epson printer watcher

[Tudor Caradoc-Davies]

Hi,

I have been using the Epson "printer watcher" to track ink consumption of my 9800. running Win2K.

This is accessed by right-clicking the icon in the task bar, selecting "Show job logs" and choosing the option to save to a cvs file. I import this into a spreadsheet, and I can track usage for every print. Very useful.

In the last few days this option has caused a hang up and the process dies, or succeeds now and then. CPU usage goes up to 99%. I can find no help on this in the manual. The printer is working fine as is the printer status dialog box.

Has anyone struck this problem - and fixed it ?

Thanks, Tudor.

[Tim Gray]

Does this track cleaning? I keep track from the job log as well, but to get total ink used from job to job I have to print a test sheet - I then deduct the total of the ink usage associated with the different print jobs run and the difference is the cleaning cycle. Is there an easier way?

FWIW on my 4000 over the past year its about 45% cleaning and 55% actual print :( - one power clean cycle about 5 months ago.

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Tim Gray

FWIW on my 4000 over the past year its about 45% cleaning and 55% actual print :( - one power clean cycle about 5 months ago.

That is shocking! what does it represent in costs?

This raises the issue of the economies in the new printers.

How is this experience with different printers?

Asher

[Tudor Caradoc-Davies]

Hi Tim,
I usually try to print at least one job a day on the 9800, and ink usage is about 5-13ml for a 36x24 canvas, works out at about 1-2ml per sq foot.
If the printer does a head clean it uses about 20ml each time, which pushes the ink consumption up to about 4 ml per sq foot for that job.

Overall, in September-October there have been 4 head cleans, which is about 80 ml of the total of just over 200 ml of ink consumed, which is close to your estimate of 45% for cleaning. I have managed to decline power cleans when offered - I think that they are time based or after the printer has been switched off.

Note that my data is not complete due to the printer watcher issue mentioned above.

The good thing is that there have been no clogs (thus far) and superb quality, which is the benefit, and one must accept the price one has to pay for head cleans.

Regards, Tudor.

[Bill Irwin]

Tudor
Nice to see another South Islander here. I haven't had any issues with the print watcher with my 9800 but I do have an issue when I send the files to a spreadsheet - it interprets the date code wrong. What shows as 6/11/05 in the job log (2006, Nov, 5th) of course becomes 6 Nov 2005 in excel. Doesn't make for great record keeping. I can't seem to reformat the date properly.

You mentioned printing every day - does that minimise head cleans? I sound similar to you, ie lower volume, and I find if I don't print for 3 or more days it does a 20 ml head clean as a matter of course. But, like you, in 10 months I have never had a block.

[Asher Kelman]

Bill, can you change the "Date" format option in Excel Preferences then close Excel and when you reopen it, I'd think the dates might come out right!

Asher