The normal printer drivers including Epson's drivers will not digest vector files. There are ways to overcome that.
If you use the normal printer drivers with RGB-device color management, it is a good idea to have the design made up in RGB color mode and not in CMYK mode.
An important step in the workflow is where the translation of vector information to bitmap information happens.
It can be done in the application the vector design was made with and the design there exported as an RGB Tiff or Jpeg at the required print size and preferably in the native resolution of the printer to use: 360 - 720 PPI for Epson, 300-600-1200 PPI for HP and Canon. Set anti-aliasing ON in the export menu. That way no quality degrading extrapolation step happens after that on the already rasterised image. Big files then but a lot of white in the image will help to keep a Jpeg file small, if a high quality Jpeg setting is used there will be no harm to the design itself.
A reliable step with a good translation is possible by exporting a PDF from the application the design was made in and importing that PDF in Photoshop to create the RGB Tiff with the same settings mentioned above.
Check the RGB color in Photoshop, printing directly from Illustrator and other vector based programs tend to deliver less reliable color, the more when the design was made in CMYK mode.
The steps above allow the use of a normal wide format printer driver, no RIP is needed. You may face memory and print length issues though. Qimage to print from can solve those issues most of the time.
The pro approach is to use a Postscript interpreting RIP to drive the printer. It will read the PDF and do the rasterisation step on the fly when it produces the printer data. Usually an expensive solution. Not all RIPs are as good as Photoshop (or Xara Extreme) on the rasterisation step. Most PS interpreting RIPs can handle both CMK and RGB color descriptions.
For small PDF files, Adobe Reader + the normal driver will do a similar job but I wouldn't use it for large images.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Try:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/