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Strange 9890 nozzle check issue

faneuil

Member
I am used to maintaining my epson 9890 and a recent nozzle check shows *no* cyan printing at all. ran a cleaning, did the magic windex pad treatment and this did not change the situation.

Oddly, I printed my standard test images, including 'purge' files from Epson Stylus Pro 9890 Support Page | Printer Purge Files, Settings, Tips & Inkjet Head Cleaning Techniques
and everything looks fine.

anyone else had this issue? I can't believe I am not printing cyan and that somehow the light cyan is 'covering up' the problem.

weird. any thoughts?
Eric
 

kdphotography

Well-known member
It might just be a bit of air in the line that cleared out with your purge print file.

Btw, I would not use Windex on the current generation of Epson print heads (79/99**). You could certainly get away with that trick with the old 78/9800 series but the current printers are much more delicate. Warm distilled water or a solution from AIS or IJM on the capping station is safer.

ken
 

faneuil

Member
thanks - but even after purge file nozzle check pattern shows absolutely zilch on the leftmost "C" box. Wondering if this is a software issue, not a ink line issue.

Safe to assume that if the Cyan line was completely clogged that images would look weird or incorrect? I mean, my test images are absolutely fine.

Eric
 

Mike Z

Member
Hello Eric,
I had a similar problem with an old 9880 years ago.
Each time the head went back to the capping station back pressure caused air to be pulled up into the magenta nozzle. a nozzle check always looked like a clogged nozzle.
At first glance prints coming off the printer look fine. However when I looked more closely at the prints I could see that the lead edge of the print was green until magenta ink flowed through the nozzle again. the rest of the print was fine.
I would try printing an image that is 50 percent gray and see is you are getting a color shift on the lead edge of the print. If you have the same problem that I had you may need a new capping station.
Hope this helps.

Mike
 

faneuil

Member
update:

Called epson support on monday. By afternoon a super friendly technican called me.
Tuesday morning a large box arrived.
Tuesday afternoon said tech arrived. And fixed my printer. Needed a new head.

Interestingly, before and after calibration prints with and without the CYAN line are only subtle differences. I know I know.. but light cyan was doing the heavy lifting.

Eric
 
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