So I bought this printer with blackmax ink and accurip. I figured as it was marketed as a professional printer, it would be fast and robust.
So far, not entirely impressed.
Accurip works great. No issues there.
Black max ink - again, no probs. one cartridge leaked all over, which totally sucks, but the rest are dry.
The printer is painfully slow to initialize and print, though. I can literally create a new design on illi whist waiting for the printer to spit out a positive after I hit the print button. Computer is a 27" maxed out iMac with ssd. It's not the computer or connection (4 foot cable). So either accurip or the printer.
I also get ink cartridge errors almost EVERY time I turn on the printer and go to print. Advice online is to change the cartridge. Yeah, great. The ink system alone initially cost me about $900. I have 3 other printers in the same room and a plotter - none have issues (2x inkjets, 1 Sublimation with CSS)
So I eject a cartridge and rub the chip with a shirt. That often sorts it after a few tries. If not, I'll use an alcohol medical wipe and that will also help. So far so good. Well, not good at all, but at least the machine that cost me $5k to buy and import is kinda working.
When nothing works, I'll try to reset the chip with the enclosed chip resetter I got with the black max system. However, I'll give anyone $100 if they can show me how to reliably use it to reset chips. So far, maybe 7 hours of trying and 3 actual resets. I'm a design engineer, so kinda understand electronics and how stuff works. This is literally hit and not even hope.
So today I turn on the printer and get the standard ink cartridge error. Incidentally, it's normally on one of 4 cartridges. This time it was a new one - leaky number 7. So I went through all my procedures and nothing worked. Tried resetting the chip with the resetter I got sent with the kit for 2 hours. Still nothing. Nothing. Of course, the printer won't even accept any jobs now.
I ended up buying a full new refillable system with chips that reset with a simple connection between 2 contacts. Something I could ill-afford when I still have ink in every cartridge and deadlines to hit. I just hope that this fixes the issue and it is not a problem with the ink cartridge chip reader within the printer. If it is, I'll literally trash it with a hammer.
Overall, I have some serious post-purchasing dissonance with this printer. There is FAR too much electronics in it that are designed to make you spend more money needlessly. If they worked, it would be ok - but even with their OE cartridges, they still have failures and you are expected to throw away half full cartridges whenever their system throws a wobbly.
Every other printer I've ever owned (a frikin bunch), prints faster and with less issues. Epson tried to exert too
much control to try and maximise profits. Simply greedy. Also somewhat disappointed I can't easily reset the chips that were meant to be re-settable with the blackmax system I bought. It looks like an Epson 4800 resetter.
Best thing you can do is save yourself a BUNCH of lost time and buy a smaller wide format that has substantially less processing power that will actually print, rather than look for an excuse not to. The idea was to save money and use rolls of film. So far, I'm WAY behind. Especially now I have to give back deposits to customers because we can't hit their deadlines, since my crappy Epson 4900 won't print anything without a "chip error". I'm actually loosing great customers over this - it's damaging my business.
As I said, I have a bunch of other printers and plotters in the same room, all used with the same frequency (2 of them Epson). This is an absolute joke so far.
Any advice or helpful experiences greatfully received. It's going
To take at least a week for my replacements to arrive. Until then, I'm totally F***ed, as we say in the industry.
So far, not entirely impressed.
Accurip works great. No issues there.
Black max ink - again, no probs. one cartridge leaked all over, which totally sucks, but the rest are dry.
The printer is painfully slow to initialize and print, though. I can literally create a new design on illi whist waiting for the printer to spit out a positive after I hit the print button. Computer is a 27" maxed out iMac with ssd. It's not the computer or connection (4 foot cable). So either accurip or the printer.
I also get ink cartridge errors almost EVERY time I turn on the printer and go to print. Advice online is to change the cartridge. Yeah, great. The ink system alone initially cost me about $900. I have 3 other printers in the same room and a plotter - none have issues (2x inkjets, 1 Sublimation with CSS)
So I eject a cartridge and rub the chip with a shirt. That often sorts it after a few tries. If not, I'll use an alcohol medical wipe and that will also help. So far so good. Well, not good at all, but at least the machine that cost me $5k to buy and import is kinda working.
When nothing works, I'll try to reset the chip with the enclosed chip resetter I got with the black max system. However, I'll give anyone $100 if they can show me how to reliably use it to reset chips. So far, maybe 7 hours of trying and 3 actual resets. I'm a design engineer, so kinda understand electronics and how stuff works. This is literally hit and not even hope.
So today I turn on the printer and get the standard ink cartridge error. Incidentally, it's normally on one of 4 cartridges. This time it was a new one - leaky number 7. So I went through all my procedures and nothing worked. Tried resetting the chip with the resetter I got sent with the kit for 2 hours. Still nothing. Nothing. Of course, the printer won't even accept any jobs now.
I ended up buying a full new refillable system with chips that reset with a simple connection between 2 contacts. Something I could ill-afford when I still have ink in every cartridge and deadlines to hit. I just hope that this fixes the issue and it is not a problem with the ink cartridge chip reader within the printer. If it is, I'll literally trash it with a hammer.
Overall, I have some serious post-purchasing dissonance with this printer. There is FAR too much electronics in it that are designed to make you spend more money needlessly. If they worked, it would be ok - but even with their OE cartridges, they still have failures and you are expected to throw away half full cartridges whenever their system throws a wobbly.
Every other printer I've ever owned (a frikin bunch), prints faster and with less issues. Epson tried to exert too
much control to try and maximise profits. Simply greedy. Also somewhat disappointed I can't easily reset the chips that were meant to be re-settable with the blackmax system I bought. It looks like an Epson 4800 resetter.
Best thing you can do is save yourself a BUNCH of lost time and buy a smaller wide format that has substantially less processing power that will actually print, rather than look for an excuse not to. The idea was to save money and use rolls of film. So far, I'm WAY behind. Especially now I have to give back deposits to customers because we can't hit their deadlines, since my crappy Epson 4900 won't print anything without a "chip error". I'm actually loosing great customers over this - it's damaging my business.
As I said, I have a bunch of other printers and plotters in the same room, all used with the same frequency (2 of them Epson). This is an absolute joke so far.
Any advice or helpful experiences greatfully received. It's going
To take at least a week for my replacements to arrive. Until then, I'm totally F***ed, as we say in the industry.
