Digital BW, The Print

Please, what were the final results of Your experiment with this printer (in regards to reliability of the setup etc)? I'm new to BW printing, I have an offer to buy this printer and I'm a bit tempted to get it (by A3 size of prints and quite good price). I would be thankful for information about ink dilutions used and some details of the workflow.

Has anyone else succeeded using this printer for BW?

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@...> wrote:
>
> As follow-up note on this Canon experiment, I'm now getting quite smooth
> results with the printer.  The base needed more wetting agent.  About 3%
> Photo Flo seems to work well.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm not 100% sure what the head arrangement is on the i9100, but some Canon
> head information I've seen indicates that they use very small nozzles (1 pl
> droplets) for half the inks, and larger ones (like 4 pl) for the others.
> I'd guess that is what the i9100 has.  The light ink positions (Y, LC, LM)
> don't tolerate the typical Epson viscosity at all.  However, the dark ink
> positions are not having all that much trouble with Eboni.  They can't pump
> much volume, so the dmax even with the M and C both loaded with Eboni is
> down about 0.04 density units from what I'd expect with a modern Epson
> printer.
> 
>  
> 
> It'll take some time to see if the system is reliable with this Eboni-based
> inkset.  Aside from the somewhat modest dmax, however, it's putting out some
> nice prints now.  
> 
>  
> 
> Paul
> 
> www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.paulroark.com/>  
> 
>  
>   _____  
> 
> From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul
> Roark
> Sent: Monday, December 24, 2007 10:08 AM
> To: DigitalB&WPrint
> Subject: [Digital BW] Canon i9100
> 
>  
> 
> A generous forum member loaned me this Canon to see how an Eboni-based
> inkset might work on it. This is a dye-based hextone printer. In many ways
> it is very similar to Epson printers like the 1280. 
> 
> The bottom line is that it also feels like going back to the 1280 in terms
> of some of the dye-pigment problems, with a bit more print quality problems
> than a good 1280 would have. It can make B&W prints that look very good at
> a distance. However, it has a bit too much banding, at least with this
> first test inkset. 
> 
> The paper transport seems better than Epson's.
> 
> I set it up to print with the Canon driver, curves and Create ICC. The dmax
> with a double Eboni MK in the M and C spots is up to 1.65 on EEM, with the
> average more like 1.63. A single Eboni cart in the K position can hit about
> 1.50. I used an Eboni-LLK in Y and 2 Eboni-LK densities in LC and LM. The
> base was a glycerol 10 to water 25, with 0.5% Photo Flow, which gives a
> viscosity that matches the Canon inks for the midtones. 
> 
> With respect to documentation, the printer is not quite up to the Epsons.
> 
> Note that this says very little if anything about the modern Canon pigment
> printers. They are apparently a major advance for Canon. 
> 
> Happy Holidays,
> 
> Paul
> 
> www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.paulroar <http://www.paulroark.com/> k.com/> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]