Re: 1160 - Piezo Color Troubles

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Cathy,

I've gone down a similar path with the Cpiezo inks with carts and CIS.
With the 1200 the cyan ink completely clogs all nozzles inside of two
hours. Two or three cleaning cycles will get a good nozzle check, but,
I still have severe banding (corduroy look, visible at 12-18"). A
thorough head cleaning and OEM inks and the problem is gone. 

Dave at Nomorecarts sent a replacement cart for the CIS to see if this
would fix it. This was after raising the cyan bottle almost 4" above
the rest. Still no joy.

Numerous calls and emails to Cones have yielded only the following
(this is a quote from Shelby Moore),

"The banding, misting and clogging are always going to disappear with
the OEM inks because those inks were SPECIFICALLY FORMULATED to go
through that print head!!!!!!! 

What's happening in your printer is, like we've explained on the list
several times, a combination of three factors. The first factor is, of
course, the high viscosity and high pigment content of our inks. The
high pigment content is what makes it prone to clogging, but it's also
what makes it last a PHENOMENAL amount of time. The second factor is
the construction of the CIS. We are working with nomorecarts to
develop a new unit which will deal better with our inks. The third
factor is the voltage variations that occur in each and every Epson
print head. The Epson print heads work on the "piezoelectric" concept,
which is that a tiny electrical charge is zapped through each ink drop
to make it expand and pop out of the cartridge, onto the paper. When
the voltage to a certain color or the print head as a whole is too
low, there is not enough power to push the inks out and clogging is
more frequent. When you combine a low voltage with a high viscosity
ink, you get a situation akin to trying to push a boulder up a hill by
hand. It's very difficult to do.".

And from an earlier response'

"
> My problem is with the Cones Color Piezography inks on an Epson 1200
> with a Nomorecarts CIS. Since using this ink, the Cyan channel will
> completely clog after setting idle for more than 2 hours. Running a
> nozzle check produces no lines in the cyan channel. One or two
> cleaning cycles will clear the clog, however, severe banding is seen.
> The banding, when examined under a microscope, is caused by the cyan
> ink.

This is to be expected to a certain degree. We are making little $300
inkjet printers push out inks that even Iris printers have a hard time
with. Our ink is 100% pigment...it has NO dye in it at all. Pigment
inks are far superior in longevity tests and ours are also far
superior in color gamut than other dye-pigment hybrids on the market
at this time...but they ARE thicker and they WILL clog from time to
time. This is, in the long run, a very small price to pay for such an
innovative and high-performance product.
 
> I replace the CIS with Epson OEM inks and the clogging disappeared,
> however,, the banding continued. I flushed the heads using a cleaning
> cart and the banding cleared up. I used nothing but the OEM inks for
> over a week with no trouble.

Again, this is because the OEM's are designed to go through that
specific print head. Epson develops inks and printers that will work
together flawlessly. Why would they make OEM inks that clog? They're
in the business to make money on consumables. We're in the business to
make ink that will last and make beautiful prints, and sometimes a
compromise must be made.".



Translation - We've made a long lasting ink with good gamut that will
not reliably flow or print. What's your complaint?!

It's pretty obvious to me that these inks, as currently formulated, a
just too thick/viscuous and sedimented for reliable operation. What a
shame, because they do profile well and look good to me. The black
could be darker.

Seriously, they have offered an RMA, which I have taken them up on.
they say they will continue to work the issue, but, with the current
'denial' mentality, I wouldn't expect a fix anytime soon.

What ink to use now?

Regards,

Mark K.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 10:42:08 -0700, you wrote:

>Thanks for the thought, Bob.
>
>Well, it seems to have been a flow problem. I tried elevating the entire
>bottle holder on a cd cover and further elevating just the cyan bottle on a
>small block of wood (it's now up by about 1 3/8") and for now, anyway, the
>problem seems to be resolved.
>
>I have a bunch of questions into David at NMC and am sure he will shed some
>light on the state of affairs.
>
>Wish I could just get some printing done .. (sigh) ... .
>
>Cathy
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