Epson 3800 - effect of blocked printhead.

[NigelC]

Forgive my ignorance of the workings of inkjet printers but I am a bit confused about the effect of blocked nozzles. I know Canon printers have a head design which compensates for blocked nozzles and I suppose may have a bit of built in redundancy, but I didn't think Epson worked that way. I have an Epson 3800 which on a test print has just one small section of one bar in the magenta sector missing. There are 15 lines in the magenta sector and 12 sections in each so I guess I have a head blockage equal to just over 0.5% of the total magenta nozzles. I have done endless head cleans, power cleans and about 7 cleans with Magic bullet solution so it's clearly not going to go away. I thought that in a normal print most colours are mixed up so that wouldn't show but if I printed off a photo magenta test page there should be a few gaps; well I've done that and on photo lustre paper there are no gaps and the colour density looks even across the page.

So is it possible, with this Epson model, that you can still turn out acceptable prints with the odd blockage?

[Mark D Segal]

Normally one blocked bar will not show in deteriorated print quality, but on a 3800 if none of those cleanings and repeated printing did away with it, this may be an early indication that your printhead could be deteriorating. I suggest this because the 3800 is deservedly reputed to be Epson's most clog-resistant printer of all the 17" professional models they produced and are used by people who do not run them daily. I've seen them sit for many months of disuse (very bad for a pigment ink printer) and spring back to normal with one or two cleaning cycles.

[howardm]

My historical experience w/ 3800 doesn't mirror Mark's experience.  My 3800 was a clog queen and I eventually had to dump it.  The 3880 however is a totally different story and very good WRT clog resistance (not perfect) but MILES ahead of the 3800 I had.

You might want to try some of the common cleaning protocols as read on the net or YouTube.  DO NOT just do repeated cleanings or worse, power cleanings.  You'll burn up the head. 

YMMV.

[Mark D Segal]

My historical experience w/ 3800 doesn't mirror Mark's experience.  My 3800 was a clog queen and I eventually had to dump it.  The 3880 however is a totally different story and very good WRT clog resistance (not perfect) but MILES ahead of the 3800 I had.

You might want to try some of the common cleaning protocols as read on the net or YouTube.  DO NOT just do repeated cleanings or worse, power cleanings.  You'll burn up the head. 

YMMV.

It is of course entirely possible, indeed likely, that individual user experience varies depending on environmental and usage conditions. So for both Howard and me, if confined to our own experience it is inherently anecdotal. My comment related more to the overall reputation of this printer as I have understood it from numerous accounts of user experience all over North America. I owned one for about four years before I gave it to friend in another city and it was basically trouble-free. Again anecdotal. I then gave it to a friend in another city who failed to use it for months at a time, and when we started it up, it worked just fine. So again, anecdotal but not insignificant.

Howard is correct to point out the possible damage of repeated power cleans. It is advisable to run a print between each power cleaning in order to prevent the process from self-defeating as well as to protect the printhead.

By the way, unless you see problems on prints from this one missing bar (not likely), go on printing with it. When you reach a point of uncorrectable AND NOTICEABLE issues in the prints, then you will want to replace the printer - in your case the logical upgrade path would be an Epson P800 or a Canon Pro-1000.

[NigelC]

Spoke too soon - now the solid magenta test print has dried I can see a very faint grid of lines in slightly darker colour. Remains to be seen how it shows up in real world images.

I think Epson P800 would be only option for me - I haven't got room for the Canon and even if I had, the length limitation would annoy me. Typical Canon - now the wide margin issue has gone there is a maximum length constraint.

Is the P800 as good as 3880 reputed to be from clogging perspective?

[Mark D Segal]

I won't try to steer you in one way or another because both printers make excellent prints; but would recommend that if you don't need a roll holder and have some time to wait for a while, keep your options open for the time being. If you want the roll holder, the P800 is the one. As for the amount of space - the Canon is only very slightly larger than the P800. If you are squeezed down to a matter of several inches that could be a problem, but otherwise not. Depending on whether you can hold off a purchase for a while, you may find it useful to read all the reviews and evaluate the features of each printer, then decide which would better meet your needs.

[NigelC]

I won't try to steer you in one way or another because both printers make excellent prints; but would recommend that if you don't need a roll holder and have some time to wait for a while, keep your options open for the time being. If you want the roll holder, the P800 is the one. As for the amount of space - the Canon is only very slightly larger than the P800. If you are squeezed down to a matter of several inches that could be a problem, but otherwise not. Depending on whether you can hold off a purchase for a while, you may find it useful to read all the reviews and evaluate the features of each printer, then decide which would better meet your needs.

You're thinking perhaps Canon will enable the Pro 1000 to exceed 23.5" print length sometime soon; otherwise the greater versatility of the Epson re. paper sizes is compelling.

[howardm]

Perhaps some RIP maker can do something about the limit.  I had heard that Turboprint was 'looking into it'.