Digital BW, The Print

I just recieved a private email requesting some details on how I refill
my 2100 cartridges, so I've decided to post the entire procedure here,
just in case it's of any interest to other people on the list. 

Please correct me if I've made any part of the description unclear or
I've made any serious omissions or mistakes... Thanks!

First of all read everything on this link:
http://www.anestoday.com/epson2200/

That site explains much better than I can how to refill a 2100/2200
cartridge, and with pictures. I will assume you've read the above and
supplement with my own experiences. 

I've followed the instructions there almost to the letter, but have
adapted some of the procedures to the equipment that is readily
available from MIS, and added an additional step of rinsing the
cartridges with tap water to prepare them for BW inks.


Shopping list
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You'll need the following equipment from MIS (I've used the MIS product
names so you can easily find them on the web-site)

- MIS-TUBE-6 - RIBBON TUBING (1 foot should last for a really long time)
- VVF-KIT - Virgin Vacuum Fill Kit (One is enough, but will need
replacement after a while)
- MIS-SYRINGE - 10 cc Plastic Syringe (Buy several of these)
- MIS-BADP - MIS BOTTOM FILL ADAPTER (Buy several of these)
- MIS-SYRINGE-60 - 60 cc Plastic Syringe (One or two)
- BTL-2OZ-WIDE - 2 OZ Wide Mouth Bottle (Neccesary if you want to make
your own tints)
- ESC-BASE-PT - Pint Bottle of Base Stock - Clear (Neccesary if you want
to make your own tints)
- SK168 - Universal Chip Resetter
- Inks. I've bought the 4oz bottles of Ultratones, the Eboni Black, and
the MIS 7600 Archival Light Black (ESC7600-4-LK)

Miscellaneous equipment:
- Empty 2100/2200 cartridges (Very imnportant, since there's no 
- Epoxy glue
- Drill or heated needle


Preparing and rinsing the cartridge for first-time refill
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1. Make a hole with a drill or heated needle at the top of the
cartridge, like described on the previously mentioned web-site. Take
care to keep the cartridge upright in this and all other steps. You
don't want ink flowing out of the hole, it'll create a real mess. If you
do, just rinse the cartridge under tap water until it's reasonably clean
again. This doesn't seem to harm the chip in any way, but make sure it's
dry before you put it back into the printer!

2. Cut a 3" piece length of tubing and glue it with epoxy to the
cartridge.

3. Let the cartridge dry for at least an hour, preferably overnight. I'm
impatient, so I've refilled one hour old cartridges several times.

4. Next, remove the plastic sealing at the bottom exit hole of the
cartridge.

5. Now it's time to rinse the cartridge of any color ink. First use a
10cc syringe with a bottom fill adapter attached to suck any remaining
ink out of the bottom exit hole. Just stick it in there and pull the
syringe until all you get is air and foam.

6. Inside the exit hole there is a rubber sealing. Take this out as
well, but don't lose it! You'll need to put it back later on.

7. Fill a 60cc syringe with tap water, attach it to the tubing (you can
use the VVF-Kit for this), and squirt it through the cartridge. Repeat
until the water coming out of the exit hole is clear.

8. Push air through the cartridge to remove any remaining water.

9. Re-attach the rubber sealing.

The cartridge is now prepared and ready for refills.

This sounds like a lot of work, and the first few times it is. With
practice I find I can prepare a complete inkset with 7 cartridges in
less than an hour (excluding the time it takes for the epoxy to dry).


Refilling the cartridge with ink
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1. Attach the VVF-Kit to the tubing.

2. Secure the blue clamp firmly to the tube, making sure that no air
gets through.

3. Fill a 10cc syringe with the ink you want and attach a sharp needle
to it. Fill it all the way to the top. This should be around 12cc.

4. Attach a sharp needle to a 60cc syringe, put the needle through the
tube seal and suck out as much air as you can. This will take some
force, if it doesn't you don't have a vacuum, which means air is leaking
somewhere. 

5. Remove the syringe from the tube seal without letting air back into
the cartidge, then repeat the above step twice more.

6. By now you should have a good vacuum in the cartridge. Insert the
10cc syringe into the tube seal. If everything is done correctly all the
ink will be sucked into the cartridge by itself.

7. Remove the blue clamp, and then the VVF. By removing the blu clamp
first the remaining vacuum will disappear, and some air will be sucked
into the cartridge along with any ink remaining in the tubes. This is
handy, since it means you'll avoid lot of ink spilling all over the
place once you remove the VVF - Which is exactly what will happen if you
try to force more than 12cc ink through the cartridge.

8. Use an empty 10cc syringe with the bottom fill adapter attached to
suck ink from the exit hole until you get a solid flow of ink. Then stop
quickly, you don't want to remove too much ink from the cartridge, just
enough to remove any remaining water or air. This step is only
neccessary for a newly prepared cartridge.

9. Use the chip resetter to reset the cartridge.

10. Bend the tube so no ink can come out and use some scotch tape to
tape it to the top of cartridge. Be carful when handling the cartridge,
just a tiny squeeze can be enough to squeeze ink out of the tubing when
the cartridge is full.

With practice you'll be able to refill a cartridge in less than five
minutes without any mess whatsoever.


Using the ultratones in the 2100/2200
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Insert all the cartridges and do a nozzle check. Sometimes an extra
cleaning or two is required to get good nozzle checks. Especially after
preparing a cartridge for the first time. A previously refilled
cartridge will most often work straight away.

You may need to print a purge pattern or do an extra cleaning if you're
switching from a color to a BW inkset.

There are no curves available but I've made several linearized curves
myself, ranging from warm to cool neutral. I haven't made any real sepia
curves yet. Send me an email and I'll mail the curves along with the
required workflow. I've been kind of stupid and did two of the neutral
curves while printing with the Epson EAM ICC profile. This is probably
totally uneccesary, but they're the best curves I've made yet. When I've
got time I'll redo them without the ICC profile. Possibly we could put
them in the file section here?

You should expect to get output as good as Imageprint, or slightly
better, but not as good as with real partitioned curves. You will still
be able to see some slight dots in the highlights. Not as much as with
Imageprint, but close. I think the problem is with the 2100 and the
Epson driver, because there is no color combination that doesn't have
dots in the highlights - I've printed test patterns with the entire
spectrum of RBG colors, and all colors are equally dotted at around 5%,
while many of them have significantly less dots at 10%. 


Mixing a light black from Eboni
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I've found that it's difficult to get neutral to cool prints if you use
the MIS light black ink in the light black position, so instead I've
made my own mix from Eboni Black which is much more neutral. The mixture
is 1 part Eboni and 2 parts clear base stock. I usually mix a decent
amount of this ink and keep it in a bottle. With this mixture I can go
from warm neutral to very cool purplish neutral, and anything in
between. This is my standard ink for the light black position, as I
seldom want to make sepia toned prints.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no