On Behalf Of David Preutz > I can understand that Epson engineers when designing the bit > of kit decided that when switching off, the heads park onto > the pads etc thus stopping them drying out.
Indeed. So what if you don't make a print for 5 minutes, or 10 minutes... Or two days? Surely Epson will have decided that they can not know when the next print will be made, so it is safest to cap the head whenever a print job is completed. Physically the head is capped whenever the printer is at it's home position. I believe the noises that most printers make after a print indicate that a small vacuum is also created at this time to assist in the sealing process. Plus of course, 'Energy Star' devices pretty much have to switch themselves off anyway to conserve energy after a certain amount of time unused. > Seems to make sense to me. (Although, whether has this anything to do with > additional ink being spent as the machine goes through the > restart cycle when switched on thus requiring you to visit > your cartridge supplier on a more regular basis & get yer > cheque book out - who knows?) Certain printers (e.g. Epson 1160) run longer cleaning cycles depending upon how long the printer has been off, or unused for. Whilst only based on the timings of these shenanigans, there does not appear to be any particular advantage in switching off or otherwise. The printers must store a certain amount of timing and ink level data on-board. > So,out of idle curiosity and not knowing the mechanics of the > printer, what is the basis Nigel's recommendations for > chipped cartridges / CIS systems being left on and how do > they differ from the OEM ones? Because when the cartridge chips identify themselves as full, the printer runs an extra-thorough 'priming' cycle which will use more ink. At the end of the day, anyone can have their own perspective on how they run their printer. YMMV and all that. Best Regards, Nij Nigel Rheam www.mwords.co.uk Digital Fine Art =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
