B&W printing

[david_hedley]

I've been using an Epson 1160 for a few years now, and have been very

happy with a combination of this and Lyson inks.

 

Unfortunately I think that my printer has reached the end of its

natural life - there is a stubborn ink clog that I can not remove

(I've tried everything) - and I'm thinking about what might replace

it.

 

What are the good options, for printing up to A3? If I decided to

push the boat out, and go for A3+ printing, what then would be the

printers to look at - a secondhand 3000? I'm not wedded to Epson, and

would happily look at anything that can print monochrome on quite

heavy papers (Lyson soft fine art), to a very high standard without

fuss.

[kaiyen]

Basically, you have to first decide if you want to stick to OEM inks and use a RIP, or go to some kind of quad/hextone inkset. Well, you could do black-only printing as well - I didn't try that long enough to get the results I wanted, but others seem to have.

 

allan

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

I have been printing black only with an Epson 1280 with Epson ink and have been quite happy with the results. I've also used MIS Eboni Black and Quadtone ink set. It also gave nice results but I'm not sure it's enough to make it worth the hassle--basically requiring a ink change out when I want to do color.

[jim_a]

David,<P>

 

I thought you might be interested in this portion of a letter a friend sent to me.<P>

 

Jim<P>

 

As you might have known I have a 1160 that is very resistant for cleaning or getting good nozzle checks. I bought this one used and it came in very bad shape. But I was able to restore it except for difficulty in getting good nozzle checks.

<P>

Last night I used an extreme measure. I should have used just pure ammonia but I used something else for lack of it. I found a left over bottle of Kleen-Strip, a water-based paint brush cleaning and reconditioning that works by softening latex or oil paint on brushes. Since I was just about to toss the printer into the trash or save it for parts I did the forbidden: I injected this fluid full strength into the head inlets and let it soak overnight.<P>

 

Lo and behold, this thing really clears up the jets. Cleaning now is very easy. I suspect the encapsulation in modern pigment ink is made of some sort of acrylic or polymer which is dissolvable in ammonia. Over time this polymer builds up on the wall of the ink chambers which cannot be flushed out using either alcohol or plain water. I'm going to get me some ammonia for filling the cleaning cartridges. Ammonia is the solvent which can dissolve Golden polymer varnish according to Golden Paint Inc. Swellable polymer is also the material used on certain inkjet media to increase print longevity.<P>