Table of Contents

Piezography Manual

Epson® Stylus Pro 7800/7800 & 7880/9880 Instructions

How to install and use Piezography ink on the 7800, 7880, 9800, 9880 printers.

Summary

Epson 7880 Printer

Use these procedures to convert your color printer to a Piezography printer. If you are installing a Continuous Ink System (CIS), please refer to the installation instructions provided with the CIS. If you are installing user refillable cartridges, please refer to the installation instructions in the "Support" menu above.

Whether you use refillable cartridges, CIS, or pre-filled cartridges (available outside the USA), the placement of the shades of Piezography ink are critical and not arbitrary. You must refer to the shade placement chart provided here on this document.

Most Piezography systems depend upon the QuadtoneRIP software with which to control the ink shades. Installation instructions and support of that software is provided by the manufacturers of those software. We provide our own guides to our suggested use of QuadToneRIP, so that you can get the best results from that product. Additionally, Piezography on the Mac requires the use of Print-Tool. This software has quickly become a de-facto utility for anyone wanting to properly color manage their printing workflow. A full manual for Piezography can be downloaded with the free Piezography Community Edition.

Printer Testing

Verify that your printer functions perfectly with Epson inks before installing Piezography inks. In addition to printing a perfect nozzle check, make certain that the printer does not have unfixable banding problems by making test prints. Take the time to scrutinize your printer’s performance before the next step. It is not possible to diagnose many printing problems on a printer that has not first been tested with Epson inks. Ideally you should also align your print-head for UniDirectional printing before switching to Piezography inks.

If you are having problems with your printer or print-head, please look at our detailed instructions on how to clean your print head.

Use of flush cartridges is recommended

The use of flush cartridges is suggested when switching to Piezography inks from a non-Epson or non-Piezography ink set, or if you have been experiencing clogging problems with your current ink set. Otherwise, the actual Piezography inks can be used to "flush" out the pre-existing color inks from your printer. If you do not use flush carts, you may need to print some additional media before all traces of color ink have been removed.

Items needed to have on hand when changing inks

A set of ink cartridges; a set of flush cartridges (if used); a spare maintenance tank (available through Epson), or a large format cartridge and waste tank chip resetter.

Note about the maintenance tank: Instead of replacing a full maintenance tank, you may use a large format chip resetter to reset your maintenance tank chip to read empty. It is safe to reset the maintenance tank chip one time; if you wish to do it more than once, periodically check the waste ink level in the tank, to ensure that it does not overfill with waste ink. It is possible to dis-assemble the maintenance tank and replace the filling with some absorbent material. Chip resetters are available on-line. Be sure to purchase one specifically for large format Epson printers.

Ink Change Procedure

  1. Test the printer with Epson inks, and have the necessary equipment on hand.

  2. Make sure your black cartridge chip matches the cartridge you have in the printer no matter what ink you actually have in the Piezography black cartridge. eg: if you have a photo black cartridge in your printer and you are going to print with matte black Piezography ink, make sure you are using a "photo black" chip on your Piezography cartridge. This saves time and money. If you don't have a photo black chip you can carefully pry off the OEM PK chip and place it on your Piezography cartridge. Here are video instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ecF_usso_w

  3. Turn off the printer, raise the ink levers, and remove the remaining Epson cartridges from the printer.

  4. Install the flush or ink cartridges in the printer, and lower the ink levers.

  5. Hold down the Left Arrow, Down Arrow, and Up Arrow buttons simultaneously as you turn on the printer. This activates the Service Menu.

  6. The ink change procedure for this printer is performed using an INITIAL FILL procedure. This option is found in the SELF TESTING > CLEANING menu. Follow the prompts on the LCD screen, and hit the execute button to begin the initial fill.

  7. During this fill sequence, the printer will ask you to raise and lower the levers several times. If you notice ink cartridges disconnecting from their sensors due to the wiggle of the ink levers, carefully and gently place small cardboard shims under the ink cartridges where they go into the ink bay. This will keep them in place during the init-fill procedure. Every once-and-a-while a cartridge chip will not read properly during the initial fill procedure. This can make the printer get stuck in an init-fill cycle (turning the power off does not cancel the init fill). Click here for instructions on how to cancel the initial fill on your printer.

  8. After the initial fill cycle finishes, restart the printer.

  9. If you have just installed Piezography ink, print a nozzle check pattern. If the ink channels are still stained with the original color inks, run a KK2 cleaning cycle to clear out the old inks. The KK2 cleaning option is found in the SELF TESTING > CLEANING menu. After the KK2 cleaning, print another nozzle check pattern. You should find that the color stains are gone and the printer is ready for Piezography printing.

  10. If you have just installed the flush cartridges, turn off the printer, allow it to sit overnight or longer (longer periods of time are not harmful to the printer), and then repeat the above steps to put the ink set in the printer. Allowing the printer to remain filled with flush fluid will help remove residue from the previous ink set.

  11. Important Note: Do not rely on the "automatic" nozzle check cycle when running Piezography inks. The printer does not recognize the ink densities of the patterns and will determine the print head is clogged, even if it is not. Use the "manual" nozzle check cycle instead.

  12. Important Note: Do not rely on the "automatic" nozzle check cycle when running Piezography inks. The printer does not recognize the ink densities of the patterns and will determine the print head is clogged, even if it is not. Use the "manual" nozzle check cycle instead.

Printer Specs & Review

Epson 7880 Printer

The x880s are work horses at Cone Editions Press. We are able to fit 5 side by side in a small area. For our glossy work, we keep a printer dedicated to Gloss Optimizer installed in all of the positions. We run the GO printer at higher speed, and we keep both matte and photo black Piezography inks installed in the 7880s so we can switch between printing matte or glossy without an ink change (this is called P2 printing). Some have an old beat printer with one or more bad heads – and we map these out with a custom curve. These are the best wide-format Piezography K7 printers ever invented.

Compatible Ink Types

CARBON SELENIUM NEUTRAL WARM NEUTRAL SPECIAL EDITION PRO

Ink Position Chart

Cartridge Position
Piezography K7
Piezography K6
Piezography P2
Piezography PRO
Light Light Black
Gloss Overprint (for gloss printing) or PiezoFlush (if NOT printing gloss)
Gloss Overprint (for gloss printing) or PiezoFlush (if NOT printing gloss)
Gloss Overprint
(for gloss printing)
Gloss Chroma Overprint
(for gloss printing)
Light Magenta
Shade #5
Shade #5
Shade #5
Warm: Medium
Light Cyan
Shade #3
Shade #5
Shade #3
Cool: Medium
Light Black
Shade #6
Shade #6
Shade #6
Cool: Light
Black
UltraHDMatte Black or HD Photo Black
UltraHDMatte Black or HD Photo Black
UltraHDMatte Black
UltraHDMatte Black or HD Photo Black
Cyan
Shade #2
Shade #2
Shade #2
Cool: Dark
Magenta
Shade #4
Shade #4
Shade #4
Warm: Dark
Yellow
Shade #7
Flush / Not Used HD Photo Black
Warm: Light
NOTES

* Change black ink for matte or gloss printing. Use “K7" or "HD K6" curves



PiezoDN Compatible

* Change black ink for matte or gloss printing. Use “HD K6" curves.



PiezoDN Compatible

** NO need to change black ink, can also print digital negatives. Use “P2” curves



PiezoDN Compatible

*** Warm and cool split-tone, change black ink for matte or gloss printing, can also print digital negatives. Use “PRO” curves

PiezoDN Compatible

What is the difference between K7, P2, K6, PiezoDN, and Pro?

Storage of previously used ink cartridges

You may wish to remove and save one or more cartridges that you have removed from your printer, for use in the future. If you want to store your cartridges for later use, place the removed cartridges in plastic bags, close the bags tightly to minimize ink evaporation, and place the cartridges in a box so that they sit upright, as they do when they are in the printer. Storing a previously opened cartridge on its side or upside down will allow ink to leak out of the air vent holes. We recommend taping over the vent holes to prevent evaporation. Many of our ink cartridge (large and small) come with vent-hole plugs. Make sure to place these vent-hole plugs back into the cartridge before storage. Make sure to remember to remove them when you want to use the cartridge again though!

Note: On small format cartridges, it is very important that you do not allow ink to touch the air inlet filter. Make sure your cartridges remain upright at all times.

Getting started with Piezography printing and QuadtoneRIP.

Now that you have your inks installed, you must print your images through QuadToneRIP shareware software. It is not possible to achieve good results without using QuadToneRIP. Go hereto download and install QuadtoneRIP for Mac or PC.

We provide a comprehensive user manual for Piezography along with a set of pre-made curves "profiles" for use with QuadtoneRIP and various fine-art inkjet papers. After installing QuadtoneRIP make sure to ask download and install our free Community Editionset of curves and documentation. This will guide you through the process of installing your Piezography printer on both Windows and Mac operating systems so you can print.

Supported Papers

We support an ever evolving list of fine art inkjet papers. You can see the list of officially supported papers here.

Technical Support

We provide free technical support at our forum.We also provide direct paid phone support.Before requesting support please register on our forum and also look through all of the support documents from the "Support" menu above.

Frequently Asked Questions

You may find it very helpful to view our F.A.Q. section for Piezography. This will tell you a lot!

Helpful Links