Epson Stylus Photo R220 on Linux

Epson printers are generally well supported on Linux. There are two kinds of drivers for this printer on Linux: Gutenprint (previously known an Gimp-Print) and EPSON AVASYS. When I tried the AVASYS driver once, it was difficult to compile and even more difficult to run (I didn't succeed with the latter having received communication error on all my attempts). So I use R220 with Gutenprint and CUPS.

R220 is supported since Gutenprint 5.0.0rc2. Don't forget to install escputil, which is a useful utility providing information about remaining ink amount and allowing to run nozzle test or cleaning from the computer.

I've experienced several problems, some of them are probably driver specific, some are printer specific:

• After loading inkjet cartridges and filling the printer head, light cyan didn't work properly, as was clearly demonstrated on the printer nozzle test pattern. Running head cleaning process fixed the problem, apparently the printer head didn't fill properly at the first attempt.
• Color printing suffers from green cast (black&white printing is OK). I've fought with the problem over a year without success. I ended up buying a cheap scanner color calibration target from Wolf Faust to calibrate my scanner and using it as a measurement device to calibrate the printer using Argyll color management system. It's no easy thing but it gives better results than using default Guttenprint settings or trying to improve the colors by adjusting the settings.
• True borderless printing should work starting from Gutenprint 5.1. In older versions there is always a white stripe at the end of the paper (it had taken a lot of time before Epson told the Gutenprint developers how their printers can print at the end of paper).
• Sometimes there are horizontal stripes on the photos, not very visible, but noticeable in some areas, especially in black&white photos. Perhaps they can be avoided by using higher resolution or changing other settings.

Clogging

A few tips on clog handling with this printer:

• First run the nozzle test to diagnose the situation, e.g. you can run escputil as escputil -n -r /dev/usb/lp0 .
• Cleaning is expensive, repeated cleaning is even more expensive. The first cleaning cycle consumes about 1% of ink from all cartridges, the second cycle about twice as much. Also note Epsons count wasted ink and if it exceeds certain limit during the life of the printer, the printer will refuse to print until the wasting pad gets replaced (and this is not easy).
• It may not be necessary to run many cleaning cycles. If the first cleaning mostly helps but a few jets still remain clogged, switch the printer off for several hours (typically overnight) and then check the nozzles again. Fresh ink contains unclogging substances that need some time to apply.
• Printing with clogged heads doesn't seem to help, it's just ink wasting.

Milan Zamazal <pdm@zamazal.org>
Last modified: 2007-05-25 07:14 UTC.