Could changing the voltage on old DX4 heads make them last longer?

[StarEpsilon]

I had a thought today.

I was dealing with a DX4 head that was incapable of accurately printing the small dot size. By that, I mean that prints would turn out faded, small details would be altogether missing, or the print would be fuzzy. It got old, it happens. I proceeded to swap it with a new head once I determined that it was unrecoverable.

I don't know much about the electrical aspect of the print heads. But could it be that as the head gets older, it's voltage requirements change? I don't know if lowering or raising the voltage is what would be needed, but I know I've heard people say that aging electronics require different voltage.

What's more, is that the voltage setting is controlled by the head rank, something that the factory determines through a series of tests.

Here's my thought: What if you could prolong the life span of some heads by changing the head rank on the printer?

The issue is that the head ranks are tamper proof. I can't seem to edit the rank at will, because they have to be formatted properly for the printer to acknowledge them. If anybody has any insight as to deciphering those codes, that would be super helpful.

I had another thought. Maybe the solvent heads and the water based heads have different voltage requirements? If so, and if I could compare and test headranks from both of these head types, that would be a good start. I don't know that I'll ever be able to create my own head ranks to get the desired voltage, but I would settle for having a list of a few head ranks I could alternate in between, spanning from those that would provide low, medium, and high voltage.

I use solvent heads. Can anyone give me a head rank for a water based head?

 

[Solventinkjet]

I can't help you out too much as Epson keeps information on exactly how the head ranks work guarded. I can tell you that there was an Epson machine that used 3 DX4 heads and on each of the heads there were 3 head rank stickers stacked on each other. The first sticker had the most letters and numbers on it and was for pigment inks. If you took the first sticker off, the second one had fewer letters and numbers on it but if you compared it to the first sticker, it was just the first 33 numbers and letters from the first sticker and it is meant for dye inks. If you take the second sticker off, the third one has the exact same numbers and letters as the second one except 14 of the letters and numbers are replaced by dots. That head rank is meant for solvent inks. So the water based and solvent heads actually are related in how the head ranks work except the solvent ones require less numbers and letters.

If you figure out how to decipher the head ranks let us know about it! It is my opinion that the head rank does not matter as much on solvent heads as it does on the water based ones.