said cleaning carts were a waste of time. That was my experience at the time, and I shared it. I have learned since then, after endless hours exploring and experimenting, that cleaning an X900 head in your hands/with syringes/soaking them/subjecting them to ultrasonic cleanings/pushing fluid through them/sucking fluid from them - it's all pretty dangerous business. These heads are microscopically fragile. My first experience with cleaning carts was limited to that source's cleaning fluids. Never did I try Epson's RED filled to the top of every cart, never did I try "initial fills" (if you remember I only bought four carts when I tried them, and only did pairs cleanings).
So yes, David. WTF!
I wonder if you can imagine how I feel by now...
...Having said all that I didn't open this page to respond, I opened it to post a progress report. The head I have in my 9900 right now is a head donated to the cause by D. Kelly, in Australia. PK channel was basically dead. I have performed 3 "initial fills" with RED, no change. I have performed SS cleanings, pairs cleanings, printed full pages of black. Nothing changed until I changed fluids. Out with the RED, in with a fluid which was suggested on this forum, in this thread, well over a year ago. I never talked about it but I did order, from 3M, the industrial kitchen cleaning fluid which was talked about here. I never used it, until yesterday when my RED ran out. It is also expensive, like RED, but it comes super concentrated. I think this half gallon makes 123 gallons total. So I diluted it, filled the carts, and went back at this head through the menu systems again. This morning I can finally confirm the one mystery which has been on my mind for-ever. Is a terminal clog actually a clog at all, or is it simply a damaged head?
The terminal clogs in D. Kelly's X900 head are, slowly, clearing. Used to be 60% of the nozzles were gone. Now it's 40%.
Still can't say whether it's the drain I am circling, or the prey. But we're definitely getting closer to one or the other.
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@davidh202:
Roland solvent printers use the same printheads as epson waterbased printers.
The solvent ink is also a pigment ink. The diference is the carier of the pigments. For your epson the carier is water, for a roland is a solvent.
They are not so different as one may think. Printing basics are the same, so we can draw conclusions based on other.
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ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST...
Well I did it again. FATAL ERROR MESSAGE 1A39 flashes over a blood red background in the 99 hundred's LCD. So much promise, so much hope, more possibly this time than ever before - all crumble to the floor in ashes before me. Or maybe I should say, "In steam".
WTF you ask? Where does steam come from? Don't be silly, it comes from Locomotives.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/steam_locomotive.jpg)
After too many initial fills to count, plus cleanings on top of cleanings - some while standing on one foot, others while dressed in an Indian rain dance outfit I keep only for special occasions - I decided once again to get aggressive. What's wrong with me you might ask? Why always in the end am I holding a bloody hammer at my side wearing an innocent look of guilt? Because after all I am a carpenter. Do remember this.
You might think after as many initial fills and cleanings as I performed on this particular head (300ml carts worth of cleaning fluid) that there would be no ink left inside the chambers anymore. I mean if nothing else, at least we should assume this, right?
Wrong...
The PK channel in this head cleared to 40% clogged then never improved. Wasn't budging. What I should have done at this point was give up, then perform an autopsy so we could finally understand what in the love of hell an unclearable clog actually is. But I didn't do that did I. Nope, I kept trying to clear it. How you ask? This is where the Locomotive comes in.
I boiled distilled water until a subtle stream of steam drew out from the spout of my wife's favorite flowered tea pot. (say that ten times fast) Then I held said dead head just out of harms way, or so I thought, until that subtle stream of steam drew from hidden chambers inside secret spaces - dried up crusty ink from prints long since past. Out from those tiny microscopic nozzle passages poured the answers to our troubles. It's ink. The clogs indeed are ink, I believe. And nothing gets them out without destroying the tiny internals they hold entombed in an ink frozen state of piezo-pompeii.
...at least nothing that we know of.
Today..
I will perform an autopsy but for sure I will find only ruins.
(http://gotagteam.com/epson/pompeii.jpg)
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Tonight it ends. My genius buddy Steve came over. Been a while since he's been in on this. As he walked in he said, "Dude, do you know it's been a year since you started that thread on Luminous Landscape?" I answered, "Actually it's been two..."
Used to be Steve and I did everything on this journey together, but then he got a girl - game over I've been solo on this ever since. Until tonight. I told Steve a week ago it was time we wrap this up, and so we did. Tonight we sacrificed a perfectly good, fully functional, thoroughly cleaned/rinse/soaked & initial filled until it's eyes watered X900 printhead. Consistent nozzle patterns, full pages of ink, 100% working head - minus almost half of the PK channel. Typical terminal clog story, cleared up fine until it got to a specific point - then it never budged a millimeter further.
We traced the lines, we drew maps, we zeroed in on ink's path through the nipple board, into the chambers and finally out the nozzles. Once we knew exactly which side of what chamber housed the PK bank we carefully took the head apart and raised it up to the microscope. Fascinating what we saw.
Since this thing began I have pictured caked up nozzles, ink bound chambers, stubborn ice burg sized ink clots jammed up against tiny piezoelectric nozzles and the like. For sure, in my heart I have felt our clogs are clearable. But I have also known, even feared, that terminal clogs are not clogs at all. They may instead be damaged nozzles, chambers, walls or whatever else might be possible. And I have known, all along, that taking apart a working head would reveal which of the two was our destiny.
I feel bad about this actually. Even sorry. Rather than finding impossibly stubborn caked up ink inside the specific chamber walls in question, we found absolutely nothing. I mean this X900 printhead is not only impeccably clean inside, but it's microscopically clean. There is not a single trace of ink inside any part of the piezoboard. Not one chamber wall is damaged. Not, one. There's no dust, no cracks, not one inconsistency in the entire thing. These nozzles are perfect in every way compared to their properly firing counterparts just a chamber wall away. The whole bank is perfect, just half of it doesn't fire anymore.
Feel free to draw from this experience any conclusions you deem appropriate. To me, and I am wrong far more often than I am right, we have not been fighting clogs at all. We've been fighting ghosts. I don't know what it is that does it but something destroys an X900 nozzle. Maybe it's age but I doubt it. Perhaps it's a characteristic of piezoelectrics - one wall can only take so much heat, or so much charge, or so much vibration - and then it is fried. Either way it is confirmed, finally, in my opinion and under my microscope - a terminal clog is not a terminal clog at all. It's a non functional nozzle.
It's been one hell of a journey, thanks for coming along. Before we part ways I leave you with one final piece of caring advice - maybe it's best to stay away from SS cleanings all together. Rinse them, soak them, suck ink from their faces - but never turn up the heat on a clogged X900 nozzle.
THE, END
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Dear Eric,
Having read your words and shared your frustrations for over a year, you feel like a real friend (that sounds creepy in an internet sorts of way, but...). I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. You have brought a sense of humor and a great deal of knowledge and understanding to many of us which reflects all your hard work. Hopefully you won't ever feel this has been time wasted as you have enriched and helped to educated more people than you are likely to know.
Thanks again for all your efforts,
Allan
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Sincere thanks Allan.
As far as the time, it's been a pleasure. And for sure it hasn't all been mine - so many others have chimed in with hugely valuable time, knowledge and advice along the way. As far as the money, it's been interesting...
Last night I sold one of the microscopes that I bought for this exploration, on ebay. This was my plan from day-one, to recuperate what I could once we saw this to the end. It sold for a loss, like most of what I put into this deal, which begs one to look back at all this like a bean counter might. But like your kind words suggest, that would be missing the the greatest point of all. So the only beans I count are in my burrito. But I bet if I did count I'd be square by now anyway, thanks to some pretty special people on this forum and across this planet.
This has been an education in both science and humanity. Both thrive here.
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This could be named Programmed Obsolescence, thanks for your efforts.
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Hi everyone,
I am new to this forum and am very glad I found it. Thank you so much for all the information. Like many here, I am very frustrated with the Epson Stylus Pro 7900. I just got a new one 2 weeks ago, but from day one and first print, the prints came out with dark banding lines, so nothing to do with the printer not being used enough like many professionals seem to suggest. The paper I am using to troubleshoot is the one that came with the printer, the Epson Matte Double Weight. I would not dare using my own media until this is resolved. What makes me more aggravated is that Epson has not been able to solve the issue and seems to be just pushing it forward. I've had 3 Epson technicians come to my office to troubleshoot, but none could solve the issue. The third one spent 6 hours in my office changing "paper feed adjustment" from percentage to percentage. He succeeded in getting rid of the dark banding lines and instead produced white banding lines! With a few more trials he got both types of banding lines on the same 10 x 12" print. I am dumbfounded. It seems obvious to me that the issue does not have necessarily to do with paper feed adjustment, at least not alone. But he would not troubleshoot with anything else. You can imagine how many prints 6 hours of troubleshooting doing the same thing over and over can give off. I got this printer due to all the good reviews by renowned professional photographers on the internet. I can only imagine that they do not get the same level of customer service that most people get. Till I received the printer, I was not aware of banding issues. In addition to banding, the nozzle check always gives a deflection on the same spot of the vivid magenta, no matter how many times cleaning is done. I got this printer for my start up business and now my focus has shifted from doing my work to trying to fix the issue. Epson is taking too long to do a replacement and is not particularly keen on refunding me. I am absolutely infuriated by Epson's customer service, though I am still in hope that this can be resolved because my main objective is to get my business running. By the way, for the people here who are absolutely dissatisfied with Epson, I suggest you file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The number of complaints there about Epson is not proportional to the level of dissatisfaction seen online. Writing reviews online may increase awareness, but it does not call Epson's attention. BBB is the way to go. I'll file my complaint for sure. If you have any suggestions to give me about how to resolve this issue, I am all ears and thank you in advance. If you've faced the same issue I am facing, please let me know what you did or are doing to fix it.
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Hi Beza,
Everyone has a different method - but here is how I would approach horizontal banding... and the order it would be done.
- Verify perfect nozzle check
- Check paper doesn't have horizontal banding on the emulsion (sometimes they do). Look at it under a light at different angles.
- CR Head Slant test print
- PF Head Slant test print
There are "auto" print head alignments Uni/Bi D alignments that the printer can do, but if the customer is quality critical I always do them manually with a high powered loupe. Results end up much better than relying on the printer's IR sensor.
- Paper thickness test print
- Check carriage rail lubrication
- Print Uni-Directional ONLY for the next steps. Bi-Directional printing adds another variable. 1440x1440, 12 pass.
- Print 20" long ruler x paper width (44"?) and verify all sides opposite are same length. 20"x43" rectangle should do the trick. If the width is off, then the print head carriage or belts have a problem. If vertical is off, the printer's feed mechanism is off - or the nip rollers are applying different pressures along the paper. - or the paper is loaded incorrectly.
- run test print file with both gradient and solid swatches. Should be 2 gradient swatches for each color (with 1 gradient rotated 90 degrees). They don't need to be huge, 3" x 8" gradients and 3"x3" solid swatches should be fine. You want to stress test the machine to easily see any banding. If the banding occurs only on the cyan swatch, but is perfect on all others - then it's not due to paper feed adjustment.
- From the test print, if you see white gaps in the horizontal banding (if it is due to micro-weave) - then reduce the paper feed adjustment value. If dark gaps appear, you've gone too far. Tweak until no horizontal banding is present due to micro-weave adjustments. I just run prints in increments +/- 10 from the rip and queue up the jobs. It's pretty quick if settings are controlled via your rip. It's time consuming if using epson driver between each print.
-- Micro-weave banding also effects image quality. If you notice fine type and vector edges are getting sharper, then you're going in the right direction with the adjustment.
- Tweak vacuum settings (in my experience, lower vacuum setting reduces banding) but I'm calibrating machines to film, not paper. Very different.
- Try a different paper, tweak RIP settings, print Vector vs Raster files (sometimes a bad postscript setting can cause banding on a print with Vectors).
- some Rips have various VSD, Pass, Resolution, etc adjustments available. Despite having a perfectly calibrated machine, the settings at your computer can make the difference.
Tweak any or all of the above as each of these things can produce or null horizontal banding. Setup the machine to print nozzle check before each print begins - nothing worse than chasing your tail troubleshooting when the problem is because a channel took a dump.
Hope it helps
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As a photographer, I think the wisest choice among the current LF Epsons is to opt for the 9890 or the 7890. My 9900 bit the dust a year ago. I think the ultimate culprit had something to do with the green or the orange channels. Now that I've "downgraded" to a 7890, I've had no an issues. I do use the printer just about every day. If I've nothing to print, I run a nozzle check. I also think living in a humid climate helps. If you are not trying to match PMS colors, the X890 printers are fine. I've not seen a difference between pictures printed with the 7980 and 9900.
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As a happy 2-year 3880 user always wow'd by what comes out of the printer, pushing print sizes to the the 36" driver limit and wanting still bigger prints, I read this entire thread a few weeks ago like a novel, hoping for a happy ending, as I've been longing for one of the larger LF models. Thanks to Eric and friends for sharing your "journey" in vivid detail. I wish that your results had been different, but the knowledge you and many others imparted to the rest of us Epson LF fans is invaluable and well worth the 20-30 hours invested in reading this thread. Thank you!
I tend to draw the same conclusion from a few other folks that the 7890/9890 9-ink systems may yield longer, more trouble-free print head lifespans. I want to believe it, anyway, because I've reached the point that I'm ready to take the plunge.
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I have a 7900 (now 4 years old) and 9890 (3 1/2) AND BOTH WORKING FLAWLESSLY, (and I don't baby them ) ! These printers are getting bad press by a few, and it is not representative of the vast majority of them in use!!!
I would have originally gone for the 9890 had it been available, as the larger size is definitely advantageous, especially if you do canvas wraps.
Save the difference on the $ and go for the x890 series, as for photography it really is not necessary to have the G & O inks!!!
Put the savings into paper and a replacement inkset.!!!
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Hi, i didn't want to start a new thread because is my problem is also with the 7900, i hope i'm not breaking form rules here, however after spending some time researching this, and coming across this thread, this thread seems to have the most information clustered together i've seen.
So on our 7900 we developed a clog on the LLK head, and its not a very small clog, its almost 80-90% of the head, and its only getting worse, with less than 200-ish prints on the printer its self, and none of the others going bad.
So far we have been trying the different ranks of cleaning the printer has, including checking the wiper-blade assembly. and no SS cleaning,(after searching this form, thank you btw) and the LLk has only gotten worse. I fear is electronics, as it seems to be with a-lot of these print heads.
I know there are lots of other things we could try, damper assembly, different cleaning liquids you run instead of inks, but this block is huge and i haven't seen anyone with this massive of a clog on just one head.
What do you guys think.
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You don't have a clog you have ink starvation due to air in the line. It's also not the wiper. I'd be willing to bet it's a bad cart seal allowing air into the line. Could be a bad cart seal or the needle itself in the LLK bay. LLK is the most used ink for all prints. If you have any carts running at a very low level this can also occur, as it can de pressurize the supply chain and affect the weakest link so to speak.
You have nothing to loose before you call for service if out of warrantee...
Get a new 150ml LLK cart before you do anything else, set the printer to auto check and nozzle clean, and let the printer do it's thing. You may get the dreaded cleaned 3 times to no avail notice, let the printer rest between cleanings and turn it off and on to cycle the pressure pump and charge the lines. Do not just keep on doing cleanings without printing , but print some more pages on plain paper till it works it's way out!
IF all that fails open in Maintenance mode and do a level 2 pair clean only, and then print print print on plain paper. If you see progress fine, if not you may have already done too much damage to the LLK nozzles . DO not use WINDEX!
Good luck and by all means report back and let us know the outcome
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You don't have a clog you have ink starvation due to air in the line. It's also not the wiper. I'd be willing to bet it's a bad cart seal allowing air into the line. Could be a bad cart seal or the needle itself in the LLK bay. LLK is the most used ink for all prints. If you have any carts running at a very low level this can also occur, as it can de pressurize the supply chain and affect the weakest link so to speak.
You have nothing to loose before you call for service if out of warrantee...
Get a new 150ml LLK cart before you do anything else, set the printer to auto check and nozzle clean, and let the printer do it's thing. You may get the dreaded cleaned 3 times to no avail notice, let the printer rest between cleanings and turn it off and on to cycle the pressure pump and charge the lines. Do not just keep on doing cleanings without printing , but print some more pages on plain paper till it works it's way out!
IF all that fails open in Maintenance mode and do a level 2 pair clean only, and then print print print on plain paper. If you see progress fine, if not you may have already done too much damage to the LLK nozzles . DO not use WINDEX!
Good luck and by all means report back and let us know the outcome
Yup it's a bad cart seal. Just use some scotch tape and tape up the seams around the cart. It helps to hold it for a while. Also, do an eject cart and reload then clean once to get the pressure up before doing a nozzle check when doing a new print job after the printer sits idle for more than a day.
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Just a thought, if it were an air leak, wouldn't the pump be running a lot more than normal? Maybe continuously if bad enough?
I think Epson has some pressure sensor on the air line to keep the tanks and head pressurized and it should be triggering the pump if the line pressure is low, or the pressure sensor is bad.
Local shop had theirs go bad and it did clog the nozzles, but they also had to change out some controller board, pump, and print head to the tune of $2,200 with labor. They scraped it instead and upscaled to the 9900, but it too had some issues as well and has been down 3 months.
Epson really needs to make these machines more service and user friendly with regards to head replacements like Canon, imho.
SG
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How do you do this exactly? Are you saying to tape around near where the cart plugs in to the nozzle? How can you do this with the other carts in? Could you be a bit more clear...I want to try this....
You see the seam that runs down the middle of the cartridge that splits the cart in two? Tape up that seam. Just be more careful to avoid the chip, the ink port and the plastic identification keys.
Secondary action: release the head and move it to the middle of the printer, use a torch to inspect the ink lines around it to see if there are signs of ink leakages. Sometimes one of the ink line is not plugged in tight enough and the leak will cause air to build up in the head.
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...
What do you guys think.
It is hard to see in your photograph, but I think I see deflected nozzles (small curved vertical lines of ink in the missing color just to the right of the left and right sides of the empty pattern). You may need to look at the pattern under magnification to see this.
Based on my experience you have a failed head, not a clog. You have 2 key indicators: 1) a continuous block of missing nozzles that gets larger with more attempts to clear it, 2) deflected nozzles with "delayed" firing.
I had pretty much the same thing happen on my 5 1/2 year old 7900 in the Green channel. Up until that point, I had never had a missing nozzle which could not be easily cleared. I installed a new Ink Selector (all five dampers) which did not fix it. A 72 hour soak with PeizoFlush fluid in the Green channel did not clear it. I installed a new head (did all the recommended adjustments) and now have a perfectly functioning system again. Note: If you do replace your head, and if you build your own profiles, I highly recommend re-profiling all your papers. Replacing a head can actually change color characteristics in the same way that changing media settings might.
Dave
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Great post - many thanks - I have managed to find most resources needed to "repair" my 7900 however I am struggling to find Servprog.exe anywhere, can anyone please help?
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I have gone to the website-Epson Insider-and I don't see it anywhere.Not sure if it's bundled with anything else.All I see are net utilities.Anyone have any suggestions?
MJR
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The program is under Windows XP or Vista only:
Epson Insider > support >technical information > Ink Jet Printers > Epson Stylus Pro 9900 > Downloads > Windows XP > Service Program
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I don't see it for the 7890,just the 7900.Any ideas?Not listed in the drop down.
Mike
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I *think* the same program is used for the x700, x710, x890, x900, x908, x910 series printer. Grab it from the 7900 and it should work for your 7890.
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7890.9890 not listed nor is the 4900.I'm still looking though.
7900,9900,7700,9700 are listed.
Mike
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The filename is: epson13816.exe. It appears under several different models and operating systems. I just went there and got it yesterday. - Jim
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Did you see one for the 7890?The one I have ,it is not listed in the drop down.Could be different versions of it.
Mike
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Thats great - many thanks
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Hi everybody.
I would like to start by thank everyone for sharing informations about EPSON print head problems.
Here is the problem I faced yesterday. My 9900 has been turned off for 1 month. The last time I printed, everything was fine.
Yesterday I turned it on and let it make its self cleaning. I made a nozzle check just after.
My LLK was partially printed... :-[
After few cleanings, I decided to dismount the print head to manually clean it with warm distilled water.
I started to dive the print head in 1cm of distilled water, and gently shaked it. I changed the dirty water twice.
When the water was no more dirty, I took a syringe and really gently aspired from the LLK whole behind the print head, until the liquid was pretty clean.
I thought it was not too much to do that with all colors, so I aspired from all color wholes.
Finally, I put the print head on a paper towels and I really gently push some air with the syringe in each color whole to help drying it.
Then I put it back in my 9900.
I turned on my 9900 in Maintenance mode (left+down+right). When it was in "ready" state, I wanted to print a test image and I realized that "Matte black" was selected while it was PHoto black before... So I switched to Photo black and it started by a self cleaning...
The self cleaning took a very unusual long time and ended with an error message saying it was not able to.... end the cleaning.
the 9900 asked for retry or continue. I pushed "continue" then it started to switch to Photo black.
After switching finished, I checked my waste ink tank... It was totally empty !! No ink went through the print head nor during the switch neither during the self cleaning.
I tried to print a pic, and the printer left me a beautiful white paper !!
I disassembled a second time to check electrical connections. Everything was well connected, with no inversion...
Then I tried to send the print head serial number through servprog, which has been well sent, but nothing changed. Still white paper when printing.
My print head had been replace last year... But I admit I don't print everyday... It happens that the plotter stays switched off for 2 or 3 weeks.
Did I forget a step ? Do I do something I shouldn't have done ?
Thanks in advance for your help, and I hope I didn't kill my print head !
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Seriously?? You couldn't think of ANY other name to post with? ::)
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Really-so degrading-Let's stay on a higher plane than that.
Mike
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I apology, I didn't expect to hurt anybody.
Here is the explanation I sent to administrators:
I changed my nickname, no problem ;)
But may I ask you to explain me what is the deep meaning for US people ?
I know that "nigga" comes from "nigger", and I know it was a real bad racial meaning a long time ago, in France too.
But nowadays in France, it is nor a way to claim to be a black people (strengthening the idea not being white people) neither a way to say I feel like my ancestors, still persecuted by white people...
The only reason I used this nickname is because in France, english words sound good when you say it, we like to use english.
It is just for the style ;)
Friendly,
Philippe.
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Until we choose to rise above the past-we will be stuck in the past.It's a derogatory term and really has no place in a civilized society.Being a professional black man,I was taken aback that you would use such a name in your email.I can't change how u feel about yourself-but to me and possibly countless other-it's very offensive.Rise above it!
Dr.Redus
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Unfortunately the new Epson print heads have a built in iris scanner that automatically scans the eyes of whoever removes the print head. If an authorized Epson tech removes it the head it behaves normally when reinserted. If a non-authorized person removes the head then it no longer is functional, therefore the printer becomes worthless. That's why I don't work on Epson printheads any longer. I'm just not qualified.
john
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:)
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Hi, another 4900 problem here...
After several years of perfect performance with no issues, my printhead went out all within one day, first the cyan channel, then everything but magenta and yellow, and then nothing on paper at all. I took it apart and cleaned everything. Laying the printhead on a microfiber cloth leave a rainbow of all the colors, so it appears ink is flowing. I cleaned it anyway. I didn't notice anything unusual anywhere. Put it all back together, and still nothing.
I know it sounds like the printhead, but I was assuming only individual dots or channels would go out as the printhead aged. I find it hard to believe the entire printhead died at once. Bad timing too, as I just replaced all the ink cartridges just a few months ago.
Can anyone think of anything that might cause everything to go out at once, within 24 hours? Maybe a power supply that feeds the printhead? I hate to pay big bucks for a new printhead and then find that wasn't the problem.
Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can provide.
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Hi, another 4900 problem here...
After several years of perfect performance with no issues, my printhead went out all within one day, first the cyan channel, then everything but magenta and yellow, and then nothing on paper at all. I took it apart and cleaned everything. Laying the printhead on a microfiber cloth leave a rainbow of all the colors, so it appears ink is flowing. I cleaned it anyway. I didn't notice anything unusual anywhere. Put it all back together, and still nothing.
I know it sounds like the printhead, but I was assuming only individual dots or channels would go out as the printhead aged. I find it hard to believe the entire printhead died at once. Bad timing too, as I just replaced all the ink cartridges just a few months ago.
Can anyone think of anything that might cause everything to go out at once, within 24 hours? Maybe a power supply that feeds the printhead? I hate to pay big bucks for a new printhead and then find that wasn't the problem.
Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can provide.
Not sure, but I believe all of the x900 series printers use a pressurized cartridge system. I know for sure the 79/9900 printers do. That's the noise you here as the printer is starting up, the pressure pump introducing air into the cartridges and "squeezing" the ink bladder, therefore forcing the ink into the printhead. If the pressure pump is defective that could cause the issue you are facing. With no pressure "pushing" the ink it will not enter and fill the printhead properly. Occasionally, when there's a gap in a nozzle pattern I will shut down the printer and then restart. Sometimes this will insure that the problem cart is properly pressurized and the gap will disappear. That procedure doesn't always work, in which case I know it's probably time for a cleaning cycle. When you start up the printer make sure you hear the pressure pump doing its job.
Gary
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Thank you for the quick reply, and your help! I hear the noise at startup, but I will take it apart again and verify the ink is actually being pressurized. I think if I run the ink purge/fill utility I should be able to tell if the pump is working correctly.
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I have a new 7900. I want to read all 76 pages but don't have the time. I'd like some tips on preventative maintenance.
I know about humidity and have a humidifier to try and keep in the 40% range.
I think I read that you should remove the ink cartridges weekly and give them a shake? Won't that introduce air in the system?
I haven't yet, but understand I need to clean the wiper blade. How often?
Any settings I should do to reduce ink waste? Any of the auto features I need to turn off?
I;m not a volume printer but do plan to print at least something each day.
Thanks!
Maxi
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I have a new 7900.
I'm confused. Did you get a 9890, 7900 or both?
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Both. 7900 at our Studio, and the 9890 for my fine art work. I'm in charge of both.
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Well, I ran two discharge ink cycles, as recommended by the service manual, using ServProg and the ink lines are still full of ink, so there must be a pump issue. I find it hard to believe all the colors dried up and clogged at the same time. However, there are two pumps, a "decompression pump" and a pump in the IS head unit. I was about to troubleshoot which pump it might be when the printer locked up with borderfree ink maintenance tank needs replacing. Looking at it, it is brand new, no ink on it, as I don't typically print borderless, but the digital nanny has locked up everything.
I guess at this point it could be either pump, or I guess could still be a dried ink plug in damper or head somewhere. Hopefully it is the decompression pump as it is 1/3 the cost of the IS unit. I'm not willing to gamble with either purchase yet, however.
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I have a new 7900. I want to read all 76 pages but don't have the time. I'd like some tips on preventative maintenance.
I know about humidity and have a humidifier to try and keep in the 40% range.
I think I read that you should remove the ink cartridges weekly and give them a shake? Won't that introduce air in the system?
I haven't yet, but understand I need to clean the wiper blade. How often?
Any settings I should do to reduce ink waste? Any of the auto features I need to turn off?
I;m not a volume printer but do plan to print at least something each day.
Thanks!
Maxi
It seems that you probably have a pretty good handle on the workings of this printer. As far as auto settings are concerned, the only one that comes to mind at the moment would be the ANC(Auto Nozzle Check). Before printing my first file with the 9900 I turned that "feature" off. I always run a nozzle check before I start the day's printing routine, so I don't need an automated check that might induce a cleaning cycle for one gap in the bottom line of a nozzle pattern, something I can live with quite nicely. Obviously my advice would be to turn ANC off, but of course that's your call. I'm sure you are also familiar with the procedure of starting up in Service Mode/Maintenance Mode. That's where you would gain access to the Wiper Blade and also cleaning cycles that do a better job than the ones in the standard operating mode. One caution though -- if you do go to Service Mode, be very careful not to push any buttons that you are not familiar with. That sort of activity could shut you down in a hurry. If you're not familiar with Service Mode access, just ask and you shall receive. It's also a good idea to do the black ink swap(PK-MK or MK-PK) in Service Mode. That way you can usually avoid the automatic cleaning cycle that follows a swap in standard mode. And if you do need to run a clean cycle you're already in Service Mode. As far as the cartridge shake is concerned, in my opinion it's NEVER a good idea to "SHAAAAKE" a cartridge. A gentle roll over in both directions is usually all that's needed and I never remove a cart just to agitate unless the printer has set unused for more than a week(holiday). You will notice that as the printer is working it will normally create a gentle movement from side to side. That movement alone is usually enough to keep the ink pigments from settling. The wiper blade should probably be checked once every three months or so, depending on usage. You can remove an clean with distilled water, check for any damage, and then reinstall. One more thing -- when running cleaning cycles it's imperative that you also print a full colour image between cycles. That way you are exercising all of the nozzles and also possibly running ink through the troubled nozzles, therefore cleaning at the same time. I hope this is of some help.
Gary
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THANK YOU GARY!!!
Great info. In fact tonight I did the first switch from Photo to Matte BLK. I did it the standard way.
I'll look into how to do it in service more. I think you start up with 3 buttons held down?
I was going to post a question, if it was normal with the Auto Nozzle Check on to get so many cleanings.
Second number is the ml used then the paper size.
Print Ink (ml)Size
1 2 16x20 CLEANING
2 1 16x4
3 1 16x5
4 1.9 16x16
5 2 16x20
6 2.3 16x20
7 4.1 16x13 CLEANING
8 1.4 16x13
9 2.9 16x22
10 2.2 16x20
11 6.9 34x36
12 2.2 16x21
13 2.5 16x21
14 2 16x22
15 2.2 16x20
16 11.7 16x21 CLEANING - AUTO NOZZLE
17 2.3 16x21
18 2.3 16x20
19 2 16x20
20 2 16x21 ABW
21 10.8 11x14 MATTE Auto Nozzle/CLEANING
22 0.3
23 2.5 18x24 MATTE
24 3.1 18x24 MATTE 16% LT Black
I was logging ink usage after each print to understand my cost and what to charge my clients. I have a humidifier, but haven't used it the last couple days due to rain and 70%+ humidity. I'll go back to the humidifier soon. Also I've been printing in the morning then at night. not high volume.
RE Wiper blade, Being low volume, How often should I do the blade cleaning?
So far I'm loving this printer! I'm taking my time before I break out the expensive papers.
Thanks!~!!
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Okay, I have the Service manual. I want to see how to turn off Auto Nozzle Check, How to switch from Photo to Matte Black.
Is this under Maintenance mode or Service Mode?
I've printed out both sections. Pages 74...
Is Auto Nozzle check called something else? What submenu it that under?
Thanks
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Okay, I have the Service manual. I want to see how to turn off Auto Nozzle Check, How to switch from Photo to Matte Black.
Is this under Maintenance mode or Service Mode?
I've printed out both sections. Pages 74...
Is Auto Nozzle check called something else? What submenu it that under?
Thanks
To turn off Auto Nozzle Check: In Standard Mode -- Press the Right Arrow Button
In "Printer Setup" press the Right Arrow Button
Scroll down to Auto Nozzle Check and press the Right Arrow Button
Choose OFF and then hit Enter
Press the Left Arrow Button to get back to the initial display
You're good to go.
Gary
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RE Wiper blade, Being low volume, How often should I do the blade cleaning?
So far I'm loving this printer! I'm taking my time before I break out the expensive papers.
Thanks!~!!
I'm sure about every 2 months would be quite sufficient. Once you know how to remove the blade it's not a big deal, and of course we can help you when you want to do that.
Gary
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Thanks Garry and Garnick!
I've spent a lot of research before getting the printer. I want to do everything right from the start. I won't be here complaining about Epson, because I left my printer in the garage unused for 3 months. I plan to at least get a print or two every day or so. My large 40x60 will be less frequent, but, I'll study that manual.
Thanks again
Maxi
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Well, I got a new maintenance tank, so the digital nanny is not holding me back. I unmounted the decompression pump and ran it to the side of unit, and it appears to run when it is supposed to, and if I take off the tube, I can feel a slight vacuum pulled when I put my finger over the fitting, so I assume it is running correctly. Much more vacuum and the tube would probably collapse and pinch off, so the light vacuum is probably correct. I never felt any positive pressure though, and the official description of the pump is "compresssion/decompression pump". But I have only seen it run in a single direction.
I've now taken most of the printer apart down to the smallest of parts and cannot see anything wrong. I can find no signs of ink draining or having been drained in the past during cleanings or photo to matte black ink changes. Is there a drain pump in the IS unit? I don't imagine they dump all the ink with the printhead, that would take forever.
I suppose there could still be a clog somewhere in the ink supply path, but there are so many tubes and manifolds, that it would be a nightmare to clean them all and put them back together again. Also, that might explain one or two colors dropping out, but all at once?
My best guess at this point is pump in IS unit (if it has one), clogged up manifold somewhere, or a driver on the control board has failed and is not driving a pump it should be driving. However, the control board is unlikely, as there appears to be feedback mechanisms everywhere that tell the controller if something is not moving correctly. My next step is to peer further into the IS unit and see if it has a pump, and if so, figure out a way to trick it into running so I can feel for vacuum or pressure. My worry is that the longer I have everything apart in my very dry office, the more likely everything ink related is going to dry up.
Any thoughts or opinions both welcome and appreciated.
Jim
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I've taken apart the IS unit. There is no separate pump, but rather they have a shaft driven off the motor that goes to a tube rolling pump. There are two sections to the roll pump. One drains the big cleaning pad, and the other the smaller cleaning pad. The small one has a gasket like the parking station. To drain ink, it raises this small cleaning pad up to the printhead, and draws a vacuum to the drain line. It appears when draining ink, everything is sucked through the printhead. I always assumed it bypassed the head during big ink operations, but that does not appear to be the case. So, if the ink isn't draining, it is still possible a head clog would prevent draining, though all heads clogging simultaneously is hard to believe. I will try to check the operation of the drain pump, to make sure the tube roll pump is still operating. I should be able to run the tubes to the side, do a ink drain operation, and see if the shaft turns and I feel vacuum with my fingertip.
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I hooked the input and output of both stages of the IS unit's tube roll pump to a glass of water and it drew a great vacuum and pumped the water great, so I can rule that out, which is good as it is only replaceable as a whole unit and it is expensive. The decompression pump only has a tube at the input, and the output goes into the air inside the chassis. It draws vacuum on the input, and the open output has air pressure coming out of it.
So now both pumps appear to work, so I am back to looking for a clog, I guess.
I can see the pump try to drain the ink through the printhead, as I am running the ink drain feature with all the panels off the printer. The printhead moves into position, the small drain pad is moved up and seals against one of the dual printheads, the motor rotating the shaft that drives the pump turns on, but nothing comes out the drain tube, which I have separated from the maintenance tank.
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I still wonder about the decompression pump. While I did feel an air vacuum created at the end of startup and ink dump, I never felt a positive air pressure. I don't see how the ink is going to get to the head unless there is positive pressure. But, I thought Epson's had a low ink pressure warning flag, and there is no error currently showing.
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Well, I'm about ready to call the printer dead. I have ink flowing in charge and discharge utilities, both pumps seem to be working, and the printhead is squeaky clean after another soak. Still prints absolutely nothing. Not a single dot anywhere on a full page test print. It's like the print head driver went out, or perhaps the power supply to it, but both should have thrown a service code. Everything seems to be working great, but still no ink on paper.
Any last thoughts or ideas?
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Printheads go and most often a stubborn printhead problem (un-clearable after normal cleaning cycles) is not a clog but a inoperable print head. The electro-mechanics have failed and can not be recovered. From all the threads I have read and my personal experience this is the case and as the say: "resistance (to this reality) is futile."
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"If you're not familiar with Service Mode access, just ask and you shall receive. It's also a good idea to do the black ink swap(PK-MK or MK-PK) in Service Mode. That way you can usually avoid the automatic cleaning cycle that follows a swap in standard mode. And if you do need to run a clean cycle you're already in Service Mode. "
Quick help. I'm trying to switch from MK to PK, I'm in Service mode and don't see it. I just looked at the manual as well, what menu/submenu is it under?
Also, what menu/submenu should I use to do a Nozzle check, before I restart into normal mode?
Thanks
Maxi
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Quick help. I'm trying to switch from MK to PK, I'm in Service mode and don't see it. I just looked at the manual as well, what menu/submenu is it under?
Also, what menu/submenu should I use to do a Nozzle check, before I restart into normal mode?
Thanks
Maxi
The K ink switch is not a menu item, it's a button. On the control panel you will be familiar with the white menu buttons(up/down, right/left arrows and the OK button). To the upper left of that combination is a button titled "Black". In either the standard or service mode that button does the same thing, it switches between the Mk and PK. And as mentioned several times, it's always better to do the K switch and cleaning cycles in service mode. Just remember that you cannot run a nozzle check from the control panel in service mode. That must be done from the printer utility program.
Gary
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Thank you Gary,
This is my first time in thew Service mode and was warned to be careful!
So after I do the Switch button, I need to do a cleaning or not?
But you said I can do a Nozzle check from the driver.
Thanks again.
Maxi
UPDATE:
Okay
1) Switched inks in Service mode (CHECK)
2) Nozzle check from Driver (CHECK)
3) my PK nozzle check is not perfect, while in Service mode how do I clean just the PK (I know they are paired)
Thanks again....
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Thank you Gary,
This is my first time in thew Service mode and was warned to be careful!
So after I do the Switch button, I need to do a cleaning or not?
But you said I can do a Nozzle check from the driver.
Thanks again.
Maxi
UPDATE:
Okay
1) Switched inks in Service mode (CHECK)
2) Nozzle check from Driver (CHECK)
3) my PK nozzle check is not perfect, while in Service mode how do I clean just the PK (I know they are paired)
Thanks again....
Press the right(White) arrow button, then press it again. Scroll down to Cleaning. Once you are in the Cleaning menu, scroll down past "Standard Cleaning" to "Pairs Cleaning". Then to the PK,MK,LK pair selection. Press the right arrow button again and chose either CL1 or CL2. CL1 is usually enough to fix a nozzle gap, unless it's a really stubborn one. In that case you may want to try CL2. Once you have made that choice push the right arrow button again to Enter. However, remember to always run a full colour print between cleaning cycles. That seems to exercise all nozzles and can sometimes helps clear the problem nozzle as well.
One more suggestion -- it's a good idea to put the Epson Printer Utility in a place where it will be easily accessible. On the Mac you will find this utility in the Applications Folder>Epson Software Folder. Drag the icon down to the dock. Not sure about the PC, but I imagine the Epson Software Folder would be in the Programs Folder. From there you can drag it out to the desktop or any other accessible spot.
Gary
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Thanks again.
I went to CLEANING, PK, and I needed to clean the LM, so selected the LM/LC> then C1.
I will do a print once it is complete.
Thanks.
Update: Everything looks good. Thanks for directing me through those menus!
Maxi
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Hello,
here is another guy with Epson 7900 problems.
First problem was in the clogged ink cartridge (Matte Black) but I disassembled the whole right side of the machine to realize that. ;D
I bought the new cartridge, but the Matte Black was faulty. Maybe 2,3 stripes on nozzle check. Ok, I returned everything back and reconciled with myself: from now you will use photo black. Mainly I use my Epson for plotting technical drawings (70% of jobs).
Few days ago I was bored and knew that there wouldn`t be any work for that machine so i decided to clean the head to revive the Matte black.
Took out the head, cleaned it.
Nozzle check before that was ok (maybe 1 or 2 missed stripes).
After cleaning and drying tried the first nozzle check and I lost the Photo black ( colors are fine).
I tried all the cleaning operations available by the machine.
In a video I watched (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLytOfTFvac) guy only vacuums (don`t know the right word for that) the lower line of pipes, so I did the same thing.
Is it ok to do the same for the upper one (marked with red)?
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Each one represents a color channel. You would need to flush all ten to perform a complete job.
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I would like to lubricate the CR Guide Shaft on my 7900. When printing the full 24" width after some time only printing smaller widths, there is a distinct squeak at the far end of the print head's trajectory. So far, after about one and a half 20" by 30" prints, the squeak disappears. So I think it is caused by a lack of lubricant at the far end of the rail, caused by my only occasionally printing at the full width. I am concerned that if I do not deal with it now, it may cause a serious problem later (e.g., Eric in another post has described a similar situation in which ultimately the drive belt failed due to the increased friction of inadequate lubrication).
Anyway, I have examined the Epson Service Manual, which tells me to use either G-71 or G-84 lubricants for the CR Guide Shaft (the manual appears to be inconsistent as to which is to be used; both are available from PC Parts) and shows me a very cryptic diagram that I cannot locate with respect to the actual machine. What it does not tell me is exactly where and how to apply the lubricant and how much. Could someone give me a few pointers on how to do this?
Has anyone actually lubricated their 7900? Epson says quite clearly in their manual that this is an important activity, and I do seem to have a potential problem requiring lubrication.
Thank you.
Jim
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Hi Jim,
I lubricated my 9900 once. You only need the G-84, it costs around $90 for a small container that is just big enough for one or two applications. I don't recommend using anything else but G-84 as it has a very specific consistency I haven't seen in any other grease. I used a glue syringe with a fine needle to measure and apply the grease.
I thought the service manual (9700_ESP77_79_97_99_SERIES_I.pdf) has pretty good directions on where to apply the grease. Look for lubrication 7 to 10 in section 6.5. (Lubrication 6 is above my pay grade as it requires removal of the carriage unit.)
You first need to remove the side, front, and top cover. After you do that the service manual illustrations will make a lot more sense.
Remove and clean as much of the old grease as possible, especially on the rails.
Lubrication 7 is a little tricky as it's supposed to be done with the carriage unit removed. But it's possible to do with it installed as there is a little play between the CR sliders and the guide shaft.
Note the amount of grease needed for lubrication 8: 4 x 1.5cc = 6cc. That's a lot of grease! All that grease fills little reservoirs in the fittings around the rail. As you inject the grease into the reservoirs with the syringe, some of the old dried out grease will escape the other side, so be ready to catch that with a towel.
Lubrication 9 and 10 are self explanatory.
Hope this helps,
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Thank you for your reply. Wow, that sounds quite complicated and frightening! I'm hoping I don't need to do such a complete lubrication job as you did, and therefore can simplify and de-risk the operation.
If I only want to lubricate the far end of the CR rail (i.e., Lubrication 10), would I still need to remove the side, front, and top covers?
How much grease would I apply to each of the two points on the two rails?
With what should I smear it around the rails?
Finally, is the diagram for Lubrication 10 shot from the top of the printer or the front side?
Thank you again for your help here. (I am astounded that a supposedly routine operation should be so complex; sort of like having to pull the engine block to change your car's oil. Astonishingly bad engineering! Epson should be ashamed of themselves...)
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If I only want to lubricate the far end of the CR rail (i.e., Lubrication 10), would I still need to remove the side, front, and top covers?
How much grease would I apply to each of the two points on the two rails?
With what should I smear it around the rails?
Finally, is the diagram for Lubrication 10 shot from the top of the printer or the front side?
It might be possible to perform lubrication 8 through 10 without removing the covers. For 10, it should be fairly straightforward, just apply the grease with whatever means and spread it with your fingers. The picture is from the front with the covers removed.
For 9 you would need to unlock and move the carriage unit to the left.
It might be possible to perform 8 without removing the covers with the use of a curved syringe if you can find one. If you zoom in on the two bottom pictures in lubrication 8, the red dots on top of the rail is where I inserted the tip of the syringe (inserting the tip about 1/4" inside the opening) and injected the grease. After injecting a couple cc of the grease, the old grease would start oozing out of the bottom opening, I kept injecting until fresh grease came out of the bottom.
I don't think there is a way to do 7 without removing the top cover.
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I took my Epson 7900 apart and cleaned the head and flushed and checked the dampers. Then re-assembled it and powered it up. It powered up just fine but just as I was scrolling down the cleaning menu to the power clean there was a sound like a blown fuse from within the machine and everything went dead. Everyone's nightmare.
It is not the fuse (8A) on the power supply board as I have both replaced and checked this. When I hit the power button on the operators panel there is a click from within the machine but not a glimmer from the screen or any other activity at all. This makes me think it is unlikely to be the main board - everything is just too dead. Anyone know of any other fuses or had any similar experiences - with happy endings?
I don't know if my cleaning was successful as I wasn't able to run the power clean of print anything before the chilling sound.
Thanks
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So I have been having head issues with my 4900 for a long time, but am now at a point where I need to do something else. I recently ran out of LK and despite the fact that I had a perfectly clean head pattern prior, when I took one genuine Epson cartridge out and put a new genuine one in I have several blocked jets in LK, I also have a persistent couple of blocked jets on the Y nozzle too.
I have been working my way through this monumental thread but am only half way so far so I apologize if my question is already answered, but does anybody know what values of colour each jet is? For instance if I want to print a page of just LK what fill layer would I make in PS? Same for all the colours, it seems this would be an easy way of just working one channel.
Also, if anybody has any good advice, I have been very conservative with cleaning cycles so find it hard to believe I have damaged the head and haven't ventured into maintenance mode at all as all my issues so far have been overcome with patience and persistence, neither of which is working this time. I have done 800 odd prints in total on the machine and it is around 3 years old.
Many thanks.
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Hi everyone.
So a few months ago I purchased a 7900 on craigslist for super cheep because it had a clogged LLK and the guy couldn't get rid of and he didn't have time to fix it. I did a little research before hand and saw that this seems to be a common issue but figured I could handle it (i have a descent amount of experience with 7880's) and if worse came to worse, I would replace the head.
So.. I started with cleaning the wiper blade and replacing the cart. Ran a dozen or so pair cleanings in maintenance mode at differing levels. Ended up pumping about 3/4 of a new LLK through the head and down the drain.... And the clog only got worse.. I have used the Windex on a paper towel trick on the 7880 but read in a couple places that it doesn't work on a 7900's. Still I decided to try it and..... SURPRISE! it didn't work.
After all this the nozzle check is worse off than when I first got it (see attached pic). I know the guy I purchased it from tried cleaning it multiple times and have a feeling he did a SS cleaning in his attempt to clear it.
My assumption at this point is that the head needs replacement based on the face that I was able to pump 100mL + through the LLK head but when I print a nozzle check only a few nozzles are actually able to fire.
Does this sound like a reasonable conclusion?
Finally, If I do purchase a new head has anyone purchased one through http://www.zhenxiongltd.com/ ? I read about them from a post on http://myx900.com/ . It appears they are based out of China and im assuming would be cheaper than buying direct from Epson.
Thank you all in advance for your help. This seems like a great place to gain knowledge on these printers.
Cheers, Davis
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Don't waste any more time or ink, it must need a new print head. I've replaced one and it was good for 18 months then it clogged again. I bought a new 7900 and I'm sure the head will die sooner or later as well. Had a look at that Chinese Company website which supplies heads. would be very keen to find out what they charge for a new head and whether it is a genuine part as I'd like to have a new head in reserve for that special day which is bound to happen again, for the third time.
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I know how to go to service mode and do a paired head cleaning. But now i have my first bad nozzle check with 8 channels with missing nozzles.
What is the best practice when I need to do a general all or most color head cleaning?
Can it be done in regular mode or do I need to go to service?
What menus do I need to navigate to get back up and running.
I had turned off auto nozzle check per recommendations here.
Thank you
Maxi!!!
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Okay,
I'm now trying a regular mode cleaning. I have 4 carts with the yellow warning. But still plenty of ink in them. Now it says not enough ink for cleaning and it wants me to replace all 4 now to continue. (I have the carts on hand)
Is there a better procedure for cleaning all heads? Service?
Should I replace all 4 carts even though I know I have say a dozen 30x40 prints left in those carts from my experience.
Thanks for your advice.
Maxi
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I know how to go to service mode and do a paired head cleaning. But now i have my first bad nozzle check with 8 channels with missing nozzles.
What is the best practice when I need to do a general all or most color head cleaning?
Can it be done in regular mode or do I need to go to service?
What menus do I need to navigate to get back up and running.
I had turned off auto nozzle check per recommendations here.
Thank you
Maxi!!!
Hello again Maxi,
The answer to your latest question is YES, you can definitely do all nozzles at once in "regular" mode. As usual you would press the right arrow key first and scroll down to "Maintenance". Then the right arrow key again and scroll down to "Cleaning". Right arrow again and you will be presented with three options -- "Normal Cleaning", "Clean Color Pairs" and "Power Cleaning". Select "Normal Cleaning" to do all nozzles. Of course you know what the "Pairs Cleaning" is for, and the "Power Cleaning" is a sort of super duper cycle that pushes considerably more ink through the nozzles. For the most part I do all cleanings in Service Mode, since it seems to be more efficient and uses less ink that in regular mode. In my opinion you have definitely done the right thing by turning off the auto nozzle check. That is, assuming you do a nozzle check before each printing session. I always shut the printer down when I leave at night and then on again as soon as I get in. Then before I do any printing I run a nozzle check and do any cleaning I deem necessary. I have never done an all nozzle cleaning in Service Mode, but I'm pretty sure that would be done with the "Std. Cleaning" settings at the top of the cleaning dialog.
I know I mentioned this previously, but I feel it deserves repeating. No matter which mode you use to do nozzle cleaning, it is imperative to run a full colour print between each cleaning cycle. One thing to be aware of though -- if you are cleaning in Service Mode be sure that when you run a print your printer settings are for the black ink you are currently running, MK or PK. For example -- if you have just entered Service Mode to switch from PK to MK and you want to run a print following a cleaning cycle, make sure your printer settings in the print dialog are set for MK(the current black ink). Otherwise the printer will automatically switch back to PK before running the print. I have been caught on this a couple of times when in a rush. In regular mode you can shut the auto ink switch off(which I did before I made my first print), but I have never been able find a way of doing that in Service Mode. I hope I have stated this clearly, but if not just question me and I'll try again.
Gary
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Okay,
I'm now trying a regular mode cleaning. I have 4 carts with the yellow warning. But still plenty of ink in them. Now it says not enough ink for cleaning and it wants me to replace all 4 now to continue. (I have the carts on hand)
Is there a better procedure for cleaning all heads? Service?
Should I replace all 4 carts even though I know I have say a dozen 30x40 prints left in those carts from my experience.
Thanks for your advice.
Maxi
I just read this one after I sent my previous reply. In either mode you will have to replace the carts to run a cleaning cycle. Once you have a good nozzle check you simply install the older carts again, no problem. Never ever discard the almost empty carts just because you needed to replace them to run a cleaning cycle. It can be a bit of a nuisance when you have a number of carts flashing and have to replace all of them to clean, but it's a nuisance I'll put up with to save the cost of the ink I would have lost otherwise by discarding those carts. When you take the "new" carts out put them back in the blue plastic bag and in the original box. That will prevent any damage etc.
Gary
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Thanks Gary. Your instructions on service more cleaning helped me clean just my Yellow the other day. I just didn't want to waste the remaining ink.
In fact, I have been on 1% for quite a long time on my LT Black, and have had quite a few 34x26 prints. I've only replaced the LT Magenta so far on this new machine. I do have back-ups for all colors.
I usually switch from roll to sheet and run a nozzle check before I print for the day. Being cocky, last night I didn't feel like switching back to sheet. So I printed a 34x26" and learned my lesson, covered in line drop outs:-(
What did Ben Franklin write "Penny wise, Pound foolish."
I'll definitely do my nozzle checks before printing a big print again.
Thanks
Maxi
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I usually switch from roll to sheet and run a nozzle check before I print for the day. Being cocky, last night I didn't feel like switching back to sheet. So I printed a 34x26" and learned my lesson, covered in line drop outs:-(
What did Ben Franklin write "Penny wise, Pound foolish."
I'll definitely do my nozzle checks before printing a big print again.
Thanks
Maxi
YUUUUP!!! That's a lesson you generally only have to learn once ;^) Have fun with your new printer and I'll check in a bit more often to see how you're doing.
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Thanks Gary,
I have the hang of it. I'm a LOOOONG time Epson user. I have really enjoyed exploring what my prints look like at such large sizes with the 9890.
I'm working on a show of 24 large photos. And the ability to do micro adjustments in LR or PS and get exactly what I imagine is great. So much better than sending out a print and crossing your fingers someone didn't decide you really need +25 on the saturation.
Thanks again.
Maxi
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So, I replaced the 4 ink carts in the 9890 as the cleaning process requested, but now a new (2012) 350ml light Light Black shows "X" INK CARTRIDGE ERROR: REPLACE CARTRIDGE.
I removed it twice. restarted the printer both regular and Service mode.
The cart was sealed. I cleaned the circuit board with some alcohol. Still have an X?
Any workarounds?
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UPDATE: Epson replaced the Cartridge. Back to printing.
Thanks
Maxi
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Update:
After some googling, I tried tapping the LL Black cartidge. Used an eraser on the circuitboard. No luck.
Reading elsewhere here, I removed the Light Black neighbor. Closed the cover, the printer now reads a full LL Black but obviously a missing LT Black. So installed the missing cart and back to having the Lt Lt Black with a red "X"
If I reinstall the near empty LT and LT LT BLACK carts, they show up.
So, the printer will recognize the Lt Lt Black if the Lt Black space is empty.
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We have a Epson 9700 that appeared to have a clogged head. After trying various cleanings etc we took the head off and cleaned as suggested at this and other sites using Windex and Rubbing Alcohol. Dried and back in printer. New nozzle check shows exactly the same clogged pattern for the Matte Black as it was before we took the head off and cleaned it. Tried this four times. Same clogged pattern.
Replaced the ink dampers. Same problem and exactly the same clogged nozzle check patten for the Matte Black.
Before we invest in a new print head, could this be caused by a air leak or something else.
Also any suggestions as to a reliable vendor to buy a replacement head for the Epson 9700. We are located in the middle of the Pacific so a Epson service call is out of the question.
Many thanks
Nozzle Check pattern;
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I have a similar problem with a 9700 pro. Coincidence, today I spoke with an Epson technician that confirmed the head is dead.
But, in my case I am not willing to spend 2000 euros for a head change, for that money I can buy a new 36 inch Canon.
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I am trying to find servpro.exe. If anyone has a suggestion to where I may get this program please email me at dgoldfarb1957@yahoo.com
Thank you, David
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I sent you a link to what you need.
Mike
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Hi everyone. I'm new here.
Please excuse if I ask any questions which have been answered already in other posts or threads I couldn't find after some searching here.
I came here because I found Erics report on his Epson 7900.
I have an Epson 4900, three years old. It had the "usual" clogs after little more than one year, and I was able to persuade Epson to exchange the printhead on guarantee. The printer worked quite well, but a couple of days ago, the clogs appeared again and the printhaed finally died:
At first, I got the error massage "Call for Servive Code 131B", which disappeared after turning off and on the printer again. However, the black and subsequently the LK lost more and more dots with every try.
Then, finally, the printer turned to the error message "fatal error 1A39" and stopped working.
I changed the printhead - after having found Erics thread here and his great video on replacing the printhaed in his 7900. Thanks a lot!
Changing the printhead wasn't too difficult. I did an ink eject twive, then started to replace the head, and everything worked well. Or, nearly so - at first. Then...
The puzzling thing is: The printer works, and after two or three normal cleanings and an exchange of the almost empty MK cartridge, the nozzle test was ecellent, no missing dots.
I changed to PK, and there was no black at all. Changing back to MK: no black. The LK had some spaces in the nozzle check but finally came back.
After reading through this thread and some other posts, I'm wondering whether its the damper unit. Any ideas?
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Update: I did a LC3 cleaning using the service programm for the black and LC. That did work, the black is back. Maybe there were some air bubbles in the printhead?
I cannot change the black ink at the moment, because the waste ink tank is full. Will get a new one tomorrow. Cross fingers.
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I am new here
I AM GETTING AN ERROR MESSAGE 1489
on my epson 9900
i see it is a wiper blade problem
can i fix it my self??
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Yes.Look here.
https://myx900.com/clean-your-wiper/
purchase here:
https://compassmicro.com/
Very easy!
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I need to reseat the print head cables on my 7900. My issue is that I've got the "Call for Service - error 1a37" message on the lcd. I need to open the ink cover doors to release pressure. But the error message keeps the door release button from functioning. I don't know how to clear the error msg. Alternatively, if there some other way to open the ink covers that would work too.
Suggestions? Thanks very much. Need to print for a show coming up. Argh!
Thanks again, Hal Work
https://dod488.wordpress.com