Digital BW, The Print

I've been using Carbon 6 happily for a while now.  For the most part, it's been problem free.  The one ink that's been giving me some trouble is the 9% one.  Is that dilution more prone to settling issues than the others?  (I shake my cartridges every few days.)

I have been having huge problems with my LightCyan EB6 from MIS.  That dilution has been a disaster in my brand new 1400 from day one.  Can't remember if "Light Cyan" is the 9% dilution

To be more specific about the symptoms.  In areas that should be of a uniform tonality I can get rainbow shaped streaks of darker (as if the carbon concentration were constantly varying while the nozzles are firing)tones.  The ink that has been the biggest offender in my case is LC and to a much lesser extent the Yellow.  The other inks seem fine

>
> I have been having huge problems with my LightCyan EB6 from MIS. That
> dilution has been a disaster in my brand new 1400 from day one. Can't
> remember if "Light Cyan" is the 9% dilution
>
I think that's the 6% dilution, but I could be wrong.

Until today, a single normal head cleaning cleared things up, but today I
just did three cleanings with no joy.  I wonder if it's the dilution that's
causing issues, or if it's something to do with that cartridge.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I have been wondering about the causes too.  It is either the consistency of carbon concentration (or certain dilution not firing the carbon particles consistently through the epson heads), cartridge problems (including air bubbles/improperly primed etc).  A third possibility (though perhaps a bit far fetched) would be the epson printer being 'aware' that the cartridges are not genuine and slightly sabotaging the ink firing.  although my MIS ink say "epson genuine ink" in the epson driver, I believe that epson would keep the info to themselves if they figured a way to identify 3rd party chipped cartridges.

"Yan" <ylucille@...> wrote:
>
>
> I have been wondering about the causes too. ...

What I have occasionally seen is dark lines in the Eb6-Y nozzle check. When this happens, it does affect the printing. Either a cleaning cycle of printing a purge pattern of mostly yellow seems to clear it.

I'm not sure what the cause is. My hypothesis is that Eboni K gets sucked up into the yellow nozzles through some type of capillary action. Note that the Y and LC positions are right next to the Eboni MK position in the 1400.

I've never had a persistent or even regular occurrence of this. So, I've pretty much put it in the very occasional nuisance category. It may be that under some circumstances that don't occur in my situation make it happen more. I'm not sure what the factors are.

I've never seen the effect in Eb6-LC or LM.

I usually run what I'm now labeling "Eb4+" in my 1400. (See a draft PDF at http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Eboni-4-Plus.pdf) So the LC position is, for example, HP LK (30% HP PK). It could be UT14 LC or Noritsu-Epson advanced dye, depending on what I'm doing. I've never detected the issue with these inks either.

I'd guess that frequency of use of the printer is one factor, but I'm not sure.

> It is either the consistency of carbon concentration ...

It could be right at the nozzle if the ink was left for a long time. Again, I've been more suspicious of capillary action pulling the MK ink up from the pad into the adjacent positions -- Y in my case.

>... the epson printer being 'aware' that the cartridges are not genuine and slightly sabotaging the ink firing.

I doubt it. It would be more regular. I have one older printer that flashes a warning at me all the time, but I've never seen actual sabotage.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com