I am printing with the Epson 7800 printer, operating system Mac 10.9. The printer was not used for almost a month. I ran nozzle check and had to clean the heads. This was not completely successful so I used A Simple cleaning solution to clean the heads. Ran another nozzle check and repeated the above again. The printout was mostly successful with only a couple of drop-outs. The full color nozzle check when printed was separated by a heavy blue line between the group. The other test print the linear one would have 2 thin blue lines above and below the test print. I tried to print an image. When printed, it is covered completely by thin blue horizontal lines print completely across the image and overlapping the image on the right by 1/2", the left by 1" and the top by 1". I read on line that it is possibly the ink cart. This one is and Epson cart at least 3 months old. The offending cart is the light cyan. The printer reads it as 50% full but when removed and shaken it feels almost empty.
I am in the process of changing my inks to the Cone ink system. I was told that I could change them as they became empty. I read on line that the cart could very well be bad. I just order ink and refill cart that should e due tomorrow. I don’t know if this will work but if the printer is shot (maybe the heads), I don’t want to keep wasting money on inks I can not use. I also own a 4880 that I want to change over to the Cone inks. I would rather spend the money there.
Does anyone have a clue as to what is happening? I have tried all of the obvious, wiper blade, head cleaning, power cleaning, etc with no effect. I will appreciate any help.
I am enclosing and image for your review. I could not get the image to upload so I have place a link to the image on my website.
It would seem that from the lack of comments on the above that no one has experienced this situation before. Update: I changed the light cyan cart with the cone colors but no help there. I ran across an article on the web stating that using version 4 profiles with Photoshop would cause this problem. Tried that too with no change in the outcome. Does anyone know if bad heads could cause this problem. It seems more like it is being told to do this by software.
I am in a bind here. I don’t want to keep buying ink and paper for this 7800 if the problem can not be solved. I need to start to think about another printer if this one is finished. I would appreciate any suggestion.
your image looks typical of severe printer banding caused either by a dropped nozzle, or alignment (both of which you can perform and remedy). But it also looks a little like you are printing at a high speed mode. Can you post us a manual nozzle check? Also - did you perform horizontal alignment across the width of the printer? easy but - did you try unidirectional rather than bi-directional?? This does look like hardware rather than software…
Your sample print shows banding across the image, and in the margin around the image. Banding of white lines in the image area is generally caused by missing nozzles, but in my experience banding outside the image area could be caused by electrical or other hardware issues. Are you printing nozzle checks from the printer’s control panel, or thru the Epson utility from your computer? Please post a manual nozzle check for me to see. Instructions for posting attachments to this forum can be found here: http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?152-How-to-attach-images-to-this-forum
Also- have you tried printing from another application other than Photoshop, such as Preview, or from a web site? Have you tried reinstalling your print driver, and shutting down both the computer and printer for a few minutes to refresh?
Dana,
I keep trying to upload the file but keep getting this message. The Image can be seen here. I have done everything you suggest except the flush. I decided to let you view the nozzle check before I tried that. I will have to order the cleaner so maybe you will be able to tell me what I will need.
Thanks for the additional information Tyrone. Based on your nozzle check and attached image, I suspect you’re dealing with an electrical issue, but think it’s worth cleaning your printer to see if you can possibly resolve the issue without calling a repair tech. Please clarify- you have initialized your printer from the control panel, shut down both the printer and computer, and reinstalled the print driver, but have not yet manually cleaned your printer’s internal parts- correct? The 7800/9800 is getting to be an older printer model, have you ever replaced parts such as dampers, wiper blade, capping station, pump and/or flushing box? Are all ink cartridges now ConeColor refillable, or do you still have some Epson carts installed?
To manually clean your printer’s internal parts, you will want to follow our instructions in the link I sent previously. We recommend using PiezoFlush for cleaning internal printer parts that the print head touches (capping station, wiper blade, flushing box + bottom of the head). For these cleaning procedures, you’ll want a bottle of PiezoFlush (110ml will probably be enough), and a syringe with 3" blunt tip needle for depositing PiezoFlush right where you want it (this makes it easier to moisten the capping station and flushing box). PiezoFlush can be found here: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/sc.18/category.31348/.f, and the syringe with blunt tip needle can be found here: http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/it.A/id.7297/.f?sc=11&category=27717
You may also want to clean the printer’s encoder strip, which you can use an alcohol pad for, but we don’t currently have instructions for cleaning this part.
InkjetMall Information
Why buy from us
My InkjetMall account
Contact Info