Maintenance Cartridge Swap

Life with the 7900 continues as usual here. A part of "usual" is printing in batches, that is, I'll print a lot for a week or two, and then have a similar idle period where the machine sits in sleep mode, waiting for a call from my Mac Pro to wake up.

Another part of "usual" is the completely random nature of clogs, or as I prefer to call them, ink delivery issues. A month ago I ran a print job of a dozen or so prints, all in one afternoon. The printer then sat unused for three weeks. (We have a new toy, which has had us on the road perhaps a bit more than usual this spring.) When I started things up for the next print job, the nozzle check showed no issues, and the prints were fine. Three days later I ran the usual nozzle check prior to a print job, and found the VM pattern about half empty. A standard cleaning made it worse, taking out most of the rest of the VM channel. I then ran a "powerful" cleaning of the C/VM pair, which resolved the problem.

Two days later, another print job (a batch of 20 small prints, ten each of two images), and the VM channel was once again half AWOL. I find standard cleanings rarely clear a problem, so I did a powerful clean from the start, which took care of it. I don't know why VM has suddenly become cranky, but it's something I'll keep an eye on.

Prior to that cleaning my maintenance cartridge, the original that shipped with the printer, was at 1% capacity. The cleaning finished normally, and I started making prints. I printed all ten of the first image, and the first two of the second. The sheet for the next print loaded normally, but instead of printing, the 7900's LCD displayed a message indicating the maintenance cartridge must be replaced. The printer would not release the sheet; nothing I could do from the control panel, including the "e-platten" button, would drop the sheet.

Following the manual's instructions, which require powering down the printer, I replaced the cartridge. After powering back up I was able to release the paper sheet. I inserted it again, and printing continued where it had stopped. The remaining seven prints completed without issue.

The original, completely full maintenance cartridge. This weighed about three times what the new, empty cartridge weighed. I assume the cotton pads below the surface row are saturated; disassembly seemed dangerous, so I didn't attempt it.

I got two years and eight months use from the original maintenance cartridge. Time has little to do with the cartridge's life, of course. It lasted through the initial machine set-up, a great many channel-pair cleanings, and a number of PK-MK-PK swaps. Not bad.

  --Jay