Digital BW, The Print

This past spring and summer I had an e-mail dialog with Jon Cone of InkJetMall(Piezography B&W)about putting together a custom inkset using his color inks and a couple of his B&W inks for the LT & LLT Blk. I still use the Epson PK since I print on glossy(photo) substrates and Jons' black is for matte. In our exchanges I mentioned the fact that I was getting a very slight magenta cast and going through a lot of Lt Magenta when doing B&W. His reply kind of opened my eyes a bit.
Here is a little of his reply:

"Epson did not make neutral light blacks nor a black when it entered 
into the black & white inkjet market. Rather, they imparted a 
somewhat greenish cast to them and that may or may not be a part of 
studying the Piezography BW inks which had a tendency to go green. 
Green however, is only desirable in extremely small amounts. The 
Epson greenish is very undesirable from a black & white photography 
perspective. Therefore, when Epson prints black or gray things, it 
needs to add color ink in order to offset the cast and give the 
appearance of "neutral". That ink is to some degree mostly magenta 
ink."

This MAY explain some of what you are experiencing.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Avron" <goravr@...> wrote:
>
> I am getting a magenta tint in photo black prints on the Epson 4800.  I suspect the photo black ink has gone bad. Does anyone have an idea as to what else could be wrong? Assuming I replace the cart with fresh ink, what procedure should be used to clear or drain the line of the old ink?  Thanks for any ideas.
>