Digital BW, The Print

Someone posted a query/comment regarding this issue quite recently/ 
speculating that piezo-head printers will not be damaged (/burned 
out) if they run dry during printing.

I can confirm that, with my experience yesterday printing a 13x19 
print with an Epson cartridge refilled with the MIS 'standard' dye 
(color) inks on my 1270.

It printed about 20% normally, then ran completely out of both the 
cyan and photo-cyan inks. I'm pretty certain it wasn't a blockage 
since a) both colors died 'at once' [i.e. faded down over about an 
inch and a half] -- the particular image was very blue/cyan-heavy, b) 
there was no streaking, and c) this was the cartridge which I had 
reported here ~a week ago did not seem to take a full load of 8 cc's 
per color.

I immediately recharged my 'spare' cartridges and put them aside to 
settle overnight. However I felt a bit nervous about the printer 
sitting with two 'inkless' heads that long, and so loaded the 
refilled cartridge after about 4 hours and proceeded to test it, to 
at least make sure the two 'empty' heads were recharged.

The first couple of nozzle checks showed some minor problems that 
were quickly rectified by cleaning cycles, after which it printed a 
perfect 6-color 'purge' pattern, and a 4x6" test photo print.

I then printed my 13 x 19 print no problem.