I got tired of my 7900 clogging if it sat more than a few days without use, so I developed the following print target in the hopes it would pull enough of each color through the nozzles to solve that issue. I have been testing it for over 6 months, and so far it's been working so well I thought I'd share it for those interested. It should work equally well on any Epson printer even though it's designed specifically for those with K3 ultrachrome inksets.
Backgrpound: I originally experimented by printing this every other day, then twice per week, and never had a clog so went to 1x per week -- and still had success with no clogs. I've since gone up to 3 weeks between runs and still been successful with no clogs, but my recommendation is to get in the habit of running it weekly -- I personally run it as part of my normal Monday morning "starting the week" routine.
Here's what I do: I first run the nozzle check to be certain the nozzles are clear, and since using this target they always have been! (It's probably not necessary to do this first step, but it's such a joy to see a perfect nozzle check pattern every time you run it ). I print this out on a sheet of standard letter size printer paper (read cheap), and then print the image from my printing program having it manage color. I use the same sheet I printed the nozzle pattern on and use Epson's Premium Luster paper base setting and canned profile. Of course the colors won't match the display image since it's just plain printer paper, but that's not a concern since all we're wanting to do is suck some of each ink through the nozzles. The Premium Luster paper base setting calls a little more ink than most of the other Pk papers, so why I choose it.
Oh, the image is a set of 10 1-inch squares that are predominantly the same color as the 10 loaded Epson K3 UC inks, and of course all fits well inside a regular letter sized sheet of paper.
Dropbox link to the 15MB tiff file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8029401/Nozzle clear.tif
Backgrpound: I originally experimented by printing this every other day, then twice per week, and never had a clog so went to 1x per week -- and still had success with no clogs. I've since gone up to 3 weeks between runs and still been successful with no clogs, but my recommendation is to get in the habit of running it weekly -- I personally run it as part of my normal Monday morning "starting the week" routine.
Here's what I do: I first run the nozzle check to be certain the nozzles are clear, and since using this target they always have been! (It's probably not necessary to do this first step, but it's such a joy to see a perfect nozzle check pattern every time you run it ). I print this out on a sheet of standard letter size printer paper (read cheap), and then print the image from my printing program having it manage color. I use the same sheet I printed the nozzle pattern on and use Epson's Premium Luster paper base setting and canned profile. Of course the colors won't match the display image since it's just plain printer paper, but that's not a concern since all we're wanting to do is suck some of each ink through the nozzles. The Premium Luster paper base setting calls a little more ink than most of the other Pk papers, so why I choose it.
Oh, the image is a set of 10 1-inch squares that are predominantly the same color as the 10 loaded Epson K3 UC inks, and of course all fits well inside a regular letter sized sheet of paper.
Dropbox link to the 15MB tiff file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8029401/Nozzle clear.tif