I was out there today to fill up a few low ink cartridges and noticed that the print head is heavily clogged. I ran a few cleaning cycles that did not improve the situation. This is like what we were seeing before, but it had seemingly cleared up. It’s worth noting that I was there during the hottest part of the day and it was pretty warm in the printer room with even just me hanging out in there.
My hypothesis a while back is that the heat and humidity balance in that room is not good for those printers. It’s also possible that the printer is nearing its useful life. It’s also conceivable that the heat/humidity situation is bringing the printer to it’s end of life faster than it might otherwise happen.
In other words, the printer may work better when temps are cooler. They work best in a cool environment that’s not too dry. But, sustained existence in a hot room may ruin the printhead beyond repair.
Correcting the climate control issue for that room was discussed at some point but I don’t think it ever went beyond discussion. It’s possible that the Fall season will solve the problem and if we’re lucky the printer will bounce back.
If someone that knows what they’re doing wants to run a few cleaning cycles and nozzle checks late one night when temps are cooler that would provide some useful information.
On a related note, it looks like some turned on automatic head cleaning. DO NOT do this please. It’s off for a good reason.
You could be right about the temperature, but another thing to think about are the ink lines. Some times with machines that have sat with ink in the lines for an extended period it is a smart move to do a full flush of the system with distilled water. This can clear out build ups that may be getting to the print head now. The second the head cleaning station may need to be cleaned or repaired, especially the wiper that squeegees the print head. When these printers are not printing the head sits in the cleaning tray, this tray may have a small clog allowing ink to build up, this ink and dry to the print head causing clogs.
I’ve done these kinds of repairs on other epson printing systems but not the 7880. Send me a PM next time you are going to check out the printer and I’ll come to help, that way we both know what is being done to the machine rather than trying to fix the issues separately.
If we were to replace the epson printers with a canon, would the heat have similar issues? I know we spoke about this at one time but I don’t know if we covered that question. The epson ink particles are bigger than the dye based canon, correct?
wide format Canon printers come accounting software built in - amount of material used, types of material used and costs etc.
They also have the option to use larger 700ml ink tanks.
To my knowledge, Dye based inks are in solution, so they don’t tend to settle out like the particles held in suspension in the pigment based inks. This is a big plus, that being said, dye based inks tend to not have the longevity of pigment based inks, so if you are doing a archival print, pigment is probably where you want to be. But, those are prints you want to keep around for 25 + years, how common is that? Lastly, Dye based inks tend to win in the looks department when comparing print to print, but this is also dependent on the papers/substraits used.
I’m a fan of going Canon if we have the support to keep it running. I leave my support behind those willing to keep these machines working for DMS.
I have the local Canon wide format engineer’s contact info and cell number …
Pigment inks are made of microscopic solid particles that are suspended in a liquid. These encapsulated particles actually bond to the surface of a paper or substrate.
Dye inks are water soluble. Dye ink is simply absorbed into the fibers of the paper. Because of the aqueous nature of dye inks, they will bleed if the printed paper becomes wet.
There are many advantages to using a pigment inks over dyes. Pigments are much more water resistant. Also, pigment inks will not fade like dye inks will. Oxygen in the atmosphere and ultraviolet light both play havoc on dye inks as well.