Digital BW, The Print

Hi rudy,

Everyone knows us as ink merchants, but really I am a printmaker first...and I keep a meticulous print studio which I founded in 1980. It's separate from InkjetMall. It's called Cone Editions Press. All of my printers are "named" so that we can track their maintenance and behaviors when we move them from one part of the studio to another. We have many many LF printers and many many MF printers that have the same model numbers, so this naming is important. It's actually a holdover from when I ran seven IRIS 3047 printers here - each with a mind of its own. My Hell scanner is called "Helga" because she weighs (literally) one ton and one half. 

But our central temperature and humidity gauge is named, in big block letters..."GOD". For it is this great big beautiful mystery of air that circulates and changes daily that is responsible for all that happens in our studio from a day to day perspective. Humidity is critical to printer happiness...  This is not to say that someone printing at 6% humidity suddenly experiences meltdown...

But, the key to consistency in everything is to maintain a studio's environment. I may be a little retensive about it because of a photogravure background in which breaking the humidity/temp rules destroyed any resemblance of actually getting the process to work... a half degree of temperature or humidity made huge changes when trying to bite extremely delicate tone.

In inkjet - you do not just have a printer to deal with, you also have paper. The printer's head is prone to drying out (slightly) as is the capping station when its excessively dry. The paper itself will absorb less or more ink (whether it's coated or not...) depending upon how much moisture is present, and whether its been subjected to swings or extremes...

We use two rather large humidifiers that have removable filters. The models are "Honeywell HCM-6011i QuietCare 11-Gallon Console Humidifier with Air Washing Technology" and we paid $109 each with free shipping from Amazon. We are not on city water and we do have minerals in our water, but the filters seem so far, to keep them off of everything. 

My main print studio is 24' x 36' with 10' ceilings. It is post and beam and has solid foam stress skin panels for the walls which means it is very, very air-tight. I use an air to air heat exchanger for ventilation and baseboard hot water heat. However, with so many printers and computers running and such efficient structure - we do not actually have to heat it in the winter (or very rarely...).

These humidifiers can keep us at 35% when the air is 15-20% - and it can achieve it within just a few hours. The 2 x 11 gallons can run out overnight. I wish I had bought the larger models.

If repeatability is critical to your work (for instance if you print for clients who re-order, or you need to match prints you've previously made that are very sensitive) you should maintain environment. It is bad enough that you have to deal with paper from all of the manufacturers that are subject to so much variation.

When I find a paper I like (for the studio) - I tend to buy alot at once and try to buy the same lot#s if the manufacturer uses it. Because I make ink I have more control over that type of consistency - but we note changes in draw-downs on OEM just as one would nearly any company in the ink business. We only use Epson inks for testing - rather than production - but the inks that I do buy for production from other manufacturers (like Roland), I tend to buy in quantities that will last me through the year.

We do everything we can to maintain consistency because we print professionally. For my own personal studio, I am much more lax about things. I tend not to edition my own work, and when I do I often revisit the photo from living with it. So, I deal with issues as they arise, and print a little like a mad-man (and a messy madman at that). When I print for others, I treat the process much more like a religious ceremony filled with rituals that I follow (for consistency in case I am asked to repeat my efforts.)

A really bad day is humidity in the 65% range or 15% range. We will see some sort of issue whether its more frequent cleaning between prints or micro-banding. Not always...but prolonged over a period - then we do...  These are usually at the tail end of weather patterns that are conducive to printing without cooling, heating, or humidifying.

Within the main print studio, we have two air-conditioners which tend to run from June through September to help bring the humidity down to our sweet spot of about 35%. In my private studio I keep an a/c as well.

I hope my attention to humidity will help others who have not particularly given this much thought. We do not have very much technical support for Piezography and ConeColor inks. But, more than half of the support we do give is environmental, and the victims of it never even knew what hit them. We often ask environmental questions right up front with frequent head cleanings or banding that is not obvious (due to incorrect cartridge setup and installations). 

Unfortunately, humidity and temperature are sometimes impossible for my customers to control.

By the way - dried out capping stations can introduce all kinds of issues such as clogging and banding...check our video at InkjetMall.com for what we believe is the best way to maintain desktop printers - we will post the large format version shortly...Also for those that do email into techsupport - you can meet the video version of Dana. 

http://tinyurl.com/epson-desktop-printer-cleaning

Jon Cone
Piezography


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "R.Ternbach" <RT@...> wrote:
>
> I live in ern Massachusetts where we need to humidify in winter and
> dehumidify in summer. So I'm interested in learning from you the
> following: --What do you do about the low humidity when you want to print?
> If you humidify--What kind of humidifier do you use? Do you use
> dimineralized water in you humidifier? Do you have a problem with mineral
> dust spread by your humidifier?
> 
> > <I would not think that excessive or inadequate humidity is a problem
> > anywhere in the USA at this month - but check your environment to make
> > sure that you're not below 20% humidity which will dry <out the heads. We
> > like to stay above 30% and below 55%. Also, clean your capping station. If
> > it can not seal properly, it can introduce air into your print heads...
> >
> >
> >
> > That is, unless you live in Phoenix (Arizona). Today's projected high 99
> > (37C), with 8% humidity.
> >
> >
> > Gary
> >
> > baffin@...
> > www.garyallenbrownphoto.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
>