Digital BW, The Print

Hi John,

 >The ink is great. Everything points to the cartridges. The only
 >thing left at this point is to carefully examine them. Could be the
 >rubber seals are allowing air to get sucked in alongside the ink.
 >If the seals have become weak or cracked they will not seat tight
 >around the spikes, so nothing will help except for finding a good
 >one that will maintain vacuum (the Epson OEMs proved that). Try
 >some others from a different production run.  Fortunately carts
 >are cheaper than printers.
 >Hope this helps.


Thanks - yes, I guess it does point to an ink starvation problem rather 
than a blockage.  The carts are brand new pre-filled ones from MIS so I 
doubt if it's the seals unless there is some muck on the spikes; the 
printer was working fine yesterday but simply wouldn't do the business 
today and rather than leave it with dead nozzles and the attendant risks I 
opted to fit new dye carts.  And it's fine with those.

I guess what I'm really asking is whether to persevere with this setup or 
try something else.  I do like the results, but the unreliability has been 
driving me nuts!  The printer in question is a few years old but hasn't had 
a great deal of use, and has been 100% reliable with dye inks rarely 
needing a head clean.  Having used a CIS on the other 1160 and having 
trouble with that (I don't print often enough to keep it in good fettle) my 
plan was to refill carts once I decided on which ink combination to use, 
but most of the ink has so far ended up in the waste tank :-(

Regards
Richard