Digital BW, The Print

Bob,

>> The 1280, however, has more trouble with high viscosity inks 
>>than the  newer printers. High load pigment inks require a 
>>higher viscosity than the dye inks

>On another list we were just discussing density on ink, and 
>I found that Epson inks all seem to have the same relative 
>density - 1.07 - whether dye or pigment,

That is what I've measured also for the pigmented inks.  I've never really
dealt with the dyes.

>-and their viscosity is given as < 5 mPa.

I don't have a sophisticated way to measure viscosities, but for relative
viscosity comparisons, this is the device I've used:
http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/Viscosity_Comparisons.pdf 

You can see the range or relative viscosities I've measured.  

MIS (and their supplier) found with one of their original pigmented inks
that the magenta viscosity was too high for the 1280.  They had to lower the
load and viscosity for this reason.  (I think they called that inkset by
some name that had a "G" in it.  I don't know if it's still on their web
page.)  The old MIS 7600 M has the highest viscosity I've measured, and I
think that was the problem ink.  Current MIS 7600 inks are the same as the
MIS Pro inks, and they have a significantly lower viscosity according to my
way of measuring it.

Out of curiosity, I just measured the relative viscosity of some MIS yellow
dye.  Guess what, you're at least in part right.  The yellow MIS dye
measured exactly the same as what I call the "typical" viscosity of the
pigmented inks I'd measured.  So, I guess at this point I'd have to say that
the magenta pigments I've measured all have higher viscosities than the
"typical" ones I measure, with the MIS old 7600 being the highest.  The
Epson Archival LM was also elevated significantly.  (My notes don't show any
numbers for the Epson Archival or UC Magenta.)


>http://www.epson.com/cgi->bin/Store/support/Supportmsdsmain.jsp?BV_UseBVCoo
kie=yes

(Where does Epson list these statistics on that URL?   I see MSDSs.)

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com