Digital BW, The Print

I use the 1280 with MIS FS inks, and find having to do nozzel 
cleaning every day rather frustrating. I am afraid it is not good for 
the printer head, not to mention pooling of ink that causes spurious 
appearance of ink at one corner of the traling edge of the paper. I 
tried raising the printer 1 inch on wood blocks, and placing a cookie 
tray loaded with a towel and water. No improvement! Now I have 
resorted to placing a highly absorbent kitchen towel moderately wet 
with water (not dripping) in the parinter carriage, to the left of 
the resting print head. I also keep the lid down, to the local 
humidity near the print head is high. This seems to have worked, and 
I have not had to do any cleaning cycles in the last 4 days (!).

I really hope this works long-term. Otherwise, I have been tempted to 
use the MediaStreet Enhanced Generation black, which apparently has 
significant dye content, and I surmise may be less prone to clogs. 
But then, I would have to redo my workflow completely, and I don't 
want to go there.

Shilesh Jani

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "janishilesh" 
<shilesh.jani@s...> wrote:

I also keep the lid down, to the local 
> humidity near the print head is high. This seems to have worked, and 
> I have not had to do any cleaning cycles in the last 4 days (!).


I really have had bad feelings about localizing the humidity. I know 
that some folks put a pan of water near the printer and throw a dust 
cover over the whole thing, and report sucess. What bothers me is 
whether you may create condensation on some electronic circuits, 
connectors, etc. You see what you've got is a small volume of air you 
are trying to regulate water content of.

 Let's say I am trying to pour a gallon of water into another 
container. If the second container is small and I don't watch how fast 
I dump the water, I can cause a puddle overflow to form. Now let's say 
I'm pouring the gallon of water into a big 55 gallon empty drum. No 
problem, I won't splash any.

So, if I put a humidstat into a big volume room, it may take longer 
for it to come to equalibrium, but it will be more accurate than in a 
tiny room, subject to humidity fluctuation due to it lack of humidity 
capacity.

I could wind up with 99%RH in a small enclosure for printer before I 
realized it. In a larger room I can control it more accuractly to 
40%RH say. Yada, yada...

 

> 
> I really hope this works long-term. Otherwise, I have been tempted 
to 
> use the MediaStreet Enhanced Generation black, which apparently has 
> significant dye content, and I surmise may be less prone to clogs.


I was thinking along these same lines awhile back, but one or two very 
knowledgable folks on this list reported second hand reports of 
clogging at least as worse, dye notwithstanding. True or false, I 
stayed with VM inkset. I figure you just can't assume anything makes 
common sense.<g>
Jim H.

> But then, I would have to redo my workflow completely, and I don't 
> want to go there.
> 
> Shilesh Jani

If a specific RH really bothers you, just do the old humidor trick and
mix distilled water and propylene glycol (you can get it at a drug
store) 50/50.  In a closed space, that will give you an RH of just
about 70%... high enough to be moist, but low enough that mold won't
grow.  There's a ton of web content out there on how to build such a
humidifier (not that I do it with my printer... but I do with my
cigars).

-Jon

> I really have had bad feelings about localizing the
> humidity. I know
> that some folks put a pan of water near the printer and
> throw a dust
> cover over the whole thing, and report sucess. What bothers me is
> whether you may create condensation on some electronic circuits,
> connectors, etc. You see what you've got is a small volume
> of air you
> are trying to regulate water content of.