Digital BW, The Print

Not as few as you might imagine. There are a number of people out there 
with x6xx printers running Cone's inks, including me. I started in 
August of 2003, before Cone did - long before Cone was selling ink in 
chipped carts for the x6xx printers. Long enough for me to learn to hate 
filling my own carts ;-) My 7600 has been running fine ever since. The 
only serious clog I've had came from UltraChrome inks in the first month 
I had the machine, and it required an Epson tech. to fix. Since I 
installed the PiezoTones it's been pretty smooth sailing, even with 
sustained periods (three months) without printing.

All pigment inks clog. It's the laws of physics. There is no magic 
bullet, unless it's dye inks. Other than Lyson's grayscale dyes (and 
their metamerism problems), there are no viable grayscale dye inks on 
the market AFAIK.

IMHO, your best bet is still the PiezoTones. Things you can do (that you 
probably already know) to help with clogging are to keep the relative 
humidity over 50% near the printer (humidifier when needed) and keep the 
pads in the capping station saturated with distilled water (I soak 'em 
every week during winter).

If you aren't going to go there again, the MIS inks have legions of 
fans. Somehow I don't think you're going to be happy with a variable 
tone inkset though... which just leads you back to PiezoTones.

I wish I had more wisdom to offer.
--
Hogarth Hughes


joelpickford wrote:

>
>
> I am looking for a new B&W exhibition printing solution and am 
> interested in hearing
> feedback from serious power users of MIS or other monochrome inks.
>
> I am one of  very few Epson Stylus Pro 7600 owners who has ever been 
> able to get Cone
> quad inks up and running out of the box.  For eight months I was able 
> to produce, exhibit
> and sell the most georgeous digital B&W prints I have ever seen, using 
> Cone's Museum
> Black, Carbon Sepia and Selenium ink sets in various split tone 
> combinations on
> Hahnemuhle Photo Rag.