I've spent much of late spring and early summer preparing for the three-day outdoor "Arts in the Park" show organized by the Hockaday Museum of Art, in Kalispell, Montana. The show would run July 15, 16, and 17. I'd not exhibited in an outdoor show since 2014. I have a lot of work that's new since then; to prepare I needed to make a number of prints in an array of sizes. This included prints for frames, and also for the 'matted and bagged' pictures that are popular with summer visitors.
It's a juried show and competition is tough, so I was quite happy back in May to receive the acceptance email. That's when the work started.
I determined early on which images I'd display, and the sizes of prints needed. The 7900 performed very well. As is often the case when printing daily or nearly so, I experienced very few nozzle issues. Run these things a lot in the conditions they prefer, and they'll behave nicely.
We did well at the show, and while there I was talked into exhibiting in another show, this one running two days, at the end of the month. To prepare for that I need only print replacements for some of the pictures sold at the Hockaday show, plus a couple more that weren't shown there. I made the first of these prints two days ago, and once again had no problems with the printer. I wasn't so lucky yesterday.
When setting up to print, a nozzle check showed some missing nozzles in PK. This is paired with LK, and my LK was at 1%, so I swapped in a new LK and ran a cleaning cycle on that pair. When I tried to print a nozzle check after the cleaning, the printer's LCD showed this:
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| VLM is installed, and should have about 20% remaining. |
A few days prior to this I'd noted the ink levels in each cartridge, and VLM should have had something over 20% remaining. Nothing I'd done, as described above, touched the VLM cartridge. I opened the right cartridge door, removed the VLM, gave it a shake, reinstalled, and after the inks pressurized checked the LCD. It showed the normal VLM, so I tried again to print a nozzle check. This failed to print and the LCD again showed the "NO CARTRIDGE" message for VLM.
Again I removed the cartridge, and this time I lightly rubbed an ArtGum (tm) eraser on the cart's chip contacts. I reinstalled the cartridge, and have been printing without issue since.
Just for fun I had a "chat" with an Epson support person via their Web site. He suggested this: "Ok, please try pressing the Pause button like 4 or 5 times some what fast then see if the printer goes to a ready state." Of course, by then I'd already used the eraser and the printer was working, so I don't know if following his instructions would have made a difference. In the end he suggested I call their "Professional Printer" support line because they may want to replace the VLM cartridge.
I made the call, explained everything from the start, and was told to buy a new VLM, install it, and see if the problem returns. If it does, it indicates a sensor fault in the printer. If it does not, it points to a failed ink cartridge, which Epson will replace.
Since I need to do a bit more printing for the next show I did order a VLM, which will be here tomorrow. In the meantime I've made more prints and experienced no problems.
--Jay
