Digital BW, The Print

I posted about a month ago expressing my frustration with the 
frequent clogs I was getting with an Epson 1200 and MIS VM inks.  It 
appears, that at least to some extent, the problem was printer 
maintenance.  While I had lubricated the bar on which the heads, they 
still seemed to "catch" at times.  I went over the bar carefully with 
HD-40 --which I was reluctant to use given its penetrating 
properties -- and cotton swabs and was amazed at the amount of grime 
that came loose.  Since then, I have had only very minor clogs with 
the black ink and those clear quickly with a cleaning cycle or two.  
It may have been coincidental, but I don't think so.  (Knock on wood.)

I should also add that I had the printer hooked up via a USP port on 
a pentium II and given that there were only two ports, that required 
a usb hub.  I recently upgraded to a new computer with six ports and 
connecting the printer directly seems to make a big difference -- I 
had to reinstall the driver regularly with the older computer.  I 
suspect that did not affect the tendency to clog, but who knows.

Steve