Printing on Epson 7900 with green channel clog?

[MichaelEzra]

I have full clog in green channel on Epson 7900 - nozzle check for green is entirely blank.
The printer was not in use for a couple of years, the ink is older than that, but other channels are printing ok. So far cleaning & power cleaning did not help...

I wonder if it is possible to print without the green ink using Epson driver?

Advanced black and white through epson driver prints fine. Color prints print as well, including green colors, but green is not lively.
Is it possible to use driver from 7800 (without green/orange) to print on 7900?

[Lessbones]

you'd need to drive it with a RIP capable of disabling the use of that channel, otherwise there's always gonna be a situation in which it's gonna try to use that color at some point.  You could try profiling without it, but I'd imagine you're gonna still have some kind of strange issues.  I've done this plenty with RIPs in the past.  Come to think of it, doesn't gutenprint have drivers for the x900 series that don't use orange/green in the first place?  Regardless, you're gonna need access to some profiling equipment--

[tastar]

You should be able to use the Epson 7890 driver (no orange or green channels). And, if the cartridges have been in there for a long time, I'd take each one out and rotate them to agitate the ink.

Tony

[MichaelEzra]

Thank you for your replies!

[deanwork]

I would replace the ink selector unit. Sounds like the damper is clogged. You are lucky it’s just the green.

Thank you for your replies!

[hubell]

I had a similar issue with my 9900. The orange channel became completely blocked. I was advised at the time that I could continue to operate the printer and there would be little impact on prints except if the file contained orange/red hues at the outer extremes of the gamut of the printer. I actually made a number of prints for sale that came out perfectly as there were virtually no colors in the files with a significant orange/red component. Winter photos from Iceland. However, as soon as I tried to make prints with some orange/red colors in them, the prints came out horribly. It became clear that the driver was using orange ink to a much greater extent than I would have expected. I am not sure you can overcome this just by profiling. Perhaps as some have suggested by using a RIP and reprofiling. I decided that I had 10 or so years of reliable service from my 9900 and replaced it with a 9570.

[deanwork]

Yea, you have to repro file for sure to use magenta and yellow for the orange.


So how is the 9570? Do you do a lot of roll prints with it on 300 gsm rag media?

I had a similar issue with my 9900. The orange channel became completely blocked. I was advised at the time that I could continue to operate the printer and there would be little impact on prints except if the file contained orange/red hues at the outer extremes of the gamut of the printer. I actually made a number of prints for sale that came out perfectly as there were virtually no colors in the files with a significant orange/red component. Winter photos from Iceland. However, as soon as I tried to make prints with some orange/red colors in them, the prints came out horribly. It became clear that the driver was using orange ink to a much greater extent than I would have expected. I am not sure you can overcome this just by profiling. Perhaps as some have suggested by using a RIP and reprofiling. I decided that I had 10 or so years of reliable service from my 9900 and replaced it with a 9570.

[hubell]

Yea, you have to repro file for sure to use magenta and yellow for the orange.


So how is the 9570? Do you do a lot of roll prints with it on 300 gsm rag media?

After updating to the latest firmware on the 9570 and tinkering with the various printer settings, I have not had any issues using 24" rolls of Epson Legacy Platine. So far. What's been your experience with the new firmware?

[deanwork]

I haven’t bought one yet. I had planned to a year ago and still really want one but……The reports by professional quantity printmakers on the Epson large format list over the last two years are horrific. It’s not a few people, it’s people all over the world.

 The problems are with fine art media on 44” rolls. Massive head strikes ( which damage these very expensive heads and is a nightmare ) paper scuffing, random  banding on edges, and paper ripping off the rolls is still the order of the day.

It seems several of the Decision techs have reported that the head is just too close to the media, so if it’s thick or ripples at all due to ink absorption on fiber gloss media your in trouble. From what I’ve read occasionally this still happens with the 24 inch model, but mostly by far with 44” media. I can’t think of anything that will fix this apart from redesigning and replacing all the head units.

Another thing it’s not able to do is print on thin Awagami kozo papers, see the YouTube videos from the company in Seattle who has two of the 9570s with the same issues, who has had Epson out there frequently for 2 years. I wouldn’t be able to buy a printer that can’t function on all the primary media my clients use. All I can think of is Epson designed this printer for using thin rc media and never really beta tested it on thicker fine art papers. It’s really upsetting to a lot of us because otherwise the image quality is great , neutral excellent bw and great color gamut, auto k switching, speed...  It looks like my only choice this fall is a p9000 if they haven’t resolved all this by then.

John

After updating to the latest firmware on the 9570 and tinkering with the various printer settings, I have not had any issues using 24" rolls of Epson Legacy Platine. So far. What's been your experience with the new firmware?

[sportmaster]

Isn't the 7900 about same as the 4900, the most clog prone printer in the world?