Piezography® Install procedures for Epson® Pro 4800 / 4880

Preliminary Information

We recommend that you 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 can become more difficult to diagnose many printing problems on a printer that has not first been tested with Epson inks. Of course, it is more complex to do this - so we leave it to your decision. But, when we sell Deluxe kits we include two sets of carts and PiezoFlush and Inks. We realize the expense of this best practice. That is what it is - a best practice rather than a requirement.

Two procedures are listed below for switching your printer from the Epson ink set to the Piezography K7 ink set. You will use only one of the two procedures, and the procedure you will use depends on which black Epson cartridge is in your printer currently; either matte black or photo black. The 4800/4880 printer uses only one black cartridge, and it can be either matte or photo black; however, if you wish to change from one black type to another, you must follow a different procedure than if you are replacing one black cartridge with another of the same type.

The black position (Shade #1) Piezography K7 cartridge shipped with a standard set of inks contains a "Photo Black" chip.

• If your printer currently contains a Photo Black cartridge, then use ink change procedure A.
• If your printer currently contains a Matte Black cartridge, then please use ink change procedure B.

The placement of the shades of Piezography ink are critical and not arbitrary. You must refer to the shade location table provided here on this document. A Piezography system depends upon software with which to control the ink shades. Installation instructions and support of that software is provided by the manufacturers of those software. After installing the QTR software, you can not use the QTR recommended workflow. Piezography uses a proprietary QTR workflow and this is detailed in our Piezography manual. Please follow our workflow so that you can get the best results from our product.

Ink change procedure

Ink Change Procedure A: You have a Photo Black Epson cartridge in your printer and a Photo Black K7 Shade #1 cartridge to install, or you have an Epson Matte Black cartridge in your printer and a (specially ordered) Matte Black K7 Shade #1 cartridge to install.

Note: if you have a photo black Epson cartridge in your printer and a matte black K7 Shade #1 cartridge to install, or if you have a Matte Black Epson cartridge in your printer, and a Photo Black K7 Shade #1 cartridge to install, you must use ink change procedure B, below.

Items needed:

• Epson ink set installed in your printer;
• Piezography K7 ink set for the 4800, in which the K7 Shade #1 cartridge is of the same type as the Epson Black cartridge (both either photo black or matte black), and the Light Light Black (LLK) position Flush cartridge;
• Spare maintenance tank, available from Epson, if yours reads more than 60% full before you begin. You may also purchase a large format "Chip Resetter" (available on the internet), to reset the chip on a full maintenance tank, when needed. After you reset the maintenance tank chip, periodically check the physical level of ink in the tank, to avoid overfilling it with waste ink.

Ink change steps:

1. Test your printer with Epson inks, as described above.
2. With the printer turned on, and "Ready" showing on the printer’s LCD panel, raise the ink cartridge levers, remove the Epson cartridges from your printer
3. Install the Piezography Neutral K7 ink set, as well as the flushing cartridge, into their respective slots. Load the inks according to "color position" of each cartridge. Do not load them according to slot number and shade number. When properly installed the ink cartridges are not sequentially arranged by shade number. Once the cartridges are in the printer, lower the ink cartridge levers.
4. Press the "Menu" button on the printer. The LCD panel will display "Printer Setup."
5. Press the Up Arrow button until you see "Maintenance" on the LCD panel.
6. Press the Up Arrow button until you see "Pwr. Cleaning" (Power cleaning).
7. Press the "Menu" button twice to begin the cycle. Follow the instructions on the LCD panel to complete the power cleaning cycle.
8. Repeat the Power cleaning cycle one to two more times.
9. Print a nozzle check pattern to verify that the color inks have been flushed from your printer. See the comment below on nozzle check patterns on the 4800.

Ink Change Procedure B: You have a Matte Black Epson cartridge in your printer and a Photo Black K7 Shade #1 cartridge to install, or you have an Epson Photo Black cartridge in your printer and a (specially ordered) Matte Black K7 Shade #1 cartridge to install.

During this procedure, you will first run a "black ink change," which allows the printer to accept the K7 Shade #1 cartridge that is differently chipped than the Epson cartridge, and then you will run two or three power cleaning cycles, to push out the Epson ink and fill the printer with K7 inks.

Note: if the Epson black cartridge in your printer is the same type as the K7 Shade #1 cartridge you will install (i.e., both are either Photo Black or Matte Black), you use ink change procedure A, above.

Items needed:

• Epson ink set installed in your printer;
• Piezography Neutral K7 ink set for the 4800, in which the Shade #1 cartridge is chipped differently than the Epson black cartridge, plus a Light Light Black (LLK) position Flush cartridge;
• Spare maintenance tank, available from Epson, if yours reads more than 60% full before you begin. You may also purchase a large format "Chip Resetter" (available on the internet), to reset the chip on a full maintenance tank, when needed. After you reset the maintenance tank chip, periodically check the physical level of ink in the tank, to avoid overfilling it with waste ink.
• Epson Ink Conversion Kit. This kit consists of three special cartridges. It is delivered with a new 4800 printer. If you have lost your three ink conversion cartridges, you may purchase replacements from Epson.

This ink change consists of two parts: first, you will run a "black ink change" cycle to allow the printer to accept the K7 cartridge containing the photo black chip. Secondly you will run two power cleaning cycles to push the color ink out of the printer, replacing it with K7 inks.

1. Test the printer with the Epson inks installed.
2. With the printer turned on, press the "Menu" button on the printer. Toggle through the list with the "Up Arrow" button, until you see "Maintenance."
3. Press the "Menu" button on the printer, and toggle through the list with the "Up Arrow" button, until you see "Bk. Ink Change" (Black Ink Change).
4. Follow the instructions on the printer LCD panel, and in the Epson 4800 manual for running a black ink change cycle, using the "conversion kit" cartridges in the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow cartridge slots.
5. When the printer instructs you to install the new black cartridge, and to reinstall the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow cartridges in your printer, install the entire K7 ink set, including the Shade #1 black position cartridge, and the flush cartridge, into their respective slots in the printer. Match the "color position" of each cartridge to the color position on the printer- do not attempt to install them by trying to match shade number to printer slot number.
6. Once the cycle has completed, your printer is now set to accept the new Photo Black NK7 shade #1 cartridge. The printer is also partially flushed of color inks. To finish purging the printer of the color ink set, and to fill the ink tubes with NK7 inks, run two or three "power cleaning" cycles, as described above in procedure #1.

When looking at a nozzle check pattern on this printer, you may find it difficult to see the patterns of the lighter two shades of ink. The nozzle check pattern for shade #7, the lightest ink is in the fourth position, and for shade #6, the second lightest ink, is in the fifth position. These two positions are difficult to see because the droplets from this printer are so small, and the two lightest inks are so light.

To make it easier to see the entire nozzle check pattern you may do one of two different things:

• Print the nozzle check pattern on an opaque, coated inkjet paper, instead of typing paper, which will make the lightest shades more visible in the nozzle check pattern.
• Run the "automatic" nozzle check pattern cycle. Normally, this cycle is not useful for K7 inks, because the optical sensor in the 4800 will never correctly measure the pattern printed by these inks, and the printer will always conclude that the printer is clogged, even it if is not. However, the pattern used by the automatic nozzle check pattern utility is much easier to see visually, and if you visually monitor the patterns that print, you can use this cycle effectively. The automatic nozzle check pattern utility is found on the printer driver, in the "nozzle check pattern" section of the printer utility. In operation, this cycle prints large rectangular patches for each "color" of ink in the printer. Within the rectangle are smaller rectangles, each printed by one nozzle in the print head.

Start the automatic cycle, and watch the progress of the pattern as it prints. You will clearly be able to see if you have a perfect nozzle check pattern. A missing nozzle will appear as a white smaller rectangle, within the larger rectangle. If you see that you are missing one or more nozzles, allow the cycle to continue: the printer will measure the pattern, and automatically start a print head cleaning cycle. After the cleaning cycle the printer will print another nozzle check pattern, and so on, until either a) the printer is satisfied the printer is working perfectly, or b) the printer aborts the process after printing five patterns.

Remember that the printer will reject even a perfect nozzle check pattern printed by Neutral K7 inks in the automatic mode, and so once you see a perfect array of rectangles, you may press the "abort" button in the printer utility window on your computer, or else hold down the Pause button on the printer to force-quit the sequence.

* Gloss Optimizer is supported with all of the Piezography ink sets and requires the use of either Selenium Shade 1 (a neutral Photo Black) or Warm Neutral Shade 1 (a warm Photo Black). Soon we will only offer one Photo Black to minimize confusion. There are no differences in the use of either Selenium or Warm Neutral Shade 1.

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.

Printing images with Piezography inks and QuadTone RIP software

In order to use these inks correctly, you must print your images through QuadTone RIP shareware. QuadTone RIP contains pre made curves (profiles) to use the correct shades of ink in different regions of a print. It is not possible to achieve good results without using QuadTone RIP. We provide the pre made curves that are included in the download of QuadTone RIP software. Our pre made curves follow this format: K6-2880-HahnGermEtch where K6 is the inkset, 2880 is the dpi setting in the printer, and HahnGermEtch is the paper. A complete list of provided media curves is located below.

• QuadTone RIP is downloaded from this website: http://www.quadtonerip.com
  
  
• Note: Do not use the QTR manual that is part of the QuadTone RIP download. Piezography workflow is quite different.
  
  
• A new comprehensive Piezography workflow guide for QuadTone RIP is found here: The NEW Piezography Manual.
  

Pre-made media curves provided by Piezography for this printer model

Additional Custom media curves are available here: InkjetMall custom K6 and K7 curves

Glossy Curves are available for download here: Piezography Glossy Curves Library