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Author Topic: ESP 7900 Feature  (Read 54542 times)

Ryan Grayley

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ESP 7900 Feature
« on: November 28, 2008, 08:16:24 am »

Today I switched on my Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and waited patiently for about 15 minutes or so for a cleaning cycle to finish.

THe LCD then displayed the message,
"Automatic Head Cleaning Failed. Retry? Yes No"

So I selected Yes and after another 15 minutes or so the LCD displayed the message.
"Automatic Head Cleaning Failed. Retry? Yes No"

I then checked the manual and it suggested turning the printer off and on which I did and after another 15 minutes or so the LCD displayed the message.
"Automatic Head Cleaning Failed. Retry? Yes No"

And two of my inks are now showing low status.

So I selected No and ran a nozzle test pattern. Using a loupe I couldn't find a single missing nozzle.

I have reported this to Epson UK and they said this is the first time they have heard of this. They promised to call me back within an hour.

Are there any early adopters who have also seen this behaviour?

Thanks,

Ryan

Update1: As it is possible to disable the Automatic Head Cleaning, I have now turned it off. This should save a lot of time and ink and I always print a nozzle test pattern before running a customer print job anyway.


« Last Edit: November 28, 2008, 09:49:11 am by Ionaca »
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Ryan Grayley BA IEng MIET ARPS
RGB Arts Ltd, London, UK

eudemian

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« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2008, 12:48:10 pm »

I have had this happen once, it frightened the life out of me and I thought why do I jump in as an early adopter.  
So far no repeat of the problem, though I keep the printer on all the time. I do hope we are not seeing a problem in its early phase, we need to keep Epson apprised of this information.
Lovely printer, lovely prints don't you think Ryan?

Regards
Tom
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JimGoshorn

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« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2008, 05:24:15 pm »

I downloaded the user manual and it seems to indicate that letting the printer do an auto cleaning means it will use all the inks in the process just like the earlier models vs. a manual cleaning which allows you to just use two inks at a time. Was hoping that the auto cleaning function would work by the channel but it doesn't look that way  
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2009, 11:23:19 pm »

My 7900 isn't used much yet, but after today my experience is similar to these.  If I use auto nozzle check, it almost always fails, and requires one or two cleaning cycles. Today it failed even after two cleaning cycles.  A manual nozzle pattern appeared perfect.

The past couple of weeks, I have printed a nozzle pattern, and despite appearing perfect even under a loop, if I then enable auto nozzle detection and send the printer a print, it will clean.  This has happened on 5 occasions.

At this point I have consumed nearly all of the ink in the starter cartridges (3 have been replaced, the rest are below 5%), and my maintainance tank only has 13% capacity left in it, and only printed a few prints... 1 24x30 and a handful of 17x22.

I called Epson Preferred help today, the tech agreed that this is too much ink consumption and didn't feel it was normal.  They had me do one service check which showed the AID (auto ink detection) unit was OK.  He said a tech would call tomorrow to schedule a visit on Thursday.

So currently I am not using this feature and am quite happy with the output.  I'll report back after they look at the machine.
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2009, 11:27:40 pm »

Quote from: JimGoshorn
I downloaded the user manual and it seems to indicate that letting the printer do an auto cleaning means it will use all the inks in the process just like the earlier models vs. a manual cleaning which allows you to just use two inks at a time. Was hoping that the auto cleaning function would work by the channel but it doesn't look that way  

seems right ... all my inks are going down at the same time from all of the auto nozzle clean cycles that have been triggered.  Too bad ... perhaps a firmware update will make this more efficient.  Seems like it should be possible.
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awsstudios

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ESP 7900 Feature
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2009, 12:31:00 pm »

Quote from: Ionaca
Today I switched on my Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and waited patiently for about 15 minutes or so for a cleaning cycle to finish.

THe LCD then displayed the message,
"Automatic Head Cleaning Failed. Retry? Yes No"

So I selected Yes and after another 15 minutes or so the LCD displayed the message.
"Automatic Head Cleaning Failed. Retry? Yes No"

I then checked the manual and it suggested turning the printer off and on which I did and after another 15 minutes or so the LCD displayed the message.
"Automatic Head Cleaning Failed. Retry? Yes No"

And two of my inks are now showing low status.

So I selected No and ran a nozzle test pattern. Using a loupe I couldn't find a single missing nozzle.

I have reported this to Epson UK and they said this is the first time they have heard of this. They promised to call me back within an hour.

Are there any early adopters who have also seen this behaviour?

Thanks,

Ryan

Update1: As it is possible to disable the Automatic Head Cleaning, I have now turned it off. This should save a lot of time and ink and I always print a nozzle test pattern before running a customer print job anyway.

I had the same thing happen.
i fired up the printer a couple of days ago and i printed several prints. decided to leave the printer on overnight.
sent a job to the printer the next morning and the auto cleaning cycle started. after 5 minutes i tried to figure out how to stop it. but no luck, unless i wanted to turn off the printer. 15-20 minutes later the same message as you got popped up and said it failed. i clicked no, do not try again. i then printed out a test pattern, and all the nozzles where clear. so i turned off auto cleaning and now i just print a test pattern every once in a while. i am glad to see this post on it. P.S. i only noticed the yellow and light light black ink got lower with the auto nozzle cleaning on my unit. which corresponds to the set LLB/Y if i where to just clean per channel. i have not read in the book about the auto cleaning, but mine does not show that all inks went down.
-andrew
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stevegoldenberg

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« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2009, 01:38:44 pm »

Quote from: awsstudios
I had the same thing happen.
i fired up the printer a couple of days ago and i printed several prints. decided to leave the printer on overnight.
sent a job to the printer the next morning and the auto cleaning cycle started. after 5 minutes i tried to figure out how to stop it. but no luck, unless i wanted to turn off the printer. 15-20 minutes later the same message as you got popped up and said it failed. i clicked no, do not try again. i then printed out a test pattern, and all the nozzles where clear. so i turned off auto cleaning and now i just print a test pattern every once in a while. i am glad to see this post on it. P.S. i only noticed the yellow and light light black ink got lower with the auto nozzle cleaning on my unit. which corresponds to the set LLB/Y if i where to just clean per channel. i have not read in the book about the auto cleaning, but mine does not show that all inks went down.
-andrew


So it sounds like the 7900 reports the need to clean even when that might not be true. Do you see any print quality problems with prints when auto-cleaning is turned off?
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Steve Goldenberg
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2009, 03:03:25 pm »

Quote from: goldmember
So it sounds like the 7900 reports the need to clean even when that might not be true. Do you see any print quality problems with prints when auto-cleaning is turned off?


For me, none.  Output is fantastic.  As mentioned, manual nozzle check shows no nozzles clogged using a loupe before I print.

I suppose it is possible that 1 or 2 nozzles out of the 3600 are not firing, and the AID unit detects this.  That would be so small it may be difficult to detect using a loupe.

It seems the concept is good, and I haven't had this much problem with my 11880, although now I suspect this problem has bitten me a couple of times with it as well.  Perhaps the implementation needs reworked ... certainly it should only be cleaning channels with a clog.  That alone would help.

Anyway, I'm not sure at this point I'll ever enable it again.  The manual system works very well, I'm used to it, and considering how much ink I've dumped, I'd rather be able to manually clean only channels with a problem.  I'll see what they find when the tech shows up.
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Michael_T

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« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2009, 03:33:39 pm »

FWIW, my 7800 did the same kind of thing when I first got it. The Auto Nozzle Check always came up with a problem, and then after a cleaning, a different head would be clogged, time after time. I decided the Auto Nozzle check was worthless, and turned it off.

Like in your posts, manual nozzle checks are usually fine, and print quality is excellent. By the way, it has always been with this printer that cleanings often clear one nozzle, only to clog another. This is probably why it will do auto cleans till it drains you dry. I suspect some of these 'clogs' are quite transient, perhaps a micro-bubble or something caused by the cleaning.
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mrkahn

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« Reply #9 on: January 07, 2009, 09:43:10 pm »

I just finished a nozzle check and 3 of the inks were clogged, one of them significantly.  I cleaned 2 heads and it seems OK now but this take me back to my 4800 days where it always clogged in the winter.  Frankly, I don't see where they fixed this long standing problem.

Regards,
Malcolm
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stevegoldenberg

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« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2009, 10:38:07 am »

Quote from: mrkahn
I just finished a nozzle check and 3 of the inks were clogged, one of them significantly.  I cleaned 2 heads and it seems OK now but this take me back to my 4800 days where it always clogged in the winter.  Frankly, I don't see where they fixed this long standing problem.

Regards,
Malcolm


Malcolm, I don't really understand. This is a 7900 you're using, right? You had three nozzles clogged and you cleaned two of them and now it is ok?
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Steve Goldenberg
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #11 on: January 08, 2009, 03:06:29 pm »

Quote from: goldmember
Malcolm, I don't really understand. This is a 7900 you're using, right? You had three nozzles clogged and you cleaned two of them and now it is ok?

Perhaps he meant he cleaned 2 channels, which actually clears 4 sets of nozzles.

I received a phone call from Epson today, my tech is in training for the 7900, and after some discussion where I indicated that urgency isn't really critical because my output is fine and the problematic feature is disabled, we settled on Monday.  I arrived at work, and found a box from Epson of several parts including circuit boards, wiper assembly as well as a new print head (according to the packing list) ... seems quite proactive and not typical of a company to send possible defective parts ahead of the tech visit, instead of the normal procedure of the tech arriving, and the circus of order part, come back replace, not fixed, order another part, come back, replace ... (that's what happens most of the time with our Noritsu printers).
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mrkahn

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« Reply #12 on: January 09, 2009, 04:34:38 pm »

Wayne is correct, I had 3 colors clog and cleaned them 2 x 2.  I just checked the printer today and everything seems to be ok.  By the way, the printer is a 9900.

Malcolm
« Last Edit: January 09, 2009, 04:36:02 pm by mrkahn »
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2009, 09:02:53 pm »

Started up my 7900 today, 5 colors were over 50% clogged using a manual test. Had to replace all of the remaining inks except MK , so other than MK (which I haven't used) all my 110 starter cartridges are now consumed,.  I then cleaned a single channel that had 2 of the clogged colors.  After this the printer showed 2% of the ink was consumed in all of the new cartridges (1 was in the channel I cleaned, the rest were not).  Printed another nozzle check and I was surprised to find all nozzles were clear ... perfect test, despite not cleaning 3 of the colors.

This seems odd, but really can't draw any more conclusions than that.  I noticed one of the parts waiting for the tech on Monday is a wiper assembly ... which if defective I believe could cause odd symptoms like I've been seeing.
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AlanG

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« Reply #14 on: January 09, 2009, 09:18:29 pm »

This may not apply to the 7900, but I own a 7600. It sometimes sat unused for fairly long periods of time and thus it would very often have clogged nozzles when I wanted to print.   I read a tip somewhere to occasionally put a little Windex on the pad that the head parks onto. I do that about once a week and haven't had a single clog since.
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Alan Goldstein
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« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2009, 06:08:40 pm »

Quote from: Wayne Fox
Started up my 7900 today, 5 colors were over 50% clogged using a manual test. Had to replace all of the remaining inks except MK , so other than MK (which I haven't used) all my 110 starter cartridges are now consumed,.  I then cleaned a single channel that had 2 of the clogged colors.  After this the printer showed 2% of the ink was consumed in all of the new cartridges (1 was in the channel I cleaned, the rest were not).  Printed another nozzle check and I was surprised to find all nozzles were clear ... perfect test, despite not cleaning 3 of the colors.

This seems odd, but really can't draw any more conclusions than that.  I noticed one of the parts waiting for the tech on Monday is a wiper assembly ... which if defective I believe could cause odd symptoms like I've been seeing.


That certainly does seem like odd behavior Wayne. Please post the results from the tech visit - I hope it's a one-time fix for you.
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Steve Goldenberg
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« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2009, 11:15:39 pm »

Quote from: goldmember
That certainly does seem like odd behavior Wayne. Please post the results from the tech visit - I hope it's a one-time fix for you.


Have not used the machine in a week.  Machine has been left on. Just ran a nozzle check and I had 100% clean print pattern from a nozzle check.

Not one missing ink dot. Checked it with a magnifing glass. Don't trust these old eyes anymore.

Jim
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2009, 06:06:14 am »

The tech showed up today, and the AID board showed OK for the first test, then failed for the second. This can cause intermittent and unnecessary head cleanings due to a fault reading of the Auto Ink Detector.

  He replaced the wiper assembly and the AID board, gave me a new maintenance cartridge and said he would get me a set of starter cartridges to replace the ink I've lost.  He's going to check on another board that may be an issue, and will call me wednesday.  He agreed that I shouldn't see clogged nozzles every time I started the machine ... but said sometimes they aren't from a clog but can be from a faulty pressure system.  No clog, just no ink at the nozzle.  This could possibly explain my previous post where several clogged channels cleared even though I didn't clean them.  He's going to research that more, and promised to replace the pump and head assembly if I continue to see nozzle issues each time I start the machine.

Very helpful and very interested in making the printer right for me.
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stevegoldenberg

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« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2009, 09:29:04 pm »

Quote from: Wayne Fox
The tech showed up today, and the AID board showed OK for the first test, then failed for the second. This can cause intermittent and unnecessary head cleanings due to a fault reading of the Auto Ink Detector.

  He replaced the wiper assembly and the AID board, gave me a new maintenance cartridge and said he would get me a set of starter cartridges to replace the ink I've lost.  He's going to check on another board that may be an issue, and will call me wednesday.  He agreed that I shouldn't see clogged nozzles every time I started the machine ... but said sometimes they aren't from a clog but can be from a faulty pressure system.  No clog, just no ink at the nozzle.  This could possibly explain my previous post where several clogged channels cleared even though I didn't clean them.  He's going to research that more, and promised to replace the pump and head assembly if I continue to see nozzle issues each time I start the machine.

Very helpful and very interested in making the printer right for me.

That's great news Wayne.  

I've heard that the humidity where the printer lives has a huge impact on clogs - what's your climate like where you have the printer?
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Steve Goldenberg
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Ernst Dinkla

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« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2009, 03:55:51 am »

Quote from: Wayne Fox
The tech showed up today, and the AID board showed OK for the first test, then failed for the second. This can cause intermittent and unnecessary head cleanings due to a fault reading of the Auto Ink Detector.

  He replaced the wiper assembly and the AID board, gave me a new maintenance cartridge and said he would get me a set of starter cartridges to replace the ink I've lost.  He's going to check on another board that may be an issue, and will call me wednesday.  He agreed that I shouldn't see clogged nozzles every time I started the machine ... but said sometimes they aren't from a clog but can be from a faulty pressure system.  No clog, just no ink at the nozzle.  This could possibly explain my previous post where several clogged channels cleared even though I didn't clean them.  He's going to research that more, and promised to replace the pump and head assembly if I continue to see nozzle issues each time I start the machine.

Very helpful and very interested in making the printer right for me.

One cart that has an air leaking membrane can already cause lower pressure. Replacing air pump etc may not solve that issue while a new cart could.


Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/
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