Digital BW, The Print

Here's the situation, part of this a repeat from prior posts. With a 
CFS and MIS VM ink in an 1280.

In the first 4-6 weeks of usage I did not notice these problems, nor 
did I have them when using individual non tubing carts for 6 months 
prior to CFS install. Now at 10 weeks things seem to be happening but 
I would like others to verify. And my test samples are only 20 hours 
dry yet, so drawing conclusions is premature:

1) 7-10 fold increase in frequency of cleaning cycles needed to get a 
good nozzle check every 12 hours.

2) Visible ink caking inside K bottle and a little in C bottle.

3) When a step wedge is printed on Eclipse Satine 190gsm rough side on 
special curves from Paul for 2880dpi res, right after 
printing...."leopard spots" appear on stepwedge from about 70%k to 
100%k at any warmth curve. The spots are about the right density at 
100%k patch, but the "background" of the 100%k patch is lighter than 
it should be. Within a few minutes to an hour, all but the 100%k, 
possibly 95%k steps look nearly normal- spots fade away. This is a 
really bizzare output that I'm sure I would have noticed when I have 
printed wedges before- if it had been present, it's hard to miss. 
There is also some small variation in amount of mottling when I 
compare the two fresh samples printed an hour apart, when examined 20 
hours later.

However when the the two stepwedge samples that I printed out 
yesterday are compared to two older duplicate file samples printed on 
same paper months ago when I still used carts, it is obvious that the 
mottling at 100%k is more pronounced on both fresh samples, and that 
the "background" of the 100%k patch is much lighter, more washed out 
than the older sample wedges stored in a light tight box. The 
difference is visible without need of a densitometer but I found a 
nice soft Ott-lite was ideal to fully see all the differences.

So has anyone noticed their 100%k patches getting lighter with 
increased  darker mottling or "spots"? You would need to have a 
stepwedge printed when your CFS/CFS was just installed, with fresh K 
ink to compare to. You could also print out a stepwedge and 
immediately examine it to see if you get the lepoard spots that appear 
up to 70%k when print is still "wet". I also don't know if it would 
appear on paper other than Eclipse, since I have no samples. I am 
aware that Eclipse mottles some at 100%k and have been living with it, 
but the increase is quite obvious when I set it next to wedges months 
old.

I'm not trying to suggest a problem here. I'm trying to gather any 
observations from others while I wait for my samples to dry another 
day before I start suspecting drying out/ clumping k ink as a culprit. 
And there may be other variables responsible, unique to my situation. 
I am far from suggesting anything to be concerned over.
Jim H.