It drives me nuts that on a fantastic printer like the Epson 9900- which I recently purchased for Indian Hill Imageworks – that it does not come with a dust cover… the 7880 does, so why not the 9900. On my d’Vinci Fine Art Printer this is not an issue due to the horizontal paper feed but on the Epson printers the paper feed on the top is just asking for dust and dirt to make its way to your print heads. I run a very clean studio but dust, as any knows, is always a problem, especially in the winter months when the air has less moisture.
Solution… Epson makes and starts to offer a cover for the 9900 (better yet would be to include it with the printer!) or I found on the web Digital Deck Covers who made a custom cover for my 9900 out of silver nylon for $179… not cheap, but if it keeps the printer clean than it is a sound investment in my book. Yes, I could have just put a nylon blanket over the printer at night or a large sheet of butcher block paper as I had been doing, but for $5,300 bucks plus ink, I think my investment in this cover make sense, and it looks nice when clients are in my studio.
Figital Revolution 
Stephen, it does seem that for north of $5k, Epson could provide you with a dust cover!
I’ve also ordered covers from Digital Deck Covers, for a Nikon 9000 and an Epson V750. Overall I was pleased, but there were no holes in the rear to allow passage of power and USB/FW cables. I made detailed measurements of the positions of the needed holes and described thoroughly what I wanted, and returned them for modification. What I got back was rough, jagged holes that looked like they were cut with scissors. No turned or fused edges—just ragged holes! At that point, given that the covers were maybe 25-30 bucks each, I decided not to waste further time on the project. Kinda strange. My Imacon 646 came with a custom cover acquired by the previous owner. I’m hopeful its design will mitigate the effect of dust anyway.
There has been a lot of forum chatter about ink clogging problems with the 9900, and constant automatic head cleanings and the like, expending gobs of pricey ink. Any such troubles yourself? Despite these problems, everyone seems to agree that print quality is stunningly good. Are you able to print your thicker mould-made papers in the Epson, or are those only for the DaVinci?
Good review of the Canson paper the other day. I am sorta playing with papers right now myself, trying to standardize a bit. I have a quantity of the Epson Exhibition fiber which is nice, but I’m not sure it’s *the* one. I also like the Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk and the Hahn PR Baryta.
Thanks again for the effort you put into these reviews and blog postings.
My dust cover for my 9900 looks quite nice and seems to do the job but again I wish this was something Epson had included. I have not had a clogging problem on my 9900 but I credit to reasons for that… one the dust cover and 2 I keep very, very clean the paper cutting area and the roll feed area… both of these areas are very prone to dust and will cause a nightmare on the printer… but a quick sweep an no issue. The auto head clean and be disabled (sort of) and I agree that it takes a long time in cleaning but with the above mentioned cleaning processes I find the 9900 to be a fantastic printer with stunning print quality. The Epson 9900 does have the ability to print on thicker media but I have decided to leave that on the d’Vinci and use the 9900 as a “premium” inkjet paper printer and it is best suited for this.
The exhibition fiber by epson is very nice paper but I have heard issues with its long term archival storage… something I will address with Epson tomorrow in NYC.
Cheers-
Stephen