Piezography® Install procedures for Pro 7800-9800 / 7880-9880

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.

Use of flush cartridges with the 7800/9800/7880/9880 printer

The use of flush cartridges is suggested and recommended when switching to Piezography Neutral K7 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 K7 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. The yellow position is where the lightest shade 7 is installed. Shade 6 which is just marginally darker is installed in the light magenta position. On very old printers which will have deposits of color pigments in the dampers, a yellow and magenta cast in the highlights and 1/4 tones will be present for awhile without the use of flush carts. So weigh the costs of flushing with PiezoFlush (which will easily resolubize old pigments) or flushing with or printing out with Piezography ink to eliminate the initial color cast.

Items needed to have on hand when changing inks

A set of ink cartridges; a set of flush cartridges (if used); an eighth cartridge, either ink or flush fluid for the Photo Black slot; a spare maintenance tank (available through Epson), or a large format cartridge and waste tank chip resetter; The black position “draining” cartridge that came with your printer may be needed, depending on your situation (see below).

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

Depending on whether the black position cartridge of your installed Epson ink set is Matte Black or Photo Black, you will need to follow different procedures for switching the printer over to Piezography K7 inks, as described below:

• If your installed Epson ink set contains a Photo Black Cartridge, then you will run an "Initial Fill" cycle to install the K7 inks.
• If your installed Epson ink set contains a matte black cartridge, then you will run two cycles. You will first run a "black ink change" cycle to convert your printer so that it  accepts the Piezography photo black-chipped shade #1 cartridge, and then you will run an "initial fill" to complete the installation of the K7 inks in your printer.

Steps to changing ink in your printer. Determine which ink change sequence you will need to follow:

• If your printer contains an Epson Photo Black cartridge initially, follow the "Initial Fill" cycle, Procedure A, below.
• If your printer has an Epson Matte Black cartridge installed, follow the "Black Ink Change" cycle first, followed by an "Initial Fill" cycle, described in Procedure B, below. The Black ink change cycle converts your printer to accept a Photo Black cartridge, and the subsequent "Initial Fill" cycle allows you to fill your printer with Piezography ink.

Ink Change Procedure A: Initial Fill cycle. Use this cycle when either:

Your printer initially has a Photo Black Epson cartridge in it, or you have just completed the "Black Ink Change" cycle, outlined in Procedure B, below, and your printer now has the Piezography Shade #1 cartridge installed in the black cartridge slot, and Epson cartridges installed in all other slots.

1. Test your printer with Epson ink: print and evaluate nozzle check patterns and test images. Look for missing or misplaced lines in the nozzle check pattern, and examine your prints for potential banding problems, which will appear as unintended light or dark lines running through parts of your image. Fix any printer problems you may find, before you proceed to the next step. Note that if you have a brand new printer, you must install your Epson ink cartridges, including a Photo Black cartridge, in order to run these tests. Please follow the instructions in your printer manual for information on how to do this.
   
   
2. Turn the printer off, remove the Epson ink cartridges and install the Piezography K7 ink and the PiezoFlush cartridges into the slots of the printer matching the color name on each cartridge. If your printer already contains a Piezography Shade #1 cartridge, from a Black Ink Change cycle you just ran, leave that cartridge in place, but replace all the others. Close the ink levers.
   
   
3. While the printer is off, press the Enter, Down arrow and Right arrow buttons on the printer’s control panel. Turn the printer on and continue holding these buttons until the printer starts in "Self Testing" mode. Release the three buttons.
   
   
4. Press the Down arrow button several times until the word "Cleaning" appears on the LCD screen on the printer. Press the Right arrow button to display "Std. CL1" shows on the screen. Press the Down arrow button until "Init Fill" (initial fill) is displayed. Press the Enter button as directed on the printer, to begin the initial fill process.
   
   
5. Follow the instructions on the LCD screen to complete the Initial Fill cycle. After it completes, turn the printer off and back on, to exit the "Self Testing" mode.
   
   
6. Print a nozzle check pattern, in "Manual" mode. (Do not use the automatic nozzle check pattern utility). A correctly printed nozzle check pattern will contain seven gray sections and one pink-colored section. The lightest shades of the K7 inks are very faint, and their nozzle check patterns may be difficult to see. However, if you can see them, then they are correct.

Ink Change Procedure B: Black Ink Change Cycle. Use this cycle if your printer initially has an Epson Matte Black ink cartridge installed. This is the first part of a two part procedure.

1. Test your printer with Epson ink: print and evaluate nozzle check patterns and test images. Look for missing or misplaced lines in the nozzle check pattern, and examine your prints for potential banding problems, which will appear as unintended light or dark lines running through parts of your image. Fix any printer problems you may find, before you proceed to the next step. Note that if you have a brand new printer, you must install your Epson ink cartridges, including a Matte Black cartridge, in order to run these tests. Please follow the instructions in your printer manual for information on how to do this.
   
   
2. Turn on the printer, and allow it to start up. When the LCD panel displays "Ready" press the Right arrow button. 3.      
   
   
3. Press the Down arrow button until you see "Maintenance" and then press the Right Arrow button. 4.      
   
   
4. Press the Right arrow button until "Bk Ink Change" (Black Ink Change) is displayed. Press the Right Arrow button. 5.      
   
   
5. Press the Enter  button to execute the Black Ink Change cycle. Follow the instructions in the Epson printer manual, and on the LCD display of the printer, with one modification: when the printer asks for the new black cartridge, insert the Piezography K7 Shade #1 ink cartridge. During the Black Ink Change procedure you will also be asked to remove four cartridges and place Epson "conversion" cartridges in three of the slots. When the printer instructs you to remove the conversion cartridges and replace them with their original cartridges, DO SO. Do not yet install the Piezography K7 cartridges in any of the slots except for the Shade #1 (black) slot. 6.      
   
   
6. After the Black Ink Change cycle completes, your printer will be converted to a Photo Black printer. Your printer will have the Shade #1 Piezography cartridge installed in the black slot, but Epson cartridges will still occupy all other slots. You must now run the "Initial Fill" cycle, described above, to complete the ink conversion, starting with step number 2 in the process (in other words, do not re-test your printer with Epson inks).

* 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.
  

Troubleshooting guide, and additional information

Have enough ink and flush fluid in your cartridges and enough empty space in your maintenance tank, before you begin. As mentioned above, you cannot terminate a procedure once you begin it, and the printer will stop until you replace empty cartridges or a full maintenance tank.

Color Cast in your prints. If you continue to see a color cast in your prints after installing the new inks, particularly a yellow or magenta tint to your prints’ highlights, try cleaning your printer’s capping station, which will help to remove all traces of color from your printer. This link describes how to clean your capping station, and it explains what the capping station is: www.piezography.com/support/printhead_cleaning_tips.htm#capping. If this procedure does not fix the color problem, run one or two normal print head cleaning cycles to push out any remaining color ink in the print head or capping station. In most cases, cleaning the capping station fixes this problem.

Problems printing a perfect nozzle check pattern. You should be seeing a perfect nozzle check pattern, but if you are not, again consider cleaning your capping station, to help remove the buildup of waste ink that may be preventing your print head from working perfectly. Cleaning your capping station is definitely important if you see that your nozzle check pattern gets worse, as you run more and more print head cleaning cycles. www.piezography.com/support/printhead_cleaning_tips.htm#capping.

Note about the nozzle check pattern printing utility: your printer offers both automatic and a manual nozzle check pattern capabilities. Do not use the automatic feature, because the printer will reject the pattern, even when it is perfect. This is because the printer is designed to measure specific colors in these patches, and now that you have removed the color ink from your printer, it will no longer work. Use the manual nozzle check pattern utility instead.

Pre-made media curves provided by Piezography for 7800 - 9800 printer model

Pre-made media curves provided by Piezography for 7880 - 9880 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