Digital BW, The Print

Jim-

Those are the reasons I switched to MIS inks also. 

(Jerry- on an 1160, at least, the ink placement is the same for the 
piezo driver as epson.)

I would tell you to exercise patience and try the radical steps like 
forcing fantastic through the print head only as the last resort. 
Windex or fantastic on the pad, soaking, running some epson carts all 
helped me. The final thing that kept it from coming back was putting 
cleaning carts in and leaving them in for a week or two, running a 
flush file every day and a cleaning cycle...and letting it sit.

Sounds lousy, but once it's fixed and you get started with the MIS, 
you won't have problems again, so it's worth the patience.

Tom O'Connell

TomOC@...
www.thomasoconnell.com


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Jim HARRIS" 
<harrisji@u...> wrote:
> I seem to have no luck with digital black & white.
> 
> I started with the Piezography system on an 1160 printer.  Got 
beautiful, stunning results.  But after a few months the 
dreaded "Density Shift Syndrome" (DSS) set in with severely washed 
out midtones and a greenish cast.  Inkjet mall was very good about 
sending me replacement cartridges for my CIS system.  I reinstalled 
Piezo inks in a new 1160 and got beautiful results again....for about 
4-6 weeks.  Then signs of DSS appeared in the new printer.  I 
reluctantly decided to throw in the towel with Piezo inks and give 
MIS FS inks a try after reading so many good things about them in 
this group.
> 
> Today I hooked up new cartridges on my CIS system,filled them with 
new MIS FS ink, and got perfect nozzle checks the first time.  Then I 
tried printing only to discover that I still have absolutely no 
density in the mid-tones.  The prints are actually worse than my 
worst Piezo DSS prints - almost solarized.
> 
> I just printed a gray-scale step-wedge and found that things appear 
normal from about 0% to around 30% and from about 85-90% to 100%.  
But from about 35% to 80% things are a real mess.  There's a 
catastrophic drop in density from 85% to 80%, no discernable 
difference in density from about 60% to 80%, and the density at 50-
55% is actually greater than from 60% to 80%.
> 
> What is going on?  If any of you can give me some guidance, I'd 
appreciate it very much.  To help eliminate some variables:
> 
> 1. I am printing on the right side of the paper (I'm using EAM with 
the logo on the back).
> 2.  I double and triple-checked the inks before loading my CIS 
system.  I am certain that I loaded the inks, as labeled by MIS, in 
the right positions.
> 
> Here's what I'm afraid of.  Could a severe case of DSS with the 
Piezo inks have done permanent damage o my print head?  I did put the 
MIS inks into the 1160 that had a very bad case of DSS, but I have 
run a full set of Epson cartridges through it since then and it 
seemed to be printing just fine with the color inks (although I 
didn't ever print anything too critical with it and carefully analyze 
the results).
> 
> Any thoughts, suggestions, advice, etc. would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jim