Digital BW, The Print

R Craig Blackman <blac1588@...> wrote:
>
> I have been using the 2200 for over 2 years, and have had little trouble with it. The issue of "waste pads" is new to me...

All of the Epson desktop printers use pads in the base of the printer to absorb and store waste ink, which is always produced in the course of printing, particularly when cleaning cycles are done.  Ultimately, these pads fill up.  The printer keeps track of the amount of waste ink via its software, and when the internal counter says the pads are full the 2 red lights on the printer will flash, signaling that service is required.  

Epson now has a reset utility that can be used to reset this counter.  I suspect Epson made the public to avoid people going to the Russian SSC software.

You can usually get considerably more life out of the printer by doing a software reset.  Since the pads will ultimately fill up, some perform minor surgery on the printer to stop the ink from being dumped into the base of the printer, guiding it to an outside bottle instead.  Whether this leads to more clogging is an interesting issue.  Presumably the ink waste pads raise the humidity inside the printer and help hold down the drying of ink on the heads, which, of course, is the usual cause of a true clog (as opposed to air in the line due to poor carts and filling procedures, or having the CIS bottles too low).


> I am new to this site.

Welcome.  

> B&W is my passion and I have never printed a B&W regardless of what paper I use that has blown my socks off...

I'm guessing you're using an OEM inkset and approach.

>... Photoshop CS4 is helping some.

Photoshop 4 is what got me going on digital printing.

> I am sick of reading books,

They are source materials (or sleep aides).

> wasting paper and ink 

Go cheap so it doesn't hurt so much.  Take a look at Red River papers.  Aurora natural is becoming a favorite value fine art paper for me.  Matte paper has way less artifacts and problems than glossy.  Under glass they look about the same.


> ... the monster "green" would show up in my all B&W prints.

"Green" can a profiling problem, metamerism issue (changing light and too much color in the print), and, way down the road, a differential fade problem (again, too much color and weak magenta).  Dedicated B&W approaches help with the color shades.  They can avoid color inks entirely, either by being 100% carbon or being pre-mixed blends that use the minimum amount of color needed to cool down the warm carbon.  High gamut color inks require very accurate profiling to control and cause other problems in B&W.


> ... makes me think the way to go is get a 1400 for B&W and go back to using the 2200 for color.

I agree.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com