Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jim hayes" <jimhayes@f...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y...>
> Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2002 8:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Clogged head
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley"
> <mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> > André
> >
> <snip>
> 
>  although I would
> not
> > consider 2 weeks very long having left printers for double that
> without
> > problems.<snip>
> >
> > Martin Wesley
> >
<snip>
> 
> Jim,
> 
<snip>

> The climate is semi-arid and the humidity stays comfortably low but 
never
> hits the lows you encounter. I wish we could figure out why I seem 
to have
> pretty good luck in the clogging department, while being somewhat 
neglectful
> of my printers, and you seem to be endlessly plagued with problems 
in spite
> of rigorous maintenance. There must be some less permeable materials 
for the
> tubing and bottles.
> 
> Martin Wesley

I don't know...maybe my 20%RH/3 week off experience that killed a 
printhead with MIS VM just made me gunshy and I have been 
overcompensating ever since. That was with a CIS.  That post from the 
guy in Utah who left his printer off for 2 1/2 weeks has me doubting 
reality too. Yet there has to be some correlation- both MIS and Cone 
have noticed one. MIS states so in their CFS directions so it could be 
related to that. And I have been doing nozzle checks and cleaning as 
nessecary twice a day since January and do note problems below 35%RH. 
I can't say that it is a hard spec, as it sometimes still worked well 
in the low 30's, but in general more cleanings were needed. As I 
posted before 40%RH or above seems best. And six months of these 
observations were with carts- removing CFS/CIS from the variables.

The few days that I missed the 12 hour cycle (i.e. I waited 24 hours 
between printer turn ons) I tended to have a tougher time clearing the 
nozzles.

Or perhaps as you suggested once there is individual variation in 
performance of printers- and I just have a marginal one.

I remain very puzzled by this. I don't want to give out humidity/temp 
specs if they only apply to me, that would be false information. I can 
say that in my climate there clearly start to be problems using a CFS 
over carts after about 6-10 weeks because there is a manyfold increase 
in  frequency of clogging problems, although they can still be cleared 
with three cleanings max or at worst, drops on the parking pad trick. 
And this in the most humid part of the year to just a little drier. I 
used a humidifier only toward the end of the period to keep above 
about 38%RH. And I now get increased mottling on Eclipse of 100%k. I 
have Epson carts back in now and they work like a charm of course as 
far as no clogs go.

Sometime next week I'll have some new non CFS VM carts filled and 
installed to see if the mottling disapears.
Jim H.