Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark" 
<paul.roark@...> wrote:
> Would this overheating problem argue against my strategy of purging 
the
> lines by printing purge patterns as opposed to doing lots of 
cleaning
> cycles?
> 

Depends how you are running the purge. If you run it through QTR or 
another RIP that lets you go at a true 100%, then it might not be a 
good idea (this is how I killed mine). If you run it through the 
Epson driver, there should be no problems as you are really just 
printing at the "regular" output level. The regular level for my RIP 
is around 60% of max. with some fine tuning on each channel to drop 
it more, so really between 50% and 60% per channel.

> One frustrating problem I have with infrequent use of the 7500 is 
that the
> toned, blended B&W inks separate in the lines and/or dampers.  So, 
to get
> the tones back to where they should be I have to purge the toner 
lines.


Yes that is bad, and a hassle to deal with. Shouldn't you back flush 
those to let everything get mixed again? They must separate in the 
carts too. With a CIS (bottle system) back flushing would be the 
thing to do, but might not be good with a cart system.


> I've been printing just the toner inks on cheap butcher paper to do 
this.
> The strategy avoids wasting the un-affected inks, but I wonder if 
I'm
> wearing out the heads and running up my costs more than if I'd just 
use lots
> of cleaning cycles or doing an "initial fill."  Those actions, of 
course,
> probably wear out the pump.


Init fill uses 25ml each on my 9500, do you really want to spend that 
much ink? The pump is cheap to replace, and if I ever find the 
correct tubing, cheap and easy to rebuild. The part that wears out is 
the tubing. The capping station also tends to have problems with the 
rubber gasket that seals against the heads (porous pad), but again 
those are cheap and easy to replace (I don't even think they need 
tools to be replaced). I have rebuild the pump with Tygon (something 
or other) tubing, that worked pretty well for a while but the tubing 
finally expanded and wouldn't stay on the porous pads, you really 
need the correct silicon rubber tubing (metric size???).


> 
> I've also wondered if it would work to put a "Y adapter" (like the 
one shown
> at http://www.inksupply.com/vacfill.cfm) just in front of the 
damper, and
> then just pull the problem ink out of the line with a syringe if 
the printer
> has been sitting for a while.
> 

I haven't had the covers on the head of my printer in years. I'll 
often pull the ink line off the damper and pressurize the ink line 
(through the vent on my CIS bottles) to push the ink out into a waste 
bottle. Or run it the opposite way to flush the ink back into the 
bottles. Depends what I need to do.