Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Matt Haber" <matt@m...> 
wrote:


> Question:
> 
> there is a solvent smell from the prints for a bit after printing.

However you define "solvent" you must agree that there has to be a 
carrier to the ink to get it on the paper and keep the pigment 
particles suspended until that time.

 I 
didn't 
> think these were solvent based inks. Anyone know what the solvent 
> is?

I'm not a chemist, but on the MIS site you can buy "Epson clear base" 
to mix your own ink. I put this fact together with the fact that for a 
time on my old 1160, Epson carts had a little label on each reading 
"contains di-ethylene glycol". I'm jumping to a conclusion here, but 
it seems to make sense. Paul did tell me that the VM inkset has the 
most volitle solvent of all the MIS inks, so if right, maybe more than 
one is used. So that's all I know about it- a conjecture or two.

> 
> Observation:
> 
> When I first acquired the printer, I had to fuss with it quite a bit 
to 
> make it work, including a bit of windex on the pads. The windex 
> seemed to clear up misplaced dots,

What do you mean by misplaced dots...the nozzle pattern having stair 
steps either too low or high (indicates bottom of head is dirty, needs 
paper towel trick)? Or random blotting on paper (indicates same 
thing)? Or some odd dithering in highlights? Or the nozzle check 
missing "dashes" (air in printhead or clog)?

 but the problem recurred when I 
> installed the new quad carts (I did my own fill, fwiw).

At least on my 1280, may not be true for other printers:
When using non-Epson carts self filled, you can have a problem when 
they are first installed. Excess air gets in which causes nozzles to 
skip in the check pattern and worse, it can cause ink blobs to sputter 
out, usually the k ink on the left side of paper (non-random), but 
sometimes other places on page in addition. Putting windex on the pad 
helps I'm sure but the two things I find help the most is to run two 
cleaning cycles as soon as carts are installed to drain off excess 
ink,  then hit off button and let printer sit for 6- 12 hours to let 
air bubbles displace. Then the nozzles don't "sputter" anymore.
Jim H.

 After head 
> cleaning, realignment, and purging, i was only able to fix the 
> misplaced dots with a bit more windex. I'm happy it works, but it's 
> not intuitively obvious why.
>