Seven Years....

My 7900 is seven years old, as of a couple of days ago. This wouldn't be interesting except it seems seven years is approaching the typical end-of-life for these things. Of the people I know who have had x900 and x980 printers, none has maintained a working machine very much beyond its seventh birthday. The sample size is small, but beyond those few reports, there's ample evidence on various forums that seven years is a pretty good life for these models.

My printer has been inactive lately. My "print studio," the room in which the printer lives and where I do my matting and framing, suffered a water leak back in July, an event about which I wrote for the articles section of my Web site. The article includes a few photos of the damage. Here it is 1 November, and the final part of the restoration, the painting of the repaired ceiling, is just now being completed. I hope to get the last coat of paint on tomorrow.

The printer has been powered down and stored in a clean, dry space while the sheetrock work, with it's "mudding," sanding, and spraying of texture were completed. This weekend I expect to return the 7900 to its place, along with all the other "stuff" that belongs in that room.

I've had a recurring problem with the machine most of the summer: every time I start it and run a nozzle check, more than half, sometimes all, of LLK is missing. Every time but one a standard cleaning of the Y/LLK pair cleared the problem and I then printed as usual. Once when that didn't work, a "powerful" cleaning did. I should mention that at last check LLK was at around 20% capacity, so it's not an issue of low capacity (which I've seen, too).

This sort of thing has happened with other channels, and a new ink cartridge solved the problem. To that end I've ordered a new LLK, which will be here before I'm ready for it. That may resolve the issue. If not, it could be the capping station, or any of the many components between the ink cartridge and the head.

I need to make a couple of prints, which I should be able to do early next week. I'll post here with the results of the new LLK.

  --Jay