Epson heads clogging

[kermit]

How do you deal with Epson? I am sick of banding. I get banding even when the nozzle control bars are clean. My 4800 is better but 9800 sucks.

[almaink]

No banding on my 9800, I do use RAMPage as a rip tho and always use Stochatic because it prints faster and better that way.

[frailer]

Are you on bi-directional? have heard commented that it actually reduces banding, as well as speeding things up. Am assuming your nozzle test strip is AOK. Toggle right>down>right >right>right. [do you do a 3 sec. clean anyway?] Just a thought.

[prepressDog]

Too bad HP's arnt the best for contract proofing.
Not many issues like above.

Do you leave your printer on all the time?
I was told with the HP to leave on...keeps the heads purged.
We use ours for outdoor signs and stuff, posters.

[kermit]

Are you on bi-directional? have heard commented that it actually reduces banding, as well as speeding things up. Am assuming your nozzle test strip is AOK. Toggle right>down>right >right>right. [do you do a 3 sec. clean anyway?] Just a thought.

Yes. Nozzle strip is OK but I still had banding. I am always printing at 720 uni as I couldn't get good quality dot proofs out of Epson. I changed feed settings and it's better now. I think bi-directional would even have worst banding in gradients.

[frailer]

How old is it? How long since last major service or part replacement? Ours is jan04. [but 7600]. Been told we are within a year of heads replacement. Maybe about $900. We just had some sort of pump unit replaced, [about $300 from memory], which cured similar problems for the time being. If you want I can pull the invoice and tell you exactly what it was. We're fortunate in having found a really good Epson tech. Knows what he's doing and no bullshit. It can be problematic if you get a monkey fooling with it.

[kermit]

How old is it? How long since last major service or part replacement? Ours is jan04. [but 7600]. Been told we are within a year of heads replacement. Maybe about $900. We just had some sort of pump unit replaced, [about $300 from memory], which cured similar problems for the time being. If you want I can pull the invoice and tell you exactly what it was. We're fortunate in having found a really good Epson tech. Knows what he's doing and no bullshit. It can be problematic if you get a monkey fooling with it.

It's only 6 months old. I am waiting for it to die, so I can replace it with 9880 or even another HP Z2100 or Z3100. I don't think I would pay for fixing it after the warranty. This printer has to be treated as a consumable item, that need to be replaced every 2-3 years.

[frailer]

6 months old? Gadzooks, man! Wouldn't that be a a fix-it-or-else under warranty?
BTW misread a digit. was thinking 9600. There may be other problems with the 9800s I'm unaware of. Good luck.

[almaink]

Well I spoke to soon it seems. Ran out of light Magenta ink, put in the new cartridge and now it won't print on the first 2" of the sheet correctly. And I'm also seeing banding now as well. I'll call in the morning to see WTF is up with it and post back what they tell me.

[prepressDog]

6 months should be under warranty. Call that shit in.
Tell them to fix it, replace it or take the POS back for credit as $ or toward a new.

I'd like to see the new HPs...
New ink? Good detail and pigment inks?
Any one heard?

[kermit]

6 months should be under warranty. Call that shit in.
Tell them to fix it, replace it or take the POS back for credit as $ or toward a new.

I'd like to see the new HPs...
New ink? Good detail and pigment inks?
Any one heard?

I have it and I use it (in case Epson 9800 is down). I bought Z2100 44" and use primarily for newsprint proofing but I also color profiled it to match my Epson in case it would die on me. I love it. It's better than Epson. I wish HP would make 17" version.

[LRob]

Are you on bi-directional? have heard commented that it actually reduces banding, as well as speeding things up. Am assuming your nozzle test strip is AOK. Toggle right>down>right >right>right. [do you do a 3 sec. clean anyway?] Just a thought.

Yes. Nozzle strip is OK but I still had banding. I am always printing at 720 uni as I couldn't get good quality dot proofs out of Epson. I changed feed settings and it's better now. I think bi-directional would even have worst banding in gradients.

I have this problem with our 9800 sometimes. I do a Power Clean on it and that fixes the problem. It is under the maintenance menu. You are right that bi-directional would be worst.
hope this helps.   

[kermit]

I have this problem with our 9800 sometimes. I do a Power Clean on it and that fixes the problem. It is under the maintenance menu. You are right that bi-directional would be worst.
hope this helps.   

I hate Power cleaning as it uses about 9% of the ink in each cartridge. Epson will love you if you would do power cleaning once a week...

[almaink]

I have this problem with our 9800 sometimes. I do a Power Clean on it and that fixes the problem. It is under the maintenance menu. You are right that bi-directional would be worst.
hope this helps.   

I hate Power cleaning as it uses about 9% of the ink in each cartridge. Epson will love you if you would do power cleaning once a week...

LOL right U R. I played around with menu options and reloaded the paper ran a few test sheets and it's fine now. No idea WTF I did but it's fixed.

[frailer]

When we first got our 7600, we were told Power Clean was the go. Later when we needed and found a good tech., he told us to try and use 3 sec. clean most of the time; Power Clean v. occasionally when 3 sec doesn't work.