Epson R1900 Printer

My new printer came on the 11Th of this month and was a joy to setup and use. I made some spectacular prints, about a dozen until I started to notice parallel rows of white dots that matched the output wheels, the spiked wheels that catch the paper and provides ejection. The wheel sets can be easily removed on Epson printers and the R1900 is no exception, done without success, reunited and the famous "Pizza Wheel Effect" continued and got worse.

I called Epson and talked to a tech and printed some of my paper for about an hour. He guided me through some Photoshop manipulations I didn't know about. He slowed down the paper feed and changed the ink settings but to no avail. In the end he declared that the printer was "b rk een>" either mechanically or hardware. Isn't that the same?

Send it back. Shipping label provided, I only have to re-box it and take it to the FedEx store. With all of the testing there was only a half level in the black. The ink goes faster than my Dodge Ram truck goes through gas. OHHH I heard on the other end....weeere out of them so you will get a credit on your card in two weeks after we get the printer back. So I have two or three weeks to consider what printer to get to make some digital negatives.

I was going to start printing negatives this last weekend and drove down to Glaziers in Seattle but they were out of ohp film. Maybe an omen I don't know.

I need some space now and time to think.

Curt

Curt said:

The wheel sets can be easily removed on Epson printers and the R1900 is no exception, done without success, reunited and the famous "Pizza Wheel Effect" continued and got worse.
Curt

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What happened when you removed the pizza wheels? What paper were you using (surface & weight)? My R800 started having feed problems as soon as I removed the wheels so I left them in my R1800. I don't get the marks on Arista/Inkpress/Pictorico, but do see them occasionally on other films. I don't recall ever seeing the marks on paper prints (but I print mostly on matte paper). The Epson desktop printers are not terribly consistent from unit to unit, and there are really no adjustments to speak of. The pizza wheel design is just another reason I consider these talented toys -- even the "professional imaging" 3800 has this problem. And the 3800 has other issues: I don't get pizza wheel marks if I use the front loader, but unless I tape the OHP to a heavy backing like cardboard or mat board, it will consistently misfeed. Success with digital negs requires a lot of perseverence

What a bummer Curt.

I feel your pain. Sounds like you tried several of the more common 'pizza wheel' fixes. As I recall some people also found that lightly sanding down those pointy little wheels worked. My previous printer, HP B9180, had the problem with some papers. So I invested a lot in paper testing and found the Innova Fibre papers worked well.

And yes, the printer can really eat those little ink cartridges quickly, big motivator for my purchase of a 3800. But you'll quickly learn which ones drain the fastest and keep a stock on hand.

My local art supply store also carries the OHP, so you may want to call around.

Hope your new printer is pizza wheel free. Sounds like you at least got some good prints out of it before its demise. I read that when they are working, the R1900 can really produce an outstanding print.

I have a 1400 and do not experiance the wheel problem that you have. I too have small carts, but use the Eboni6 black inkset. Having 6 shades of black makes the 'black' last much longer. I never missed printing in colour. Epson still has them, if you still find the 3800 a bit daunting on price.

I heard the 3800 doesn't have the wheels but uses a "suction" for the ejection of the paper/film. Suction works with printing presses. The 3800 might be a better choice??? I'm still working on this. Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

Curt

mrred said:

I have a 1400 and do not experiance the wheel problem that you have. I too have small carts, but use the Eboni6 black inkset. Having 6 shades of black makes the 'black' last much longer. I never missed printing in colour. Epson still has them, if you still find the 3800 a bit daunting on price.

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I was really tempted to go with a smaller printer and one of the pieziograph carbon ink sets. But I read that they didn't stick well to the OHP. So I would be curious, have you tried your Eboni inks on OHP for digital negatives?

Curt said:

I heard the 3800 doesn't have the wheels but uses a "suction" for the ejection of the paper/film. Suction works with printing presses. The 3800 might be a better choice??? I'm still working on this. Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

Curt

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It looks like my 3800 has the little pointy wheels too, at least where I can see them. It may have a suction device internally, I don't know. You can adjust the for the thickness of the paper to reduce the pressure, although I have not needed to do that.

I got the 3800 even though it was considerably more because it comes with around $500 worth of ink and the cartridges are BIG. Certainly feels like I'm spending less on ink, but I have not added anything up.

I think once you get a good R1900, you'll be ready to rock-n-roll.

R Shaffer said:

I was really tempted to go with a smaller printer and one of the pieziograph carbon ink sets. But I read that they didn't stick well to the OHP. So I would be curious, have you tried your Eboni inks on OHP for digital negatives?

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I picked up a "SunPrint" kit, to see if getting into any alt process will hold my interest. As in "why buy the real stuff if I will move onto something else 10 mins later".

Just waiting for the sun to give it a try.

Curt,
You may have solved your problem by now but just in case you didn't...
that printer uses pigment inks and you need papers that are compatible with that type of ink. Also, Epson makes cleaning sheets that I have only found directly from them. I have a 2200 printer and at one point I had to clean the wheels. I did that with some thin foam sheet wrapped around a tongue blade and wet with plain rubbing alcohol (70%). If have been doing a lot of printing, I run one of the cleaning sheets through because I suppose that coating or particles from the paper get on the wheels and pick up ink.

Curt said:

I heard the 3800 doesn't have the wheels but uses a "suction" for the ejection of the paper/film. Suction works with printing presses. The 3800 might be a better choice??? I'm still working on this. Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

Curt

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See my earlier post. The 3800 has pizza wheels.

mrred said:

I have a 1400 and do not experiance the wheel problem that you have. I too have small carts, but use the Eboni6 black inkset. Having 6 shades of black makes the 'black' last much longer. I never missed printing in colour. Epson still has them, if you still find the 3800 a bit daunting on price.

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You will almost never see pizza wheel marks when printing on paper, especially matte papers which is what you must be using with Eboni.
I have tried some MIS monochrome ink sets for digital negatives (not recently though) and they didn't work well: insufficient UV blocking and didn't adhere well to the OHPs I used. I got a 1400 to use with MIS ink for B&W printing, so I may revisit this.

mrred said:

I picked up a "SunPrint" kit, to see if getting into any alt process will hold my interest. As in "why buy the real stuff if I will move onto something else 10 mins later".

Just waiting for the sun to give it a try.

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Well cool. Let us know how it goes with the eboni inks on OHP.

pschwart said:

You will almost never see pizza wheel marks when printing on paper, especially matte papers which is what you must be using with Eboni.
I have tried some MIS monochrome ink sets for digital negatives (not recently though) and they didn't work well: insufficient UV blocking and didn't adhere well to the OHPs I used. I got a 1400 to use with MIS ink for B&W printing, so I may revisit this.

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I print gloss all the time, no marks. The author of the inks didn't give a profile for gloss bit it didn't mean it would not work. The QTR makes it work well. No marks, but I also only use Epson papers so far.