Last week Epson released a new firmware update in the UK and Australia for the 79/9900 printers.  Those in other markets could either download from the UK or Australian Epson sites, or use the Epson Printer Utility which would also find the update and install it.  After installing, the printer should show firmware version HN01699.

Initially there was no documentation, and little was said as to what was changed.  Epson Australia has since released a document that describes the changes in the firmware.  There are 3 key changes in the Auto Ink Detection and Auto Nozzle Check functionalities.

First, the AID (auto ink detection) system has been improved to provide more accuracy.  On some printers nozzle cleanings are frequently occurring despite printed nozzle patterns which appear perfect.  This should help with that as well as make other printer functionality more reliable - assuming your AID system is not actually faulty.

The second key change is the functionality that occurs if you choose to set ANC (Auto Nozzle Check) to off in the setup menu.  Prior to this firmware update, disabling ANC simply prevented nozzle checks before printing a print but had no affect on any other times the printer performed auto nozzle checks, such as after finishing a nozzle cleaning cycle.  A faulty or over sensitive AID system would then continue to clean, which could result in large amounts of wasted ink.  Now if you disable Auto Nozzle Checks in the setup menu, it actually disable the auto nozzle checking for almost all functions, meaning it is up to the user to monitor the nozzles with printed nozzle checks and manual cleans.  The only time it will do a nozzle check if  ANC is set to off is after the initial printer fill and after a black ink swap.  (I’m not sure why they left it in there for black ink swaps ... should have disabled that one too).  Most importantly this means the printer will no longer do a nozzle check after performing a clean if this option is set to off.

The third change is a new menu, Auto Cleaning Times, which has been added to the maintenance menu (which you access by holding the pause button down when you start the printer).

This menu allows you to change the printers action when Auto Nozzle Checks are enabled. (note that if you choose to disable ANC as mentioned in the previous paragraph, this setting is irrelevant since no auto nozzle check’s will be performed before printing.)

Prior versions of the firmware would perform a nozzle check after each clean. If there were failed nozzles, the printer would attempt to clean again, repeating the process up to 3 times.  If after 3 cleans the AID system still detected faulty nozzles, the printer would provide an error message indicating cleaning had failed and ask if the cleaning process should be repeated.  This new menu gives you two other options.  It is important to note that option 3 now is the equivalent of the prior versions action and is NOT the default.  The other two options now available to you are ....

1. 1.When Auto Cleaning Times is set to 1, if the AID system discovers a problem when performing a nozzle check before printing, it will provide a message on the LCD indicating there were clogged nozzles, but then continue to print - THIS IS NOW THE DEFAULT
   

2. 2.If set to 2 and the AID system detects a clog when performing an ANC, the printer will execute a “cleaning cycle appropriate for the level of blockages detected”*.  It will then perform another nozzle check and if there are still clogs, it will provide an informational message on the LCD, and then continue to print.
   

*(I find the language intriguing ... and hopefully meaningful.  Does this mean if the printer finds 2 colors clogged it will execute two separate channel cleans, and not an entire head clean?  I have no way to verify this, but to me this would represent a “cleaning cycle appropriate for the level of blockages detected”)

Personally I have a problem with the decision to let the printer go ahead and print once clogs are detected.  Not much point in that, with this printer output expectations are so high I can’t image allowing the printer to complete a print if there are blocked nozzles .. at least without knowing how many and which colors are clogged.  This isn’t logical ... it should at least ask you if you want to continue or abort printing.  So something that could be terrific is probably pretty much useless. 

My biggest concern is it appears all of Epson's attention is on the AID/ANC systems, and not trying to understand why this printer (which was supposed to be the best in regards to clogging) appears to be a step backwards from the 78/9880 series.  I’m OK with my second printer, but only because of the steps I’ve taken to prevent massive and unnecessary cleaning.  I’m not OK with how often I actually have to spend time cleaning it, even though it doesn’t take that much ink anymore. The bottom line is the printer almost always needs something cleaned when powering it on and this is true for a great many users.  These “clogs” are not typical Epson clogs ... for example several times now my printer has had 100% of the cyan channel clogged when I start it up, with all other colors being perfect.  A simple CL1 of that channel is all that is required to clear up this problem.  How does every single nozzle get clogged in a couple of days when powered off, yet not one single nozzle of any other color get clogged? How can you clear all of them with such a low volume cleaning cycle?  Then today, the printer showed every color clean except about 50% of the cyan channel was clogged.  I wasn’t in service mode and when ahead with a channel clean on the cyan/magenta channel.  Afterwards, the cyan channel was fine, but 100% of the light cyan channel was now “clogged”.  Huh?

Something else is going on ... air bubbles, head not sealing tight enough, perhaps the new pump assembly has a problem (I’ve heard they went from multiple pumps in the 11880 to a single pump design in the 79/9900’s)... I don’t know, but the real issue here is excessive and odd clogging problems.  Yes these changes may make it better if you want to manually manage the situation, but they wouldn’t be necessary if the printer clogged as infrequently as my 3800 or 11880.

(I finally decided to call Epson, and the tech agreed completely that losing an entire channel like this isn’t normal, and told me it sounded like a pressurization issue.  They are going to send a tech to take a look at it, and she was concerned when I told her many users seem to be experiencing similar “unusual” clogs.  She said she was going to escalate this to the support management team, and they would review it and may want to call me back.  Here’s hoping someone will listen...)

So does the firmware update help?  Does it change anything?  The new Auto Cleaning Times menu appears to be pretty useless ... if I have a clog I at least need the opportunity to print a nozzle check to see how serious the clog is.  I certainly can’t let the printer go merrily forward only to find out the entire cyan head is clogged so I just wasted ink, paper and time when the printer knew there was a problem.  Give me an opportunity to resolve it or at least understand how serious it is.

This means the only good option is to continue manually controlling the process.  If disabling ANC actually disables it after cleaning cycles, then setting ANC to off is an acceptable option and a nice change.  This means what you get when you choose this is what you expect to get, and you can print nozzle checks and control which heads get cleaned just like you can when using service mode. Using the service menu cleans still offers the greatest control since it gives you access to a CL1 clean which appears to use less ink that normal cleans in normal mode.  However, the normal cleans may only use slightly more ink, and since you can do a single channel clean without fear of continued cleaning from auto nozzle checks you have complete control of when and what gets cleaned ... something that before was only available using service mode.  So I’m going to try using standard mode and disabling ANC for a while.

As far as black ink swaps I still recommend doing those in service mode and then manually checking the nozzles.  The printer will still perform a nozzle check if done in standard mode, and nearly every user reports the printer cleans almost every time when it switches.  The only way to make sure the printer is only cleaning when it needs to is to use service mode to switch, and then printing a nozzle pattern.  I’ve only done a black ink swap twice, and I found a normal clean didn’t remedy the problem either time but in fact it made it worse - a CL1 cleared it up both times.

As a final note regarding the challenges with cleans, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence that aggressive cleans actually aggravate the “clogging” problems causing increase in failed nozzles quite frequently, requiring repeated cleanings.  Hey Epson .... what’s up with that?