My Epson Adventure

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Steve Collins

Steve Collins

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Posts
2,379
Loc
Clinton, MA
We* have an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 which we bought over 3 years ago and have used lightly but regularly since. As many of you know, the 7900 (x900 actually if you include other similar printers) is constantly in need of cleaning; clogging is a part of daily life. This is generally all you need to worry about, though all that cleaning means wasted ink: $$$$.

The worst part of having the 7900 arises when you finally get a clog that won't clear. There is a widely known issue with 2 colors clogging permanently on the x900, light black and green, usually light black. Once this happens, the only answer is to replace the printhead. Since this generally only happens when the printer is off warranty, the cost is 100% out of pocket. Epson quotes $100 for the trip to your site, $300/hour for labor, and $1800 for the new head. :shutup:

Do I have $2500 lying around for that? And considering that you can usually get a brand new printer for that price, would I actually be so stupid? Whatever. I said thanks and hung up.

So at first I placed an ad on the G's classifieds to get rid of it for "best offer" and then I discovered a wonderful website: http://myx900.com/ which has loads of good information about these printers and an excellent video on how to change the printhead yourself. Meanwhile, I found a used printhead on eBay for $700, weighed the options ($2500 vs. give it away vs. risk $700), said "what-the-h3ll" and ordered it.

So now I have the used printhead (seller has good rep and will take return if it doesn't work), a video and no more ad on the G.

I'm half way through the video; the printer is largely disassembled and I am nervous but plan to finish this, one way or the other.

This is what the printer looks like at the moment; dog included for the heck of it:

Disemboweled.jpg

I'll post status once I'm done. And do wish me luck. :icon9:


* It's weird how I use the term "we" to refer to "our" business, when 100% of the printing and framing part is "me". Not like I have a team of full time workers here...
 
Did the guy who sold you the head also provide the codes to reset it?

Apparently, each head has codes or whatever that have to be installed so the printer will work.... and i think it requires specific software to install it.

I was thinking of doing the same thing you are doing but with my 9900 till I got to that part and decided to sell it as is and let the next guy spend to replace the head and he still got a good printer for less than a new one.

I sold it for $500 and he spent around $1800 to have it replaced.

While you are replacing the head, you should also be replacing the damper assembly as well and something else, I forget right now.
Go to this link for some LOOOOONNNNG reading on exactly what you're trying to do.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61585.0

Oh, ... good luck. :thumbsup:
 
The code is actually on the printhead & you enter it using service mode on the printer. I think I have that covered.

I'll have to look into the damper assembly. I had read the thread on Luminous Landscape & it left me wondering what was really worth paying attention to. Thanks for the tip though.

Life can often be absurd. Spent half the day trying to find a long shank, magnetic #1 Phillips; ended up ordering online. Nothing at local hardware stores. Need the thing for several of the screws.
 
Steve Collins said:
Life can often be absurd. Spent half the day trying to find a long shank, magnetic #1 Phillips; ended up ordering online. Nothing at local hardware stores. Need the thing for several of the screws.
Click to expand...

Get a regular long shank screwdriver and just stick a rare-earth magnet to the shank near the handle.
 
Steve Collins said:
The code is actually on the printhead & you enter it using service mode on the printer. I think I have that covered.

I'll have to look into the damper assembly. I had read the thread on Luminous Landscape & it left me wondering what was really worth paying attention to. Thanks for the tip though.

Life can often be absurd. Spent half the day trying to find a long shank, magnetic #1 Phillips; ended up ordering online. Nothing at local hardware stores. Need the thing for several of the screws.
Click to expand...

As for entering the code, I had forgotten the important part. There is in fact a program that I needed to get, namely the "service program" (servprog) that comes as part of a package you can download from Epson Insider, a site for resellers to use. I did get the package, so that part's covered (I hope). And yes, the code is on a QR code sticker on the side of the printhead, and yes, I did write the numbers down. :party:
 
Interesting indeed, thanks for posting. How many ink tanks per week does it get through? We have a 9900 which has never had a clogging issue (as yet...).
 
I had gotten into the daily habit of running a test print (nozzle check), followed by cleaning any pairs that showed gaps. About half the time, the strips would be fine, but the other half led to the need for cleanings. Epson printers like to be worked. If you print a lot, you're much less likely to run into these problems. We don't print that much (6 to 12 prints per week), so the printer tends to sit a lot, which it doesn't like.

Another big factor is humidity. The lower the humidity, the more likely the printer will clog. If I get this puppy running again, and if I decide to keep it, I plan to cover it when not in use & put a pail of water on the floor under the cover.

In any case, as I understand it, you're lucky if you get more than 2 or 3 years out of a printhead.
 
While you are in there, don't forget to replace the wiper. THAT alone is one of the main reasons for head clogs in these stupid machines! Get a couple of them and change them every so often... sort of like changing the oil in your car. Preventive maintenance.

If you read ALL of that thread on LL then you know what happens if you do too many cleanings and the ink builds up on the wiper and eventually turns into peanut butter and is then wiped over the nozzles and ends up clogging a channel (or 2) permanently.
 
I share your pain!! I had my 9900 go down with a bad head a few months ago and opted for a new 9890 instead of replacing the head, still have the 9900 in the back room.
Would you pm with the ebay seller info?
I look forward to hearing more about your adventure!!:popc:
 
Goodtwin said:
I share your pain!! I had my 9900 go down with a bad head a few months ago and opted for a new 9890 instead of replacing the head, still have the 9900 in the back room.
Would you pm with the ebay seller info?
I look forward to hearing more about your adventure!!:popc:
Click to expand...

PM sent.
 
Well, I got the screwdriver today and worked like a charm: $11 for driver + $29 for shipping = desperation.

Ran out of time to take any more screws out, but Monday's another day. (Sunday's for the Lord).
 
No progress today because of rush jobs (glad I have the 2nd printer), but I'm up to page 15 of 73 in the Luminous Landscape thread. Also verified what it says with the service manual and field repair manual, so I'm confident I know how to do it.
 
Pretty eventful day. I finished disassembly, printhead swap and reassembly, but ran out of time to register the printhead using the service program. That'll be tomorrow, along with a cleaning or 2 and a test strip.

Interestingly, the old printhead looked pretty clean - no obvious gunk or anything. As I understand the problem, these unclearable "clogs" are electrical in nature, so I wouldn't see anything anyway.

Piezoelectric is mystery magic hocus pocus to me at this point. Weird stuff. :icon9:
 
Well, I came in this morning & fired it up. Got a fatal error 1A39, which the service manual says is a connection problem with the print head. So it's either the ribbon cables are a bit off or the new head is a paper weight. Taking it apart again to see what to make of it.

I really should know better by now. :nuts:
 
Progress! I took it apart again, pulled the print head, reseated the ribbon cables, reassembled and fired it up. Problem solved; no more fatal error. So I went into service mode and entered the head code & while I was at it, I pulled the wiper assembly, cleaned it & put it back.

Now for cleaning and running test prints. :thumbsup:
 
(Actually happened yesterday, but posted late) I did a few cleanings (pairs) and ran out of one of the inks, so I can't continue until I get another cartridge. I did a nozzle check (print of nozzle patterns) and it's looking pretty good, except for green, which is almost totally missing. Hopefully a few more cleanings will clear it up. We'll see. :shrug:
 
Steve Collins said:
... I had read the thread on Luminous Landscape & it left me wondering what was really worth paying attention to. Thanks for the tip though...
Click to expand...

I don't know why I said that; I might have thought it was a different thread? :confused:

Anyway, I'm up to page 49 of 73 in the Luminous Landscape post; lots of repetition & chatter, but some choice info here and there. I'm becoming convinced that, if this fails, my best bet is to donate it to a demolition derby. Time will tell.

One thing I know for sure, I will never buy another Epson printer. The x900's are finicky, too expensive to run and way too short-lived to be cost-effective, at least for relatively low volume shops like ours.
 
Back then, my 9900 had a fatal stroke!! The green channel was completely clogged and nothing was going to fix that.

Amazing that your replacement head is also not showing green. Bummer.:cry:
 
Yeah, it's making me wonder if perhaps an ink line or damper intended to carry green is clogged. Should be easy enough to check, but I still need to try a few pairs cleanings first.

At some point very soon, I'll see this as throwing good money after bad, I'm afraid.
 
Steve Collins said:
At some point very soon, I'll see this as throwing good money after bad, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

I thought you already did that...

Steve Collins said:
One thing I know for sure, I will never buy another Epson printer. The x900's are finicky, too expensive to run and way too short-lived to be cost-effective, at least for relatively low volume shops like ours.
Click to expand...

I guess there's a limit as to how much good money one can stomach throwing ;)
 
David N Waldmann said:
I thought you already did that...



I guess there's a limit as to how much good money one can stomach throwing ;)
Click to expand...

Maybe I don't know why I've been feeding this thing time, nozzle checks & ink all this time unless I haven't had enough yet. I can be pretty stubborn. But this repair attempt is the end of the road. I certainly can't justify the $2500 repair bill Epson quoted, especially when I can get a brand new Canon for less than that. So it was either try to fix it myself or get rid of it.

It's honestly hard to know when to cut one's losses.
 
I did several more cleanings; everything is fine except for green, which is 90% missing & not improving.

It was worth a shot. Time to move on. :cry:
 
Sledge hammer is in the doorway, within visual range of the printer.

Anyway, I took it apart again and swapped out the print head, so I'm back with the original. Have to register it, of course, and test. Goal is that it's no worse off than before trying the new head.

The guy I bought the head from is accepting it back with full refund, so nothing lost but some hassle.

I finished a thorough reading of the mega thread on Luminous Landscape (finally) and can safely say that the conclusion of the thread was that the unclearable clogs are not clogs at all but a case of nozzles not working anymore, either for mechanical or electrical reasons. So no coming back from that.

Truth be told, this was fun, but I'd rather not do it again. :icon21:
 
I know 4 people with the *900 series problem and the one thing in common is GREEN ink.
 
Looks like a good site, though it won't be relevant to me once I sell (?) my 7900. Looks like a big catalog of Epson printer problems. Searching for the 7900 clog issue brought me to this:

Hi All,


I know some have been struggling with this ...


After cleaning with cleaning cartridges trying to figure out which colour is where so to try to manually clean then by flushing them by hand.


Well , here you have the colours.


On a side note.
So far I have tried to recover about 15 heads of 7900/9900's, between 1 1/2 and 5 years old. We've not been successful with one of them. Yes we are able to improve them, but never to completely get everything cleared.
With the last one we had, I'm started to think that it is really electrical failure internally in the head ...


There is quite a severe blockage in the orange (two bands of nozzles about 25% of the head are missing). Still, when manually flushing liquid through the head, I do get a nice even 'curtain' spray, meaning, no nozzles are blocked.
All in all, lesson learned for me after kind of exhausting every single possibility, when we discover blocked heads which are not cleared with service man cleanings, we stop wasting ink and replace the head.


Yes it is expensive, yes it is painful these things fail so soon, but at least we get the customer up and running within 3-4 hours this way.
Otherwise we spend days testing/soaking, cleaning, flushing, wasting liters of ink and cleaning fluids (I think I quite literally tried them all ... from the simple green equivalents, over German made special brews up to Jon Cones piezzo Flush),
and none have worked so far for the 7900/9900.


We did manage to clear some 4900's though using Jon's piezzo flush. Not sure why it works on the 4900 and not on the 7900/9900 ...


So that's our conclusion after head 15 down the bin ...

I added the red highlighting. Sad.

I also saw references to the Luminous Landscape thread, indicating that it has influence and credibility. All in all, I honestly don't see anything in this Yahoo group that changes anything, unfortunately.

I'm more convinced than ever to move on. Too much grief.
 
We actually do have a Canon, too, an ipf8300, which we bought over 3 years ago. Output is as good as the Epson (whenever the Epson decided to work). It's much more reliable, never clogging, ever. It prints faster, is quieter, and remarkably frugal with ink consumption. You do have to change printheads every year or two. We've done that once already, but it's as easy as changing a light bulb, and much cheaper than the Epson. Night and day difference.

In fact, if we decide to get a replacement for the Epson, and not just use the space it occupies for other stuff, we will get a Canon. Looking at the ipf6400 or 6450.
 
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