Digital BW, The Print

The 3800 can use the inks from the 3880 but not the carts.

ConeColor ink is encapsulated fine pigment with a very narrow band distribution of particle sizes that can easily pass through any of the Epson print heads, including those designed solely for dye inks.

The only issue is as Walker points out - color management. The ConeColor inks while designed to work with Epson ICC workflow, are not color compatible when moved from one color range printer family to another. The Epson RGB workflow is very specific. You can alter what the printer is using - but you need to employ ICC or some other workflow in order to make it work. Not so different that using monochromatic inks in a color printer...

We sell the Vivid inks into the 1400 by example. But, we provide more than 40 ICC profiles to make that possible. Without the ICCs - the customer gets weird color. With the ICCs, the 1400 become a little fine art printmaking system. WE provide the ICCs because at sub $200 printers, no one should be investing in $400 color management packages in order to print pigment.

We do have customers running K7 shades 4&5 to replace Epson Lk and LLK respectively. The density match for these is nearly exact. Some customers are using the Neutral shades 1,4,5 to help with their color management on fine art papers. All our shade 4&5 inks are gloss compatible - but the only sets which are fully gloss compatible are Selenium K7 and WarmNeutral K7 which are both triple-encapsulated pigments from shade 2-7. MPS Black is our triple encapsulated photo black. There is enough encapsulation of K7 1 to prevent it from clogging (that is what encapsulation does), but not enough to make it glossy compatible.

There is new very dense Piezography photo black which has greater dMax than MPS Black 1 - and has a very warm base undertone. But it's so warm that it can not replace Epson Photo Black without ICCs. I use this ink for my backlit process because it's fully opaque.

The short is that if we can remove the color inks from any Epson printer and run monochromatic ink sets - it falls in line that we can put any color scheme into a printer as well. The issues are not mechanical (unless low quality inks are used), but rather a color management issue pertaining to the OEM printer driver. There really is and never has been a limit to what one can imagine as a preferred ink set. The only limitations are imposed by the OEM in an effort to thwart the use of non-OEM inks. 

Best regards,

Jon Cone

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "jhd622005" <jhd622005@...> wrote:
>
> 
> 
> I read on the http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/index.html
> webpage the 3800 cannot use the newer 3880 Epson inks.
> I would call the Cone office to be sure. The 3880 has a new print head and uses a different algorithim.
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "doggo@" <doggo@> wrote:
> >
> >      I have been printing a fairly large variety of papers on my 3800 for a couple of years and have never had a single problem that was not user induced. I have been seriously considering moving to the Cone inks and refillable cartridges. Cone also offers the Vivid ink in at attempt to provide that newer gamut from the inks of the 3880. 
> >      The Cone website says that it is unknown whether the Vivid inks will work with the Epson drive and further that new profiles would be required, which could be created by the ColorMunki, also avalable at the Cone site.
> >      I'm pretty sure that I will buy the Cone color inks for the 3800, but I am greatly intrigued at the idea of the increased gamut if I buy the Vivid inks. Of course, buying the system and then immediately shelling out another $400-to whatever for profiling is a bit of a puzzler. In short, is going for the Vivid colors worth it?
> >      Does anybody have any experience or information about use of the Vivid inks (designed for the 3880) on a 3800? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
> >      Thanks In Advance
> > doggo
> >
>