Digital BW, The Print

Art offered a couple of suggestions re my problem off-list, but I'm now
certain my problem is the black CIS cart. Here's the background.

My 1280 with CIS and VM inks has performed extremely well for two years, but
now will not print black at all.

I'm on my second set of 4-oz bottles of VM inks, and installed new tubing
and carts when I got the second set of bottles about 9 months ago.

I recently had to take the printer in for minor mechanical repair. I removed
the CIS and installed new Epson cartridges when I took the printer in for
the repair. Upon the return of the printer, I continued using the Epson
cartridges for a few days before reinstalling the CIS/VM inks. The printer
was printing flawlessly before I took it in for the repair and continued to
print flawlessly with the Epson carts.

The printer repair took only 24 hours, but the CIS was out of the printer
nearly a week. During that time, the CIS carts were stored using the CIS
plugs (metal pins on lucite-type plastic). The CIS seemed to work OK right
after it was reinstalled, but the printer was not used for a few days
thereafter. The next time I started the printer, the red light was flashing
and the color cartridge indicator in the status monitor was grayed out. I
reseated the cart and everything seemed fine until I tried to print. No
black. I printed a purge pattern and all five "color" carts are fine, but no
black. Initially, I could get a good nozzle check, but now there is no black
even in the nozzle check. There are visible air bubbles in the black tubing
and they've been stationery through half a dozen cleaning cycles and test
prints. The cart is clearly still full of ink and the black bottle is still
about 1/3 full.

Today, I placed a drop of Fantastik on the black nipple and printed a purge
pattern. The five color carts are still fine, but the black printed as a
medium gray briefly and then quit completely.

It seems I need to replace my black cartridge, but I'm wondering what might
have happened so suddenly to my black cartridge while it was out of the
printer. I'd appreciate your thoughts because if this happens again, I'd
like to be able to avoid the problem next time.

Tom Keesling
Intelligent Design, Inc.