Raw & Post Processing, Printing > Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks
Epson 7900 from the inside - out
davidh202:
You obviously have not read the thread from pg1...
so I'll save you a lot of time...
The answer is NO if it is a complete clog, and not just a temporarily dropped channel!
The only real useful purpose to this thread any more is Erics valuable link to his My X900 site where he goes into great detail in his videos as to how to REPLACE your head and wiper blade. and we all salute Eric for the effort he put in! http://myx900.com
Unless your willing to waste a lot of time and ink don't bother to try and unclog it.
You will wind up replacing your head in the end, if you are willing to do the labor, and capable of taking on the expense of a new head
BobB88:
I appreciate your response. I'll admit digesting all the pages has been a chore and I failed at it. Interestingly I am familiar with you site and was about to contact you also. I too applaud the work that Eric put into all this. It was just wishful thinking that someone somewhere might have actually figured out the actual cause(s) of the clog, that is from an engineering point of view. Like everyone else I'm frustrated by Epson's lack of response. In fact I would suggest that they are guilty of somewhat of a fraud in not disclosing the caveats in owning a 900 series machine.
Why hasn't everyone grouped together to demand compensation from Epson?
Eric Gulbransen:
Nope I'm not dead yet. Neither is my 9900. It isn't printing yet, which is a bummer. But I haven't given up, which is not.
I've had a box staring me down from the center of a room I avoid like the plague. It's the 9900 room. If you walk through the kitchen on your way out it's like the 9900 doesn't even exist. That box either. Truth be told my 9900's been apart since the day I got that fateful "You're an idiot" message on the display. If this journey has taught me anything, it's to never feel over-confident about anything related to clearing nozzle clogs on an X900. But that day I screwed up. I actually thought I had it beat. When that message flashed at me it broke me. and so it has sat..
What's in the box in the center of the room you ask? A full set of cleaning carts. Any more boxes in the 9900 room? Yea, more of Epson's RED and CLEAR cleaning fluid. Ok so I've avoided the room like the plague, but I haven't avoided spending more money. What's the idea I've got brewing...? it's interesting actually.
By now more than a few have contacted me through this forum and myx900.com, talking about clearing impossible clogs on their printer. It's actually quite a lot more than a few, from basically all over the world. Yes Alaska, and Africa, of course New Zealand, Japan which is ironic, and many more including even Brazil - which is sexy. Yet no one has ever cleared an un-clearable clog, except one. John Schwaller did it on his 4900. How you ask? I've mentioned this before - re-charged the machine with ink. Did it a few times actually, which cost quite a bit, but not as much as a new head...
So I've been thinking since then, what if I set up a machine with cleaning carts filled with Epson's RED? No ultra sonic vibration violations, no excessive pressures applied by manually forcing liquid through a head, no foreign chemical violations, and perhaps no frying heads from too many power cleanings. Only worry is HAL's warning that nobody really knows how long you can expose an X900 head to RED. The glue is the suspect weakest link in the "what will break down first" chain. That nozzle plate comes un-glued from the chamber walls and 360 tiny nozzles just became one. So I looked into it, with my microscope.
Turns out the glue on a nozzle plate, left exposed to pure RED for 24hrs straight, was not compromised in the least. Over the course of this epic journey I have been sent a few dead/clogged/fatal error message heads. I took the nozzle plate off one two nights ago. I combed over the patterns of glue residue left in the shapes of chamber walls and cooling fins, I took visual notes of not only the appearance of the glue left over on the face, but also of it's consistency, how well it was stuck to the face, and how it reacted to my metal razor blade when I touched the two together. Before RED or after, it's just the same. This is very good news.
I took all of my RED, filled each new refillable cart with it, and put them in this 9900. Then I hit a temporary wall - one of the chips isn't being read by the machine. I re-set it, still nothing. And one of the carts doesn't seem to latch properly. I'll have to chase down replacement parts tomorrow morning. For now though, I am adhering to my self learned rule - no getting excited this will work. However I do feel this has the best chance yet.
iladi:
On signs forum there is also a guy who has recover an cloged epson solvent head by printing with specific cleaning fluid.
Eric Gulbransen:
Could you give me a link to that thread iladi ? I've searched unsuccessfully.
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