Mike Chaney's Tech Corner
March 29, 2024, 07:37:24 AM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: Qimage registration expired? New lifetime licenses are only $59.99!
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register  

Professional Photo Printing Software for Windows
Print with
Qimage and see what you've been missing!
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Purge Sheet - Unclog Job Questions  (Read 3241 times)
EricRed
Newbie
*
Posts: 2


View Profile
« on: August 29, 2019, 07:50:45 PM »

I have two questions regarding QImage Ultimate's Purge Sheet (Unclog Job) feature. I've search the forum for these questions without success.

Question 1:
I have an Epson P7000. It has eleven inks, ten of which are used at any one time. When I bring up QImage Ultimate's "Print/Schedule Unclog Job (Purge Sheets) I find eight colors that can be included in the Purge Sheet. It appears Q-Ult does not adjust colors to print to inks available on the printer. Below is a comparison between Q-Ult's colors and the P7000's inks.

Q-Ult Colors      Epson P7000 Colors
  Red                    N/A
  Orange               Orange
  Yellow                Yellow
  Green                 Green
  Cyan/PC             Cyan
                          Light Cyan
  Blue                   N/A
  Magenta/PM        Magenta
                          Light Magenta
  Black/Gray          Mat-Black or Photo-Black
                          Light Gray
                          Light Light Gray

The P7000 does not have Red or Blue ink so I assume those colors should be unchecked. That means to exercise all inks on the P7000, Q-Ult must map six colors to ten inks on the P7000. Of course that is possible, but is that what really happens? I would like to run the Unclog Job regularly and automatically to help prevent clogs. I'm concerned that printing the Purge Sheet will not exercise all ink channels on this high ink count printer, particularly the Light and Light-Light colors, which are not specifically listed on the Unclog Job window.

Question 2:
If you schedule the automatic printing of a Purge Sheet, does Q-Ult need to be running? Is there a background process that keeps the schedule going without the Q-Ult application running? I'd like to set up a purge sheet printing schedule that will run reliably even in the face of reboots. After a reboot does the Q-Ult app have to be reopened and the purge sheet schedule restarted? Would restarting it through a boot time start work? Can Q-Ult be run through a Command Line command?

Thanks for any help.

Eric
Logged
admin
Administrator
Forum Superhero
*****
Posts: 4109



View Profile Email
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2019, 08:11:34 PM »

Hi Eric,

Each "checkable" color has swatches that cover a range of intensities.  For example, cyan covers cyan, light cyan, and light light cyan.  Even if your printer only has cyan, the different intensities are printed to cover all possibilities.  So it's OK to just choose the primary color and the rest will be covered.  One thing to note is that if your printer only uses matte ink when you choose matte paper, in order to exercise both photo black and matte black inks, you'd have to add two unclog jobs to the schedule: one with a glossy type paper selected and a second job where you select matte paper and only check the black ink.  That way the first job will exercise all but the matte black ink and the second job will cover the matte black ink only.

When setting up the scheduler, there's an option to start the scheduler when Windows starts.  That option is on the scheduler screen.  That way each time you boot Windows, QU will start (minimized to the system tray) with the scheduler running.  You do have to leave the computer on if you want the scheduler to print.  The computer cannot sleep/hibernate since in that mode, it is technically "off" but just with the current state saved so it is quick when you power it up.

Regards,
Mike
Logged
EricRed
Newbie
*
Posts: 2


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2019, 09:53:04 PM »

Mike

Thanks for the quick reply.

I was hoping a given color on the Unclog Job page would cover a range tones that would cause different inks to be exercised, but wanted to make sure.

The issue with the matte black vs photo black is a interesting one. I'm under the impression that Matte Black and Photo Black share the same nozzles, so no matter which black is being used, those nozzles are in use.

I never found a definitive statement that said, "the same nozzle are used", but I have seen statements that imply that.  The Epson 7600 definitely used the same nozzles for MK and PK. It actually required you to change the black cartridge and it would flush the ink lines, which used tons of ink.

Switching black on the P7000 takes about three or four minutes depending which way you are going (PK->MK vs MK->PK). I read it is only flushing the head. It still takes some ink, but small amounts, I read about 5ml from MK->PK and 3ml from PK->MK.

Long story short, it really seems MK and PK use the same nozzles, so if clog prevention is the goal, it doesn't matter which black you are using. I'd be interested if that isn't true. I'll have to rethink what I'm doing.

I completely missed the "Start Scheduler on Windows Reboot" check box. That's good news. I have my P7000 network connected and one of my computers runs 24/7 with UPS and automatically restarts if the UPS doesn't doesn't do it. If I'd add a UPS to the P7000, I could be relative assured that the printer would be exercised during extended unattended periods.

Thanks for your help. It's time to buy.

Eric
Logged
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Security updates 2022 by ddisoftware, Inc.