I Hate Epson Printers

[ippolitois]

Why is that I have to constantly perform head cleanings all the time with my Epson 4000? Due to circumstances I decided to replace the heads and dampers on my 4000 because I couldn't swing for a new printer at the time. Fiscally it was the right decision, and I thought that it would last me a couple of more years until I bought a new one.  Man am I glad I didn't buy a new Epson because now there are alternatives to Epson with either a Canon or an HP. Due the Canon's or HP's clog at all?

Here's what's happening. I perform a head cleaning and get all the colors perfect for except one or two little spots and I know from experience that that will cause banding so I perform a cleaning and now I loose the whole color not just a spot and then do another cleaning and now loose several colors and then I just stop. I have a humidifier next to the printer at all times and a wet sponge inside the printer to keep it moist when not in use. But that doesn't seem to help. I just cleaned the wiper inside the printer to see if that was causing the blockage but nothing. I let the printer rest, but not one of those pesky blocked nozzles becomes free. Working in manufacturing for years, I'm sure that this printer is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and that is clog easily. At $35,000 per gallon per color, wouldn't you do that especially when you were the only game in town?

Anyways, after this rant, I would like to know why I loose those colors and why this is happening. I have tried everything to avoid this by turning on the printer every other day and printing purge pages, performing head cleaning, even leveling the unit, but frankly it doesn't help and we shouldn't have to do this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

[Randy Carone]

Paul,
There are 3785ml in a gallon. A 220ml cartridge of ink for the 4000 sells for $86.00. At that rate, a gallon of Epson ink costs $1479.59. While not chump change, it is a far cry from $35,000.

Sorry about your printer issues. Did you check to see that the pump was up to spec when you changed the heads and dampers? Did you change the capping station?

[ippolitois]

I guess the $35,000 must have been for the 2200 I owned before going the the 4000. It's 5200.00 + HST for the 2200 per color. Canadian gallon is 4540 ml so it might be more. LOL

When I brought the unit in, I thought it was the capping station but he told me that it was fine and that the pump was working well. He told me it had 60% life left.  It would have been much cheaper to replace the capping station and pump than to replace the heads and dampers.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Schewe]

Anyways, after this rant, I would like to know why I loose those colors and why this is happening. I have tried everything to avoid this by turning on the printer every other day and printing purge pages, performing head cleaning, even leveling the unit, but frankly it doesn't help and we shouldn't have to do this.

Hum, I don't suppose you could have just asked the darn question without having a hissy fit, huh?

Losing a whole color sounds like air bubbles in the lines not clogged nozzles. I can't remember if the 4K had line pressure or just used suction (haven't used a 4K for a long time) but one of the things I remember doing for a failed color was to remove the ink cart and do a gentle rocking then just before replacing it, hit the cart smartly on a hard surface. Not so hard that you break anything but hard enough to dislodge any bubbles that may have formed in the ink. This is also a good practice when loading a new ink cart.

[ippolitois]

Hmmm, I thought I was being restrained considering. Well, sorry for the hissy fit. I'll give a whirl and see if that helps. Have you tried the Canon printers yet Jeff. Would love to to know what your experience with them is verses the Epsons.

Thanks for the help.

Regards,

Paul

[Schewe]

Have you tried the Canon printers yet Jeff. Would love to to know what your experience with them is verses the Epsons.

I've seen tests...Canon is getting better. Don't know if they are better enough for me to ever consider switching since I have a personal relationship with Epson. So, I may be biased...

[kmoholt]

I'm having fits with Epson and paper too.  I'm using a Stylus Pro 7900.  It's about a year and a half old.  I'm running 24" roles of Ilford Gold Fiber Silk.  It's a heavy paper and it seems the auto cutter got dull after only about eight roles (cutter replaced now).  This resulted in a small amount of paper dust that gets on paper and when I print, then a small amount of ink get blocked leaving a white spot.  I called Epson support and they sent out a tech who said the machine was very clean, put in a new pump cap assembly, charged me $800.00 and said I had a problem with static moving paper dust particles.  The tech and then I pull the whole machine appart and cleaned every surface but I'm still not able solve the problem.  I'm trying to get out an order of 8 print with big blocks of black and even a white dot smaller than a pin head shows up like a sore thumb.
So the questions are-  Has anyone had this problem with the Stylus Pro 7900?  Has anyone had a problem with Gold Fiber Silk putting off excessive debris when cut?  Jeff- do you have a suggestion for a comparable Epson paper?

[tbonanno]

No question these large printers can be somewhat challenging at times (usually when you're on a tight schedule trying to finish up a job).  I went through 3 of those 4000's a few years ago (with lots of nozzle clogs and those air bubbles that Jeff referred to) before switching to Canon (5000, 6100, and now the 6300).  I think all the brands have improved considerably.  I also use a 3800 (for my small cut sheet and greeting card work) which I recently replaced with a 3880.  I also teach at a workshop where we use HP's, so I have some experience with all of the "big three"  .  Regarding your question about "do the Canon and HP's clog?".  I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  If a printer is going to clog, it is going to clog here!  I can honestly say that the large Canon's, for all practical purposes, very rarely demonstrate any clogging issues.  Whether it is just the different technology (thermal vs piezo-electric) or Canon's way of "mapping" around a clogged nozzle, whatever, the bottom line is that when you need to print, the printer PRINTS without any delays or wasted ink clearing nozzle clogs.

Regarding your issue with dust on Gold Fibre Silk.  I've had the same problem and it is very frustrating.  Not just GFS, but several other papers as well.  I'm not convinced that GFS is any worse than other thick fibre based papers. I have found that if I use compressed air to clean the paper path and the basket, it appears to greatly reduce the problem.

Hope you get it sorted out.

[ippolitois]

Thanks to everyone so far for replying but I was wondering how do I remove the bubbles and and why do I loose colors in one cleaning when I had it in the previous cleaning? I would like to just understand what's happening and a solution to solve it even if it's painful. A IPF 5100 is not in the cards for a long while. LOL

Will replacing the pump help? I'm leaving the printer on now with the humidifier blasting and the sponge inside the printer.

Any ideas would be grateful.

Paul

[falthj]

Observation:

For some years, there seems to be an unprecedented love - hate relationship revolving around epson printers.

I've owned two low-end epson photo printers, and must confess to never quite being able to say that my relationship with those printers could even pass beyond mildly friendly..

Frequent clogs, were the sop of the day in my experience.

While, I'm not active in the printer forums, I don't seem to notice as much venom being spewed towards the canon pro series or the hp designjet series.


When it came time to upgrade to a larger roll-paper printer, I had a hard time making the decision between canon and the hp models.

In the end, I bought two HP's, a z3100, and a z3200ps, and I've never looked back at epson's, but there still seems to be a little curiosity about the canons...


Are there as many head and head clogging issues with the 24-44" canon or hp printers in comparison to the epsons?

Or, are epson users just more vocal?

[deanwork]

No, as stated earlier they are different technologies. I believe I have done two head cleanings on my HPZ3100 in 4 years. It monitors itself continually but without sucking valuable ink when it does that, somehow. But the inks are heated and that does make a difference. The ink carts are loaded with the ink draining downward. That was smart. Hp did some things very right with this machine, along with the internal profiling and linearization.

The Canon is pretty much the same kind of thermal head technology and Cannon IPF printers have "redundant" nozzles with a sensor present that maps the good from any potential problem nozzles. They have a lot more nozzles than you need so if any ARE clogged you wouldn't know it.

As to this guys problem, the Epson 4000 is the absolutely worst clogging inkjet printer of all time. I've known a couple of people who simply threw them away from the grief. The later 4000 series doesn't seem to be nearly as bad.

The one question I have never had answered is why my 7 year old Epson 10K still has never had clogging issues like all the other Epson pigment inksets. That combination of pressurized head design and good cart design just worked, with linty cotton papers and everything. I assume that is why Roland paid Seiko so much to lease that technology for so long. They were variable dot but only 1440 max dot size not 2880. But damn were they clean running. So piezo heads CAN be made to run perfectly, I just don't know why they are not all designed that way.

john

[Schewe]

Are there as many head and head clogging issues with the 24-44" canon or hp printers in comparison to the epsons?

HP and Canon use "bubble jet" technology (thermal) heads (originally designed by Canon). For HP and Canon, printer heads are considered "replacement parts" that wear out. Canon sells head replacements that are basically 2 heads for quite a bit of money originally $600 per head times 2, I think they've dropped that price. HP designed the heads to be, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) color pairs which cost maybe $40-50/head pair?

Epson uses a piezoelectric head technology which is fundamentally different than thermal ejection of the ink droplets...the nozzle size of the Epson is smaller than Canon/HP. For the 49/79/9900 printers, there are 360 nozzles/inch. The older Epson heads had 180 and I think the HP/Canon has 150 nozzles/inch.

If you look at the actual nozzle size (the little gate valve that the ink comes out from) Epson heads have had an advantage by producing smaller droplets than HP/Canon. The other advantage of Epson is the droplet formed by a piezoelectric head  is very uniform and round. If you look at an HP/Canon, the droplets end up looking like splats instead of round droplets.

The bottom line is that Epson thin film piezo heads like the 49/79/9900 produce the smallest most uniform droplets. But...since the print head is an integrated unit that is not user replaceable, it's really important to make sure the nozzles are clear when printing. Which means nozzle cleaning...

HP/Canon heads come with a lot of spare nozzles and when the printer detect a clog, the print remaps the nozzles on the fly. So, the net result is less apparent nozzle clogs but at the cost of giving up spare nozzles. Over time enough nozzles get mapped out to the point the head has no spares and you have to replace the head.

You can argue the net benefits of either technology...Epson has finer more accurate droplets which equals potentially finer gradations and detail while HP/Canon have less fine droplets that look like splats (which kinda helps with the lower nozzle/inch) and the advantage of replaceable heads after the nozzle count drops to a certain point.

Epson printers do real well when they print a lot...but, you need to clear the nozzles to print. HP/Canon will remap the nozzles (at the cost of losing some nozzles) and appear to have less clogs. Fact is, all nozzles clog in the heads of either technology. I don't know for a fact which clogs less. You tend to see it more with Epson and HP/Canon tend to hide it because of remapping (until you run out of nozzles).

Printers that are not running 24/7 tend to get nozzle clogs. Sometimes it's the actual physical nozzle that's clogged, sometimes it's an air bubble in the line (which can happen with either type of printers) and sometimes it's a head failure...

Temp and humidity all play a part as does actual use (and some papers are worse than others). Epson performs better the more you print with them. HP/Canon tend to perform better when printing is done in spurts (although you lose nozzles and shorten head life).

Pick your poison...if you print a lot and demand fine detail, Epson Pro printers are good...if you print in spurts, HP/Canon may have some advantages over time at the cost of head replacements.

There are currently 2 camps, HP/Canon and Epson. But from what I've heard and seen, HP is kinda pulling out of the pro inkjet printers for photo and going more into the printers for graphic arts. HP owns Indigo which does pretty darn good print on demand big run halftone printers...Canon is still hanging around and keeps making improvements (although their marketing is suspect IMHO).

Bottom line is that nozzle clogs are a fact of life for any inkjet printer...there are some things you can do to help like added humidity and more printing vs less. And I'll admit that some individual printer models tend to be better than others regardless of the manufacturer. The Epson 3800 and 3880 for example are hands down great printers. I have a 9900 that I like (which I don't print on nearly enough so I have to do nozzle checks and cleaning before doing serious printing).

It's the whole "hate" thing of the thread title that I guess bothered me...way too much hate going on in the world at the moment so maybe I'm a bit hyper sensitive when somebody yells hate (although I'll admit it got my attention :~)

[ippolitois]

I regret calling this thread with the term "hate". I love the output of this printer and my customers do too. I have been printing purge pages everyday with it just to keep the ink flowing but today just when I needed it to work it let me down. I've read many threads with the same outcome from others on this and many other forums. I'm one of those spurt printers, but I understand that I will have to do head cleanings with the Epson printers after all this is my third Epson and every time I promise myself I wouldn't buy another Epson. LOL

Really, there has been some ranting on this very civil and extremely informative forum. I would just like some ideas as how to minimize these issues.  How many head cleanings can I do at one time so that I don't harm the heads?

Looking forward to the solutions.

Paul

[Schewe]

I would just like some ideas as how to minimize these issues.  How many head cleanings can I do at one time so that I don't harm the heads?

As far as I know with Epson printers, you don't wear out the heads by doing a cleaning, you just use up some ink.

So, I wouldn't worry too much about that.

If your printing is more of a spurt sort of schedule, I suggest doing a nozzle check before printing. Yes, it can be frustrating to do a nozzle check and see a single nozzle area clogged than then do a clean and see the entire color gone. Again, I think it's more likely you got an air bubble in the line when you see an entire color go away.

I'm sorry but the 4K printer is pretty old and I just can't remember what I used to do to keep it up & running...the nozzle check and if showing clogged, removing the ink cart and doing the agitation and cart-slam is all I can remember...

A lot depends on the time between prints...if it's been days/weeks since the last time you've printed (assuming you've kept the printer powered on), you might need to do a "Power Clean" (done, I think, from the printer LCD menu) to be sure the nozzles are clear.

Power Clean does take some ink...but the long term question of whether it's cheaper to do occasional power cleans vs head replacements is a different question.

Sorry, that's the best I've got...

[Wayne Fox]

I regret calling this thread with the term "hate". I love the output of this printer and my customers do too. I have been printing purge pages everyday with it just to keep the ink flowing but today just when I needed it to work it let me down. I've read many threads with the same outcome from others on this and many other forums. I'm one of those spurt printers, but I understand that I will have to do head cleanings with the Epson printers after all this is my third Epson and every time I promise myself I wouldn't buy another Epson. LOL

Really, there has been some ranting on this very civil and extremely informative forum. I would just like some ideas as how to minimize these issues.  How many head cleanings can I do at one time so that I don't harm the heads?

Looking forward to the solutions.

Paul

Well I hate to say it, but your best solution was not to walk down the path of trying to fix a really old printer.  I'm not sure who you talked to, but I would never recommend a replacing the head of a 4000.  While it may have "saved" a little money up front, replacing the head on a printer that old isn't really a good idea.  There are many factors that contribute to missing nozzles, not just clogs.  This is especially the case when a color has large number. So who knows what's the real problem.

If an older Epson head can't be cleared with a power clean and some TLC (9600, 78/9800, 4000), it's just time to move on ... perhaps even considering a used printer if the budget is tight.

As far as clearing without harming the heads, not sure you can really hurt them, you're just dumping a lot of ink. Sometimes with stubborn clogs, it works to do a power clean and then shut the printer down for 12 hours or so followed by another power clean, which can allow the new ink to soften the dried ink causing the clog.

If you have air bubbles and they get in your lines, you can get recurring clogs, as the bubbles hit the head it will take some ink to purge them.  Bubbles scan be even more problematic if you shake the ink cartridges rather than agitating them correctly.

Sorry about your woes.  Good luck.

[Ernst Dinkla]

HP and Canon use "bubble jet" technology (thermal) heads (originally designed by Canon). For HP and Canon, printer heads are considered "replacement parts" that wear out. Canon sells head replacements that are basically 2 heads for quite a bit of money originally $600 per head times 2, I think they've dropped that price. HP designed the heads to be, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) color pairs which cost maybe $40-50/head pair?

(snip)

Thermal heads have an origin older than both Canon's and HP's separate developments of thermal heads. Epson piëzo development is just one of the roads from older piëzo head technology too.

Minimum droplet size of Epson Wide Formats is 3.5 picoliter, largest will be 3x bigger or more, HP's Wide format (fixed per head, no variation) minimum droplet size is 4 picoliter, largest (fixed) droplet size is 6 picoliter. Canon will have similar sizes. Record for the smallest droplet size is around 1 picoliter in a Canon thermal head desktop model. You wouldn't want that droplet size on a wide format for many reasons: speed, dot placement, dotgain, head gap variation related to flatness of the media.

HP's head replacement is sporadically needed for Z 3xxx models. Your price is about right $300-400 for a complete set of 6 heads 12 inks. Widely available and can be replaced by the user per individual head. Canon's user replaceable two heads 12 inks, are more expensive but have twice the number of nozzles per ink channel compared to the HP, roughly a 1000 nozzles, against 2000 per ink channel. That versus Epson's 360 nozzles per ink channel on the latest models. It translates in a much higher speed for the Canons compared to the HP. Epsons's heads are more expensive, harder to get if a user wants to replace them (Epson changed policy on that about 2 years ago) and very expensive if a service man has to do that. There are hardly issues with wide format thermal head clogging and no reports of short life thermal heads but the first generation of the Canon iPFx000 heads.

That said I would have gone for a Canon iPF5100 or Epson 3800/3880 instead of ressurecting an Epson 4000 whatever fiscality/budget reasons.



On any printer forum there are lots of older threads on how to solve Epson head issues so Paul can search that for a solution I think. Nothing new to add here.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

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

[deanwork]

I would agree with everyone who advises to dump the 4000 completely and go for a modern unit, even a used 3800 is vastly superior in all aspects. You are never going to be happy with this situation. And it is true that it is not fair to judge contemporary Epson printers by the standard of that 4000.

As to the need to replace the HP heads when using the Z printers continuously, I have to say that I use mine every day and in four years I have popped in only 4 new heads at about $60.00 each. That process including alignment takes about 15 minutes and is totally automatic. Unless you are viewing prints under a loupe the resolution is very good.

john

[ippolitois]

I appreciate all you comments. Deciding to repair the 4000 instead of replacing it was a very difficult decision. Unfortunately, as in life, we have to make compromises. I really didn't need a new printer at double the cost and the savings went to other things in my business. Printing isn't my primary function so I was hoping that replacing the heads and dampers would give me a couple of more years of additional service. I had spoken to Epson and they did not recommend the 3880 as it was not robust enough for my high demand spurt printing needs, but recommended the 4880. I did some research and found out that the major complaint about that printer was guess what, head clogging. So I figured, I would just go with the least painful solution. As for buying a used printer, the 4000 was used. I bought it because it sat in a closet for years and the person who had it used it for one semester in college. So, essentially, I bought a new 3 yr old printer for a bargain or so I thought. But as I have learned, buying a used Epson printer that has been sitting around for a while isn't the smartest thing because these printers need ink to flow through them continuously. If it doesn't, then you get into my situation.

It's good to know that there is an alternative to Epson now. As I don't use a loop to verify dot size or dot gain, I now realize that I can look at alternatives when the time comes to replace my clogging monster. It's also good to know that there is a product out there that is suited to us spurt printers and that the gap in quality is not perceptible without a loop.  For me reliability is more important than a nuance difference in quality between products.

I realized that when I started this thread that those hear would have questioned my decision to repair the 4000. Having said that, I have learned a great deal about the latest technology and that others fed up with Epson's continuing issues with ink clogging. I had an Epson 660 way back in the 90's and that thing was a clog master. I vowed never to use Epson again. Then I bought a Canon 8200 and loved it, but the inks weren't archival and never sold anything from it for fear of image quality, but it never clogged in all the years I had it. Went back to an Epson 2200 and loved it. I learned everything about how to unclog that printer and it became routine until the 4000 came. Why am I saying all this? For those like me that had no prior knowledge and now are better off than before.

I ran a nozzle check this morning and the printer has unclogged itself. I left it on all night under the humidifier and I guess the air bubbles went away. I just printed a beautiful band free photo. I love the output of this thing. Some of the photos are quite remarkable.

Paul

[PeterAit]

Your experience is far from the norm. I have a 4880 for 2 years now and it often sits for a week or 2 without use, yet I have never had a clog that required power cleaning. My first suspicion is that when you replaced the head and dampers you didn't do it quite right and that's the cause of your clogs.

[ippolitois]

Thanks PeterAit. I looked at the Epson 4000 field manual and quickly realized that there were too many screws, gears and thingamajigs for a simple minded man like me to deal with, so I had an Authorized Epson Service center do the complete replacement. I usually have things serviced professionally that have anymore than 4 screws.

On a side note, someone suggested I have the pump and cap station looked at. Apparently, this might be the culprit to my problems.  I did ask them about the health of it when I got it serviced but they told me it was ok at that time. I have an email to the service center.

Regards,

Paul