OT - CIS, bulk Epson inks

[Bill Hansen <bhansen2@twcny.rr.com>]

This is a progress report. I'm cross-posting it to a couple of lists since 
several people have asked about changing inks in a CIS. I'll keep it pretty 
general so I can keep it brief, and also in hopes that I won't trod too 
heavily on the "agendas" of some people and companies involved. If anyone 
wants details, please e-mail me privately.

First - the CIS itself - My experience has been the same as everyone's . It 
was **very** easy to set up and install, and it worked perfectly "right out 
of the box". I was very pleasantly surprised.

Cleaning the CIS - In my CIS, I used pigment inks initially, but I decided 
to return to dye inks. Cleaning the CIS was also very easy and 
trouble-free. I also purged my print heads even though some people claim 
that it isn't necessary to do that with an Epson 1270 or similar design 
printer.

Bulk dye based inks - Realizing that no dye inks are truly archival, I 
wanted the most nearly permanent dye inks I could find. I suspect that 
nobody knows for sure how long any of these will last, but from all I've 
read, the least fading is likely to be found from the new Epson dye inks, 
and there may be some significant advantages to using the inks from the 
Epson 9000 cartridges. I decided to accept the high initial cost and get a 
set of the Epson 9000 carts. I was very uncertain that I'd be able to get 
the ink from them and into my CIS, but a couple of people assured me that 
(in theory at least) it can be done. Turns out that if you take your time 
and if are careful, it's really very easy and it works perfectly. Another 
advantage is that I now have about 8 oz of Epson dye inks, enough for many 
months' printing at the rate I print photos. The cost savings over those 
months will be considerable - and the colors of the inks will be consistent 
over all that time!!!! Yeaaaah!!

The inks from the 9000 carts do seem to be significantly different in their 
color characteristics than the last set of OEM Epson carts I purchased. I 
had to make new profiles for each paper, but I'm delighted with the 
results. (Incidentally, the Epson ColorLife profile did not work well 
enough to suit me so I made my own ColorLife profile....)

I've only been using the Epson 9000 inks in my CIS for a little less than 
two weeks, so this is an early report - but so far I've had no  problems. I 
was a little worried that I might get dust or other contaminants into my 
CIS or into the inks, but that does not seem to have happened.

Bill Hansen

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