Digital BW, The Print

Here's another update.  I called MIS and they are being very good about
this and sending me replacement VM cartridges for the UT cartridges.
Hopefully once I get that ink flowing the clogs will go away for good.

Beware people, as we've come to learn - not all 1280's are created
equal.  This is something that must be pursued further.  I don't believe
it to be an issue with software or workflow.  I'm guessing it has
something to do with either the actual parts in the printer or the
programming of the printer itself.  It might be interesting to come up
with a set of dates of manufacture and see if there is a correlation as
to which curves and inksets are working best with which units.

Ed

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ed Mathews [mailto:ed@...] 
> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 7:59 AM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] UT B&W update
> 
> 
>      Last night, in my "I'm stupid" post, I wrote of my 
> nozzle clogs and
> poor results from the new MIS UT B&W cartridges.  Here's an update.
>      I made 6 prints last night, on a variety of papers, and 
> all showed
> poor results with the new Roark UT curves and they all looked 
> completely
> solarized.  The last two had severe banding due to an obvious clog.  I
> also tried loading the old VM curve on the last sheet, the 
> results were
> again really bad but the banding from clog was also so bad it was
> difficult to evaluate.
>      So I let the printer sit overnight.  This morning I came 
> downstairs
> and looked at the MIS packing slip, and found that it reads that they
> sent me the Eboni black, which is not what I ordered - I ordered photo
> black for use with glossy papers.  OK, no problem - maybe I'll just be
> OK printing on matte paper.  So I opened up an image, loaded my old
> favorite curve, the VM medium warm curve, and did a nozzle 
> check.  Black
> is about 80% clogged.  It took 5 cleanings to get it clear, but it
> eventually did print a good nozzle check.  I made the 5"x7" print, and
> although it's much warmer than the VM inks, it's decent with no
> solarizing.
>       I ran another nozzle check right after that, and black is now
> clogged again.  About 10% this time.  This time it took only one
> cleaning cycle to clear it.  So this time I loaded the old VM neutral
> curve and printed another 5x7.  This time the tones are more to my
> liking, and the print is decent again, but the shadows are all blocked
> up and the print has way too much contrast.  Maybe I can work that out
> with some adjustments.  I shut off the printer.
>      Obviously, there are some issues here:
> 1.  MIS sent the wrong black (not a big problem).
> 2.  The eboni is clogging badly.  I've made about 8 5x7's and the
> cleaning cycles have forced me to use more than 1/4 of the 
> cartridges so
> far.  Even the prints that are decent have some mild bleeding near the
> edges.
> 3.  Paul's new UT curves for the 1280 don't work for my 1280.  Here we
> go again with variations in the same specific model printers.
> 
>      I plan on calling MIS today and seeing if they will replace these
> cartridges with standard VM cartridges and offer something to 
> clean the
> printer before I insert them.  I'm not interested in working out the
> bugs because I need to make prints now.  I guess I'm going back to
> coating the VM prints.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ed
> http://lightandsilver.com