Epson 7900 from the inside - out

[Eric Gulbransen]

Remember I am not the creator of this information, just the delivery boy.

Chaddro, cleaning the Flushing box is way more involved than cleaning/changing the wiper blade assembly.  I regret having to report that.  Best way is to remove your pump and cap assembly, then remove the Flushing box from the pump and cap assembly once it's out of the machine and on your work bench/kitchen table - which of course would be protected from ink spilling on it by an orderly distribution of your wife's most recent copies of Vogue magazine.  Then once you have the Flushing box in hand, simply clean it with water.

iladi, very good question.  I will ask HAL next time I have him on the line.  In the mean time I offer you this little tid-bit of information which may or may not be directly related to your specific problem;  HAL told me today that the reason Epson is so generous these days about replacing faulty ink carts is the result of what I imagine are their bean counters.  The faulty carts are having a tendency, due to poorly maintained manufacturing tolerances I imagine, of allowing air into the lines through bad seals.  These random pockets of air in the lines cause "clogs", or in this case more appropriately "drop-outs".  Once an air pocket reaches the head you have no ink to fire through your nozzles.  Power cleanings remedy this well, but waste ink, and your solution is only temporary.  That's why these days when you call to complain about a faulty ink cart, nobody breaks your ovaries - they just mail you replacements.

This might also help you iladi;  One of my initial printhead clearing exercises included flushing our lines free of all ink, filling the lines with cleaning solution, and then re-charging the lines again with new ink.  I basically stared at our lines through the entire process.  Much to my surprise the lines do not change their appearance as much as you might expect they would, as new fluid enters or leaves them.  IE; when our lines were clear of ink, and firing clear cleaning fluid through our head and onto paper in nozzle checks - the lines still showed color.  I share this experience with you to suggest that random air pockets in your lines might not be visible viewing the lines externally.  Perhaps this helps you, perhaps it only adds to your frustration.  Either way, I was told today by HAL himself that mid-print "clogs" are typically not clogs at all, but instead air in the lines.  So if cleanings always remedy these "clogs" for you, but they come back - leaving you to go through the process once again at yet another random time - my bet is you have air entering your lines.

[Ernst Dinkla]

What is going on, pages are disappearing.  Somebody is deleting posts.

Mine are still there and gain value in time.


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

Dinkla Grafische Techniek
Quad,piëzografie,giclée
www.pigment-print.com

[designpartners]

very interesting update.. makes a lot of sense..

so..I think this raises a few questions..

1. what maintenance SHOULD a USER perform and when?
2. what maintenance SHOULD a user OUTSOURCE and when?

Or if you have a warranty,

3. if you have a warranty, does this affect Q's 1&2?

James

[iladi]

Thanx, eric for the tips. I allready think about ink starvation, bad design dampers, bad sealing ink lines and that my clogs are not realy clogs.
As far as user maintenance i have experience with 3kind of printers pigment and dye aqua, ecosolvent and aqua-resin DTS ones. They all require regular whiper cleaning, captop cleaning AND , if it is visualy required (solid ink, debris, lint) a manual head clean, not the bottom (forbiden if you have no experience) but just the edges. A clean whiper better cleans the head, a clean captop and clean head edges helps a better sealing when the head parcs. Maybe not every day, but is strictly related to dust in the room, humidity and what kind of media you usualy print.

[Eric Gulbransen]

very interesting update.. makes a lot of sense..

so..I think this raises a few questions..

1. what maintenance SHOULD a USER perform and when?
2. what maintenance SHOULD a user OUTSOURCE and when?

Or if you have a warranty,

3. if you have a warranty, does this affect Q's 1&2?

James

1 & 2 - I think this depends on your comfort level about tinkering with your own machine.  If you've got hammer thumbs you most likely are well aware of it, so I suggest you outsource everything but changing the wiper blade assembly.  The wiper blade assembly is easy to see without taking anything apart.  It's need for cleaning/replacement therefore should be easy to monitor.  It's need for attention will be different for everyone.  HAL mentioned cleaning your flushing box once a year in our conversation yesterday, but I imagine this too will be different for everyone.  The flushing box is also easy to monitor without taking anything apart.  However I will have to ask HAL what signs to look for that would indicate a clogged flushing box (besides the obvious).

3 - I don't have a warranty so I don't know the details of it.  I would imagine scheduled maintenance is not covered under warranty, but I don't know that.  If you are under warranty you need not be concerned with cleaning fluids - they will not clean anything.  Warranty work is parts replacement.  They would replace an unclear-able head, not clean it with solution.



*side note;  There is a very real possibility that you yourself could help create a significant savings impact on repairs & maintenance costs involving your machine, if you are willing to move it.  If a service tech has to drive to you, then twiddle his thumbs every time your machine goes through cleaning cycles, waiting periods, etc., you will have to pay him for every minute he stands there doing nothing.  However, and I do realize this is impossible for some, if you brought your machine to his shop you would most likely be charged a lower flat-rate, pre agreed price for the service because there would be no thumb twiddling - he'd be off working on another machine (making money somewhere else).

[Mark D Segal]

Thanx, eric for the tips. I allready think about ink starvation, bad design dampers, bad sealing ink lines and that my clogs are not realy clogs.
As far as user maintenance i have experience with 3kind of printers pigment and dye aqua, ecosolvent and aqua-resin DTS ones. They all require regular whiper cleaning, captop cleaning AND , if it is visualy required (solid ink, debris, lint) a manual head clean, not the bottom (forbiden if you have no experience) but just the edges. A clean whiper better cleans the head, a clean captop and clean head edges helps a better sealing when the head parcs. Maybe not every day, but is strictly related to dust in the room, humidity and what kind of media you usualy print.

I'm interested in your comment about dust in the room. Have you seen much impact, and if so where are the soft spots from your perspective?

[Eric Gulbransen]

FYI; According to my conversation with yesterday, the general consensus on the cause of clogs on my particular Epson 7900 is misuse, not shipping the machine across the country.  Considering the state of the wiper blade assembly (three years old, completely covered in muck, torn and cocked sideways), and the state of the flushing box when I got it (also three years old, therefore likely dried and clogged), combined with the fact that in three years of use this particular printer had only @900 prints on it (indicating this machine was used infrequently - which apparently violates of the cardinal rule of happy X900 use), this particular Epson 7900 printer failed due to what HAL calls "neglect."

This is something to keep in mind if you are considering buying a used X900 printer.  DO NOT assume that a printer with very little use is in better shape than one used regularly.  Big, ......BIG mistake

[designpartners]

little use is misuse.. funny one for sure..

so.. how would one define "little use"? once a month? once a week? once a day? once an hour?
I think I have maybe 400 prints on my 9900.. most of which are A1 and above... I would think this is very little use. .

I'm heading to an Expo tomorrow in Dublin where Epson UK and my local distributer are there and I'll ask them about it too.. see what's covered in warranty, what not and see if I can get a handle on costs..

I'd be happy stripping the 9900 right to the bone, but it's not mine, the company I work for owns it and we took out an extended warranty to cover repairs and minimize downtime. BUT... maybe having a warranty and waiting for a failure is not the best way to minimize downtime?

James 

[Eric Gulbransen]

This is me talking here, not ...


I think I will stay on top of my flushing box by cleaning it while still inside/hooked up.  In serviceman mode, when  you release the head it moves far off to the left of it's operating range.  The flushing box moves forward into plain view/access.  Again this has not been suggested to me, it's just my feel, but the flushing box is a pretty simple unit.  It's a screen with a foam pad behind it that ink gets shot through.  Hoses connect to the back of it which take the blown ink and drains it into the maintenance tank.  To me this is a no-brainer - gut an old maintenance tank, install it, then shoot water or cleaning solution into the face of the flushing box.  it's easily accessible and viewable.  I'd be sure to rinse the rubber seals of any solution before wrapping up your home brewed service call.  

I know this is a high tech printer and all but let's be real, the flushing box is not a high tech part.  it's a screen with a sponge behind it.

[iladi]

Dust is a very big issue in my oppinion. I have a small shop, about 30 square meters with direct acces from the street. Just one room and one door. The door is frequently open (often by mistake, not that i'm sooooo bussy ), and i from time to time i have to open a small window due to ecosolvent smell. There is A LOT of dust. The dust settels on the material rolls, inside the printer, nomatter if they are packed inside bags or not, more or less due to statics. So, when the head travels back and forth above a dusty area, lint and dust and ink attach to the edges of the printhead. If you add a accidental hair, there is is a good posibility that one of this can sit bethween the head and the captop when the head is parked, so it is a bad sealing, air comes to the head, you don't use the printer for 2 weeks, and, voila, the clogs. So, if you environment is dusty and you are not going to use the printer for a long period it might be a good ideea to clean the whiper, clean the edges of the head if it is dirty (use a swab and some cleaning solution, i know it is not easy due to head possition, but it is doable), clean the captop with the swab and drop some cleaning solution on the captop, it helps clean the pump and the tubing to thevwaste tank. Then do a normal clean and turn the printer off.


Edit: flush is used for spitting ink during printing. It may be some prints that not require to use all the ink. For that, during printing, head moves to the flushpad spit ink from all the nozzels to enshure all the colors are used and prevent ink dry in the head. Is is a simple pad and some tubing to the waste tank. You can even remove it and clean with water.

PS sorry for my bad english, but i' m shure you will understand

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks - that's insightful.

[tmphoto]

My experience with the older printers:

FYI; According to my conversation with yesterday, the general consensus on the cause of clogs on my particular Epson 7900 is misuse, not shipping the machine across the country.  

If the cause of a clog is as explained above I am able to clear the clog.

This is something to keep in mind if you are considering buying a used X900 printer.  DO NOT assume that a printer with very little use is in better shape than one used regularly.  Big, ......BIG mistake

A printer with little use is in better shape that one with lot's of use. The cleaning unit may need cleaning fluid treatment but not a big deal.
Between a printer that was used to print only 30 pages and left for 1 year without any use and a printer that has been used to print 30 prints every day for a year I take the one that has not been used for a year.

Why is the above not true for the x900 printers?
In my opinion you did all that was needed to fix the clog. Why was it not cleared?

Why Epson needs to hide behind an anonymous caller to blame customers for the problems?
I can assure you that problems caused by little use can be fixed.
User neglect, take a look at this:
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6403.htm
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6455.htm
Got the above printer for $100 with empty cartridges because it was badly clogged.
Serviced the cleaning unit and cleaned the head externally. After that I was able to print a clean nozzle check just using the inks that were left in the lines.
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6463.htm
The wiper blade above did not need replacement, it was in great shape after cleaning. Same with the other parts.

After that I cleaned all the printer parts, ran some cleaning fluid trough the head and lubricated - It's working like new.
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6450.htm
http://e7800.printermed.com/kv2v6410.htm

The above printer was used continuously until the owner bought a new 7900 then set aside for several months.
So, lots of wet ink accumulated over a 3-4 years that the dried off (used a lot and then "neglected", really bad but fixable).

In the attached pic a 9800, similar experience. Behind a 9600 printer, under cover. This printer was stored away in like new condition for several years. It has been cleaned and printing fine now.
 

[Eric Gulbransen]

It's been my experience, tmphoto, that the "less used" Epson 7900 that I bought is worthless so far.  I would much rather have purchased a 7900 with more miles on it, that actually printed, than have purchased this nearly virgin one that has yet to work since I bought it six months ago.  You talk about clearing clogs like this is a 4800.  I too am confident that I could clear a clogged, parked for three years, neglected printhead from an older model machine.  In fact like you, I have also done this successfully multiple times.  But when it comes to X900 clogs, these printheads so far have beaten me into submission.  Not so much confidence anymore.  At least not for clearing the stubborn clogs.  And once you can't clear the printhead on an X900 printer, and you're out of warranty, the numbers (replacing the printhead through traditional means) just don't make sense.  $2k minimum to replace the printhead when you can buy a brand new Epson 7900, with a brand new warranty, with free delivery anywhere in the US for $495 more?  That's right, check B&H, $2,495 - free delivery.

So in my case, buying the "lightly used" (clogged) 7900 that I did, for $1,700, turns out to be the worst purchase I have ever made in my life. 

I would have been much better off buying one brand new, or buying one that was used more regularly. 

[Mark D Segal]

Also a big deal in the price comparison between new and used is how much ink you get with the former versus the latter.

[Dadioles]

Whew...

I have just spent what seems like days (it was days!) reading everything I can about the Epson 7900 and this thread has left me filled with awe and respect for the contributors and hopefully wiser and more knowledgeable. It must be the longest thread that I have ever followed in detail (on any topic) reading step by step technical discoveries and personal views of a surprising variety of people, some of whom I am sure I would find very petty and irritating in real life. Maybe it is me that is becoming a disfunctional human being.

Eric - your wiper blade replacement video is wonderful - my kind of dry humour.  All that and bikes as well.... what a man.

Epsons have always been my photo printers of choice and I still run a 4000 for odd jobs but my trusty old 4880 is the current workhorse sometimes running day and night non stop.
Before the new print run of the day I always print a quick nozzle check and it is a bit hit and miss whether or not a head clean is required.  Unfortunately the 4880 cleans all heads in one go and it is frustrating to see 7 inks being depleted because of an imperfection with just one colour.  If the day begins with clear nozzles I have never known it to clog during a print run, utterly reliable.
I will sometimes find an entire channel (yellow or magenta more often than not) "blocked" with hardly ant ink coming through.  My gut feeling is that this is not so much blocked nozzles but ink starvation.  Several cleaning cycles, and maybe a cartridge swap, will fix it.  Probably air leaking in somewhere, it would not take much.  Maybe when the new 7900 arrives I will have the courage to take the 4880 apart as it is a few years old now and must need a clean out.

Regular usage is definitely important and having been idle for the last month it took me 6 cleaning cycles to get fully operational once more, unusually bad this time.
Nozzle checks at the start of the day are essential but whether or not this has to be followed up with a head clean is just something that I am used to and accept as the norm when owning an ink jet printer.

In the next few days I expect to purchase a new 7900.  My "busy" period is June - September and although I have a feeling that a new model will be released quite soon I just cannot wait, something I may regret but such is life.

I have looked at HP and Canon but having used Epson for so many years I naturally migrate towards a familiar make.

Reading about the problems people have with their 7900's is quite scary but I am pretty good at keeping things in perspective and I am very grateful to Eric for his efforts.  As something of a techie, I too tend to try and fix things myself and despite the traumas that he and others have been through it does give me confidence that fixes are possible and forwarned is forarmed so I shall enter the world of the 7900 with my eyes wide open (and an extended warranty).

Incidentally (I am in UK) the price quoted to me for the printer is (all inclusive of VAT - real money):
Basic photo printer plus an additional (free) set of 11 x 110ml cartridges £2395
Delivery £78
Warranty extended to 3 years £810

Technically I shall write it off over three years so loosely speaking it will cost me about £1000 per annum (£20 / week) in capital.

There is no financial advantage to using 700ml cartridges over the 350ml as both (street price) come out at about 29p/ml, the 150ml cartridges 34p/ml.

Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that all goes well.

[designpartners]

High use Vs Low use..

so I'm wondering if the printer is being left on? if it's on, it goes through a clean every now and again and also parks the head and I'm told that seals it from dust and minimises clogs.
I'm sure Eric mentioned how his printer was stored, powered on or off?

Spoke to Epson today also at an Expo - apparently there are 2 types of warranty- and if you have the more expensive one, it includes a yearly call out for a once over, otherwise, he says leave well enough alone.
no idea which one I have, I'm sure it's the lower one but I'll check tomorrow. 

James

[designpartners]

Incidentally (I am in UK) the price quoted to me for the printer is (all inclusive of VAT - real money):
Basic photo printer plus an additional (free) set of 11 x 110ml cartridges £2395
Delivery £78
Warranty extended to 3 years £810

Technically I shall write it off over three years so loosely speaking it will cost me about £1000 per annum (£20 / week) in capital.

There is no financial advantage to using 700ml cartridges over the 350ml as both (street price) come out at about 29p/ml, the 150ml cartridges 34p/ml.

just remember that the carts that come with the printer will be used to prime the printer and while you basically get to use all the ink, it will read that the carts are half empty as soon as you are finished setting up

so you will have to get new refills sooner than you think.

Enjoy the printer!

James

[john milich]

could someone state the post number describing how to clean the wiper and service the flush box.  maybe make it a sticky?

thanks

[Peter Le]

  Page 15 post 292 is the video for changing the wiper blade......

[Eric Gulbransen]

Jason, I never talked about how I stored the printer while not in use because I never got to store it, or use it.  It's been clogged since I got it.

I was thinking, however, about just this topic in the shower this morning.  I think I might just store it in there..