Getting Started

Sunday (23 October) three friends helped me carry the printer down a flight of stairs and place it on the stand I'd assembled earlier. Even with four people, it was a struggle getting the thing down the stairs. There's no shortage of reports on the Web about receiving, uncrating, and setting up these printers; I'll not repeat any of that here, except to confirm that this printer is big and heavy. Once it's on its stand, it's easy to move around. Mine is on a concrete floor, so it rolls easily. Of course, once I have it in its intended location, I don't expect to move it often. It's installed in the same location where my Canon iPF 5000 had been, and plugged in to the same network connection.

A tale of three printers. The 7900 is large. The 17" Canon iPF 5000 is in

front. A typical HP laser printer is dwarfed in the background.

Prior to receiving the printer I'd downloaded the most recent driver, firmware, and other software. I'd also downloaded the collection of manuals and read them. I'd hoped this would give me a good idea of what to expect as I set up the machine.

I spent most of the day completing the set-up, charging the ink lines and head, and installing software on my Mac Pro. When the ink installation was complete the printer ran a nozzle check. When that finished the printer's LCD reported a cleaning error and offered to repeat the cleaning. I selected "No". I ran a nozzle-check print on letter-size plain bond paper. Viewing each color channel's pattern with an 8-power loupe I found no  missing or deformed lines. (Note the nozzle check print shows 10 sets of patterns. The illustration in Epson's manuals shows eleven. Since there are only ten channels in the head, getting a print with eleven patterns isn't possible.)

I installed the most recent printer firmware, dated 6 September 2011 on Epson's site. This is HN028AA 2.10 A000.

Except for setting the time and date, I left all of the printer's settings at their defaults. This includes leaving Auto-Nozzle Check (ANC) on, in its "periodic" mode.

Finally, everything was assembled, installed, charged, and ready. It had been a long day and I was tired. More tomorrow.

  --Jay