R1800 & Piezography Inks (Alert)

[Neil Poulsen]

In speaking with the Inkjet Mall this morning, I learned that Piezography systems may not be available for Epson printers for much longer. Epson got a ruling through the International Trade Commission (I believe) that prohibits people from making 3rd party cartridges for Epson printers. They claim that it violates their patents.

At present, this applies to the disposable cartridges. But, the Inkjet mall thinks that this could eventually apply to their continuous feed system as well. So, if you anticipate needing one of these for Epson printers, get them while you can.

With that said, has anyone tried using one of these continuous feed systems with an R1800 for making digital negatives? Have you had clogging problems?

Also, I'm interested if anyone has tried using an R1800 with or without the Piezography inks for making digital negatives for silver gelatin prints? If so, what success have you had?

 

[donbga]

In speaking with the Inkjet Mall this morning, I learned that Piezography systems may not be available for Epson printers for much longer. Epson got a ruling through the International Trade Commission (I believe) that prohibits people from making 3rd party cartridges for Epson printers. They claim that it violates their patents.

At present, this applies to the disposable cartridges. But, the Inkjet mall thinks that this could eventually apply to their continuous feed system as well. So, if you anticipate needing one of these for Epson printers, get them while you can.

With that said, has anyone tried using one of these continuous feed systems with an R1800 for making digital negatives? Have you had clogging problems?

Also, I'm interested if anyone has tried using an R1800 with or without the Piezography inks for making digital negatives for silver gelatin prints? If so, what success have you had?

Take a look at this system! I seems very interesting to me.

Don Bryant

 

[jd callow]

Take a look at this system! I seems very interesting to me.

Don Bryant

Don,
What system??

 

[donbga]

Don,
What system??

Ah, CIS - Continous Inking System and refillable ink carts. One could purchase Cone Inks and use thiese products.

Don Bryant

 

[donbga]

Ah, CIS - Continous Inking System and refillable ink carts. One could purchase Cone Inks and use thiese products.

Don Bryant

Sorry I thought I posted the link.


Dead Link Removed

Don

 

[Ben Altman]

With that said, has anyone tried using one of these continuous feed systems with an R1800 for making digital negatives? Have you had clogging problems?

Also, I'm interested if anyone has tried using an R1800 with or without the Piezography inks for making digital negatives for silver gelatin prints? If so, what success have you had?

I have a CIS for my 1800 but have not rigged it up yet - still building my new darkroom. I think it is an InkRepublic, which seemed to get the best reviews when I bought it about nine months ago. So far I've used refillable cartridges with K3 inks (bought the K3 cartridges for eg. the 3800 and syringed out the ink I needed). The 1800 runs fine like that.
I did try peizography inks briefly but found the negs scratched very easily.
The 1800 makes good negs - I think the small droplet size is helpful. Have not tried them on silver gelatin yet, been doing Pt/Pd, but will do so in due course. I'd guess the 1800 is a good choice for silver. I had trouble with the pizza wheels until I realized that they lift up when you use the CD printer tray and you can wedge them in a slightly lifted position. If you didn't buy the printer yet there were some good factory refurb deals a while back, may still be out there.
Best, Ben

 

[Neil Poulsen]

Ben,

Very interesting. If I understand correctly, you are syringing ink from the larger wide format cartridges into the smaller cartridges intended for the R1800. Is this right? (You indicated you're not using the CIS.)

Also interesting on the piezography inks. I wonder if a coating would help prevent the scratching? The inks are a lot less expensive. That's another messy step, though.

I didn't realize that the R1800 could print CD's. That's a positive for the R1800, as I'd like to give this a try.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Ben Altman]

Ben,

Very interesting. If I understand correctly, you are syringing ink from the larger wide format cartridges into the smaller cartridges intended for the R1800. Is this right? (You indicated you're not using the CIS.)

Also interesting on the piezography inks. I wonder if a coating would help prevent the scratching? The inks are a lot less expensive. That's another messy step, though.

I didn't realize that the R1800 could print CD's. That's a positive for the R1800, as I'd like to give this a try.

Thanks for the info.

Hi Neil,

Yes, that's what I'm doing, using third-party refillable cartridges which may not be available now because of the Epson decision you mentioned. I guess you could clean out empty Epson carts and re-chip them (I don't think you can reset the Epson chips). I'm only using various blacks and the yellow, so the investment in the large cartridges is not too horrendous. But I figure the Epson inks are probably less likely to cause problems than the third-party inks. Epson tends to "improve" their formulation from time to time, so one could end up having to re-profile. But it takes a while to get through those big carts, so I'm not too worried about doing that occasionally. I think the 9800 carts are cheapest/unit volume. I do plan to use the CIS system once I have decided on the mix of inks I want to use for digital negs - I'll dedicate this printer to that use. Note that I'm using QuadTone RIP to drive the non-standard ink mix.

My reading indicates that the glop coating in the 1800 reduces the sharpness of the print a bit, which is probably not good for digital negs. I don't know about post-printer coatings. By the way, it was a warm-tone piezography inkset that I tried, because I wanted good UV blocking - the neutral may be tougher but I don't know.

Ben

 

[Neil Poulsen]

Ben, Thanks for your response. I have one more question.

How often do you use your R1800? Do you have clogging problems? How long can you leave it off, before it begins to clog? I spoke with a salesperson today, and it was his opinion that clogging was a problem with the R1800.

 

[Ben Altman]

Ben, Thanks for your response. I have one more question.

How often do you use your R1800? Do you have clogging problems? How long can you leave it off, before it begins to clog? I spoke with a salesperson today, and it was his opinion that clogging was a problem with the R1800.

Hadn't heard that, but small droplets may equal more clogging. No problems so far, but I only used it for about 6 weeks before I had to pack for my move and, as I have not yet completed my new darkroom etc., I have not been using it. So we'll see when I get it out of the box again. Anyone else have experience with this?
Main thing I found was to run the alignment routine fairly often.