attn: Long term Epson P6000 and P9000 users

[Benny Profane]

Are they reliable? Do they clog easily from low and/or sporadic use?

[dgberg]

I have 2 P8000's and knock on wood they have been exceptional. Much better than my older 7900 and 9900.
We have a humidifier set to 50% in the winter and print something at least every 2 or 3 days. Clogs are minimal. One is a year old and the other 3 years that we converted to dye sublimation from new.

[Benny Profane]

Well, I was thinking up to two months downtime, with some cleaning to start up again. I had read here and elsewhere that the old 7900/9900s would clog easily, and fatally, from low use. I worked with them a lot over about ten years in a production environment, and they were great, pumping out stuff every work day, but, this will be for personal use, and I travel. My P800 can handle that level of sporadic use.

It's kind of striking how much cheaper the P6000 is to the smaller P800 at retail these days. Go figure.

[deanwork]

There is a program, a part of QImage that allows your computer to do periodic nozzle monitoring and cleaning of the printer when you are out of town.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=rlwAMgjUjb8&feature=share

Well, I was thinking up to two months downtime, with some cleaning to start up again. I had read here and elsewhere that the old 7900/9900s would clog easily, and fatally, from low use. I worked with them a lot over about ten years in a production environment, and they were great, pumping out stuff every work day, but, this will be for personal use, and I travel. My P800 can handle that level of sporadic use.

It's kind of striking how much cheaper the P6000 is to the smaller P800 at retail these days. Go figure.

[JeanMichel]

I have a P6000. It only gets used occasionally— I mainly use my P800 daily — so the P6000 sits idle for weeks at a time. So far, there have been no issues regarding clogs or anything else. When I need it, it does a cleaning and it is ready for printing my jobs.

[Benny Profane]

Thanks. How long have you had it?

[JeanMichel]

hi, I purchased it in November 2015.

[Benny Profane]

Impressive.

[Clark_Omholt]

New member.  Trying out the water...

We sell and service a lot of Epson PX000 printers.  And they can have issues with clogging due to intermittent use.  These issue tend to crop up more in low humidity environments or when the printer is old and nearing the end of its duty city.

Anecdotally, we've found the next gen printers, the PX570, have fewer issues with clogs.  I think they spit out a few drops of ink occasionally when not in use, and that seems to help.

[Benny Profane]

Oh, so that's why the P6and8000s are discounted.

Is it a new inkset?

[deanwork]

Yea, the reason they start clogging is the dampers ( ink filters) start clogging up with sludge and impurities in the inks. The “ink selector” unit is what the damper unit is called. That needs to be replaced after a few years.

Epson won’t tell you that because they want to sell you a new print head after you blow it doing endless power cleanings .

I’ve probably posted this statement 50 times in the last decade.

 The other thing to check is the capping station where the head sits and the wiper blade next to it. Some people go years without cleaning them and that’s certainly asking for trouble. If an Epson of any size is not used for a period of time the sponges of the  cap station will dry out and loose their form , and then the head will not make good contact and can’t do a properly sealed  cleaning. These are the very two things you will rarely if ever hear Epson techs tell anyone. They love selling and installing new print heads or having people trash them in a landfill and buy a new one.

As for the latest series, they are a disaster if you usually print on fine art papers 300 gsm or thicker. Read all the comments on them on the Epson Large Format io group. Just do a search for 9570/ 7570.  And it is true they waste less ink and are easier to clean and have great inks and are very fast. Unfortunately they  just have other even worse horrible well known issues that are driving Art repro studios crazy all over the world.

John

Oh, so that's why the P6and8000s are discounted.

Is it a new inkset?