Ink Bay Door, Again

Early this week, at a time when the 7900 was not in use, I noticed the machine was awake, light from its LCD glowing through the machine's cover. I'd not used the printer in several days.

The message on the LCD indicated the left ink bay door was unlatched. And it was. This has happened twice before (noted here, and most recently, here), both times with the left bay door. The printer has not been moved, bounced, rattled, or otherwise agitated, we've had no earthquakes lately. There's no external reason the door should unlatch.

I have to assume there's an issue with the locking pin (or its solenoid). Perhaps the pin is a bit shorter than nominal, or the solenoid (or whatever actuator is used) is slightly out of optimal alignment. Or, there's a ghost in the machine.

In any case, I've found the left bay door unlatched three times since April, 2013.

Simply pushing the door fully closed solves the problem. The LCD returns to its normal status display, and the machine goes to sleep as it should.

  --Jay

The End of Ilford?

I can hardly believe it's been nearly two months since my last posting. An injury and brief hospital stay are part of my excuse, but just a tiny part (I'm on the mend). December was quite busy for me. I was fortunate to have several printing jobs, including one for more than 30 prints on mat paper. This was a very interesting job for a client who'd been hired to do a series on underground street racing in Havana, Cuba. He sorted through 20,000 raw files, brought me a few to work up in Photoshop, and then print. Cool stuff. I also had a couple of commissions for prints of my own work, followed by a couple more contract jobs after the first of the year. The 7900 did what it does in its usual way. Mostly it "just worked". I did have a couple of start-ups with stubborn clogs, but the usual cleanings or powerful cleanings resolved those. All's well with the printer, now several months past its second birthday.

The printer still has its original maintenance cartridge. That has finally dropped below 10% capacity, but I suspect that's still adequate for several months of normal use.

This posting on the Luminous-Landscape forums once again reports the demise of Ilford, or at least, the Ilford that produces the Gallery Prestige Fibre Silk (formerly Gallery Gold Fibre Silk, or GGFS) baryta paper. Ilford has been struggling for some time, and making bizarre business decisions during this period. They've reduced the sheet count in the boxes, raised prices to make up for that, and they've eliminated the plastic bags that had protected, at least a little, the paper from the inside of the carton. This has long been my favorite paper, but I've received enough damaged product, and have mainly stopped buying it.

My most recent purchase was of a 24-inch roll of GGFS, which was beautifully packaged by the supplier (IT Supplies), and arrived here in perfect condition.

Looking about for a replacement, I sampled Canson's Infinity Baryta Photographique. As you'll see in the LuLa postings linked above, consensus is that the Canson and the GGFS are extremely similar. My own experience confirms that. The papers are not quite identical, but if I print the same image on both, put them aside for a week, and then give them a look, I can't tell which paper is which. Close enough.

The Canson is also packaged in a more rational way, with the sheets being inside a plastic bag inside the carton. And finally, the Canson has been, so far, just a bit less expensive.

We'll see where this goes. I have a pretty decent inventory of the Ilford, but even if supplies are available for a while, I'll likely be buying the Canson as needed.

--Jay

Mac Driver Version 9.17 is Back

I noticed today Epson (U.S.) has once again posted the 7900 Macintosh driver version 9.17. This version is larger (87.1 megabytes vs. 76) than the previously posted (and removed) version 9.17. Like the earlier file, this "new" 9.17 is dated 1 November, 2013. Also like the earlier file, this one is named "epson15900.dmg."

And as with the earlier edition, Epson provides no clue what's changed since the earlier version or its predecessor, 9.04.

I'm having no problems printing with the earlier 9.17 driver with Mac OS X 10.8.5; I won't be changing that. However, I am slowly, as time permits, building up a 10.9 (Mavericks) "clean" system on a separate hard drive. I can boot into either version of the OS as needed.

Since this is my "money machine", I'll continue to get work done with the 10.8.5 system. I've just taken on a photo restoration project that likely will take a week or so. That work, and the printing, will be done on the 10.8.5 system with Photoshop CS6. I'll slowly build up the Mavericks drive, adding and testing my critical applications and utilities one at a time. A bit tedious, but it's my normal process for OS upgrades. It's unlikely I'll do any serious work with the new OS until 10.9.1 is released.

I will probably install Photoshop CC on this new system. TBD.

  --Jay

Mac Driver Version 9.17 Pulled From Epson U.S. Site

In my last two postings I mentioned a new Mac OS driver, version 9.17, from Epson. This replaced the previous version, 9.04. I noticed a couple of days ago that version 9.17 had been removed from Epson's U.S. site. Version 9.04 is once again the current version.

I emailed Epson's support:

A few days ago I found OS X driver version 9.14, dated 1 Nov 13, on this site (Epson, U.S.) I downloaded and installed it. Checking now, I see that version is gone, and the previous release, 9.04, is shown. What's up? Was 9.17 pulled? Is there a problem with that? Should I uninstall and return to the older version?

This morning I received a response:

Dear Jay, Thank you for contacting Epson regarding your Epson Stylus Pro 7900. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry. It is ok to run the 9.14 version of the driver. They pulled this version off the site becacue they found issues with it when used with 10.9, the new Mavericks OS. It is ok however with the older systems.

As mentioned in my 8 November posting, after resolving an installation problem I've printed without issues with the 9.17 driver and OS X 10.8.5, Mountain Lion. As long as that continues I'll leave things as they are. I'd not be surprised to see a newer driver from Epson, a bug-fix for whatever issues they found with 9.17 on OS X 10.9, Mavericks.

As always, I waited several days after the new (9.17) driver was posted, giving me time to browse the Web to learn of any issues the early adopters might have had. I found none, so went ahead with the installation. Perhaps I should have waited longer.

  --Jay

Mac Driver (9.17) Installation Follies

For the past couple of weeks I've been making prints every three-to-four days, getting things ready for the holiday season, preparing smaller pieces for local galleries. Nothing interesting to report; when used with some regularity the printer has exhibited zero ink-delivery (clogging) problems.

Having a little time on my hands last evening, I installed the new Mac driver, described in my last posting, for the 7900. I installed simply by running the installer package, which means the new driver installed "over" the previous version (9.04). I've done this with earlier versions without issue. There's nothing on Epson's drivers page to indicate this is a bad (or good) idea. Perhaps, this time, not so good.

Although the Mac almost never requires a reboot, after the driver installed I rebooted. I then launched Photoshop CS6 (I haven't drunk the CC Kool-aid yet, but likely will before the end of the year). I opened a random jpeg and printed. I'd no intention of printing that file; I simply wanted to have a look at the PS print set-up dialog to see if there were obvious changes. There were:

I found garbage characters in the labels (captions) for many of the drop-down lists, and unpopulated (blank) drop-downs. Most of the drop-down lists for things like selecting a profile, setting the paper size, etc. didn't respond to mouse clicks. And then Photoshop crashed (exited). The OS wanted to let Apple know about it, and then an Adobe dialog wanted to let Adobe know.

I rebooted, repeated the test, this time with a .psd instead of a jpeg. Same result.

To resolve the problem, I removed the printer from OS X's printers control panel. I then followed Epson's instructions (posted on the driver page) to remove the driver. After rebooting, I ran the same installer package that started this mess. Printing has worked perfectly since. No odd behavior, and no obvious differences, beyond the displayed driver version number.

This wasn't a terrible hassle, but it took a bit of my time to sort out. Since I've still no clue what changes version 9.17 introduces over 9.04, I may have been better off doing nothing, keeping the older version. Your experience may be different (better, I hope).

For the record: 2008 Mac Pro (3,1) with dual quad-core 2.8 GHz processors, OS X 10.8.5. Photoshop CS6 with all updates. The 7900 has the latest firmware.

  --Jay

Mac Driver Update, to 9.17

Epson's U.S. Web site posted Mac driver version 9.17 on 1 November 2013. I've downloaded it, but have not yet installed it. Other than specifically including Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) in the compatibility list, the U.S. site gives no clue what changes were made since the previous Mac driver update, 9.04, released in September, 2012. I had a look through some of Epson's European sites, as those sometimes provide release notes, or at least a bit more information than the U.S. site.

No luck this time, I'm afraid. If you've found release notes or other comments about the changes, please post them, or a link, in the comments here. Thanks!

  --Jay

Cleaning the Wiper

As mentioned in my last posting, we were away for several days, visiting relatives in Ohio and Michigan. While in MI I spent a morning shooting with a Nikon D700, quite the alien experience for this Canon user.

My 7900 spends most of its time asleep. I leave it powered up; it goes into standby mode after being idle for ten minutes. Since we expected to be away for at least a week, I shut down the printer. This was on 3 October.

While we were away someone called with a photo restoration job. I collected his two pictures a couple of days ago, did the repairs and touch-up, and today made the six prints the client wants. I decided to power up the printer in "service man mode", and then remove the wiper assembly for inspection and cleaning.

The process is very easy. Eric Gulbransen describes it on his X900 site, and includes a link to a video. The wiper from my printer looked fine, but I guessed the sheen on the rubber "blade" was ink. It sure was. A Pec-pad wetted with distilled water came away from the rubber piece looking like a bad bruise. I dabbed and wiped a bit, until the pad no longer picked up any ink. The clean wiper was still somewhat shiny, which is probably the nature of the material. When I reinstalled the part, the printer took some time "sequencing". The process ended with something that sounded and behaved exactly like a cleaning, except that it seemed rather short in duration. When that finished, I printed a nozzle check, which was 100%. I looked at the ink levels and found them somewhat lower than before the process, confirming that a cleaning did happen. I then made the six prints black-and-white prints for the client.

A piece of the Pec-pad used to clean the wiper, showing the accumulated ink.

My 7900 will be two years old next week. I don't mind cleaning the wiper every couple of years. ;-) I should buy a replacement, just to have on-hand.

  --Jay