Digital BW, The Print

>>Do B&W inks cause any problem with clogging?

>...
>The impression I get from people here is that clogs and frequent
>head cleanings, windexing, head removal for cleaning, etc, are par
>for the course with 3rd-party inks.   ...

That is not my experience.

I've been printing third party inks for about 3 years.  The only 2 serious
clogs I've had involved interchanging and using old CIS systems.

My 7500 with MIS Ultra Tone B&W is so reliable that I don't even bother with
nozzle checks unless it has been sitting for many days without any
printing -- the nozzle checks are virtually always perfect.

That said, pigments do seem to require more head cleaning than dyes.  The
7500 and, no doubt, other printers that are made for pigments, have more
thorough cleaning procedures built into their firmware.  So, while I and
folks with 2200s may never have to do extra cleaning procedures, the
machines are probably doing them on their own.

We, of course, read about the clogs here, because this is where people who
are having problems go for help.  Also, I do expect Epson has put more R&D
into the issue and is probably ahead of the third-party vendors in this
regard.  However, with the possible exception of high-elevation,
low-humidity conditions, I suspect most of us are not having serious
clogging issues with third-party inks that are due to any major difference
between those and the Epson pigmented inks.

As to the subject line of whether today's inkjet prints are better than wet
prints, I sure would not go back, and I'll bet most of the people on this
list have no intention of going back to silver printing for most of their
work.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com