Digital BW, The Print

Paul, you wrote:

> > However, the test print I did on EEM came out greenish.
>
> The only time I've seen color in the new VM 4.3/Ultra Tone inks
is when the
> damper allows some residual old ink to mix in.  This usually
disappears
> after the first few days of printing, however.  I'm not sure if
some
> hardened old pigment in the dampers could slowly "dissolve" (or
get
> re-suspended?) such that after a long time sitting it could
affect the
> color.


To avoid any contamination by Epson dyes or a cleaning fluid when
I loaded the 9000 with Ultratone I've used a vacuumpump at the
airtight wastebottle/tubes that I had already installed a year
ago. First emptied the CIS bottles of dye ink and then loaded
them with water + Windex, pulled through the system with the
vacuum pump, added clean water in the bottles and pulled that
through too, then emptied the bottles of the last water and
pumped out all the water from the tubes. Taken out the dampers
and cleaned them by reverse spooling with a syringe, replaced one
as it had too little flow, assembled it all again. Put the
Ultratones in the bottles and pulled the inks in the system with
the vacuum pump again, that took 20 seconds till the grey inks
dripped in the waste bottles. All the time no need for initial
fills or any head activity etc. Printed an A1 purge file with
CcMmYK fields. One cleaning and it was all working. There's a
small white line in the blacks but that was there before the ink
change so I have to change the dark head soon.

With this in mind I'm a bit surprised that there should be any
ink left in the dampers, there was little colour left in the
water when I checked the dampers. The CIS tubes of black and
yellow show staining but that will never have an influence on the
hexatone. Hardened pigment is unlikely too and doesn't fit
Steve's story, I wonder whether Steve has done much printing
after the first installation of the inks and before the 3 weeks
rest. Just contamination with some leftover older ink or cleaning
fluid not totally taken out of the tubes. Otherwise it has to be
separation of the ink and that is strange as the tubes at that
point don't drop more than 10 cm and one would expect the pigment
to be heavier. If the medium is heavier you get the reversed
effect like Steve describes. With Generations 4 there never would
be a separation in the inklines in such a short period and the
effect would be: pigments at the bottom.

The VM curves are good in tone, no crossover effects, no
metamerism but is it an optical illusion that the cold print
looks lighter than the warmest print ? MIS did send me
replacement pint bottles for the cyan, lite cyan and yellow
positions when they were not sure about the contents of the first
package that I received. I can easily make the cold print darker
but I would like to get some feedback on that observation.
Could also be my printer of course.

Ernst