Digital BW, The Print

A couple of very un-artistic questions.

- About how many prints (8x10 or 8.5x11) do you get from one set of 
cartridges of MIS VM inks for the Epson 1280?

- How many ounces of ink are there in a cartridge (of black, and of 
the gray/color chambers)?

- Anybody want to share experiences/horror stories from when you 
decided on either refilling cartrigdes or getting a CIS system?

- I also have an old HP Deskjet 500 that works well.  Is it worth the 
bother hooking the Deskjet and the 1280 up to an A/B box so I can use 
the Deskjet for ordinary text printing and the occasional music 
manuscript?  This is a cost of ink vs. convenience thing. 

Why I'm asking all this:  I just ordered a set of prefilled VM 
cartridges for the 1280 from MIS to try out Hextone printing.  
Eventually I may get the virgin cartridges and refill myself, or get 
a CIS.  I don't print every day, and I might not print every week 
except for a quick throwaway to keep the ink from drying out.  I need 
this information to get an idea of how much ink I'll consume, etc.

Thanks,
--Peter Klein
Seattle, WA

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "kd7mw" <pklein@2...> wrote:
> A couple of very un-artistic questions.
> 
> - About how many prints (8x10 or 8.5x11) do you get from one set of 
> cartridges of MIS VM inks for the Epson 1280?

I'll pass on that one.

> 
> - How many ounces of ink are there in a cartridge (of black, and of 
> the gray/color chambers)?

Each chamber is 18ml (0.61 oz), including K...but chip is designed to 
not empty cart fully so you don't use it all up- unless it's a 
CIS/CFS..

> 
> - Anybody want to share experiences/horror stories from when you 
> decided on either refilling cartrigdes or getting a CIS system?

I just updated my vacuum fill instructions for carts yesterday and 
Martin was kind enough to convert it to pdf format. I'm finding that 
the chips and connector in printhead are very delicate and caution in 
handling/ installing chip is mandatory. See the files section for cart 
fill file.

> 
> - I also have an old HP Deskjet 500 that works well.  Is it worth 
the 
> bother hooking the Deskjet and the 1280 up to an A/B box so I can 
use 
> the Deskjet for ordinary text printing and the occasional music 
> manuscript?  This is a cost of ink vs. convenience thing.

I don't use an a/b switch because Epson doesn't recommend it and I'm 
conservative. But, MANY many people have had luck with it, this 
question has been asked before in the archives.
 
> 
> Why I'm asking all this:  I just ordered a set of prefilled VM 
> cartridges for the 1280 from MIS to try out Hextone printing.

I ordered only one "prefilled" set once. What was strange was one of 
the color positions ran out of ink way before it was supposed to, as 
if it had not been completely filled. I have not heard of others 
having this problem, it was a freak. Still I fill my own. I will go to 
CFS after my vacation.
  
> Eventually I may get the virgin cartridges and refill myself, or get 
> a CIS.  I don't print every day, and I might not print every week 
> except for a quick throwaway to keep the ink from drying out.

You sound like me. My color carts last three weeks unless I've been 
printing a lot for a show, the K cart maybe 3-4 weeks.

I've been finding that one of the most important things is to run a 
quick draft purge print that doesn't use much ink often, maybe once a 
day more or less.

I found that humidity below 35% seems to encourage clogs, 40%RH is 
better. Recently I find a possible correlation between temperature as 
well- it "seems" as if I get more clogs if temperature is above about 
76-77 degrees F. 68-70 is ideal it tentatively looks like. Not proved.

  I 
need 
> this information to get an idea of how much ink I'll consume, etc.

I calculated that if you fill a set of carts with hex VM it will cost 
you about $26 (half of a prefilled set bought from MIS)for the set not 
including initial investment like fill kits and chip resetters. It 
takes me a leisurely 3 hours to do a set but you can trim that to 
about 2 1/4 hours maybe. And some of that 18ml of ink gets thrown away 
with the spent cart. A CIS/CFS is much more economical, but there are 
some good reasons to fill virgin carts instead.
Jim H.

> 
> Thanks,
> --Peter Klein
> Seattle, WA

Jim: Thanks very much for the info on refill cartridges vs. CIS.

At the end of your message, you mention that even though CIS in the
long run costs less than refilling cartridges, there are still
reasons to go with refills.  Would you elaborate further?  

Also, how many times can you refill a cartridge before you need to 
discard it and buy a new one?

Thanks,
--Peter Klein


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "jimhayes361" 
<jimhayes@j...> wrote:
> I calculated that if you fill a set of carts with hex VM it will 
cost 
> you about $26 (half of a prefilled set bought from MIS)for the set 
not 
> including initial investment like fill kits and chip resetters. It 
> takes me a leisurely 3 hours to do a set but you can trim that to 
> about 2 1/4 hours maybe. And some of that 18ml of ink gets thrown 
away 
> with the spent cart. A CIS/CFS is much more economical, but there 
are 
> some good reasons to fill virgin carts instead.
> Jim H.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "kd7mw" <pklein@2...> wrote:
> Jim: Thanks very much for the info on refill cartridges vs. CIS.
> 
> At the end of your message, you mention that even though CIS in the
> long run costs less than refilling cartridges, there are still
> reasons to go with refills.  Would you elaborate further?

I can't ever make an argument for carts being more convienent or 
cheaper. In situations where you are testing different inks and want 
to switch quickly from one to another, carts are better than CIS. If 
you are having trouble with one inkset, and you want to run printing 
test, merely filling up carts instead of using a CIS/CFS is of course 
wise too.

There are a couple of issues with CIS/CFS that you don't get with 
carts. One problem is that the CIS "carts" can work themselves up over 
time since they are not held down by the grey cart clamps. MIS has 
addressed this with modified cart clamps for $10 that exert downward 
pressure on the CFS yet still allow tubing to clear the grey clamp. 
The other problem that some people report is that the tubing is 
permeable, and the k ink especially is prone to evaporation and so 
drying up.

My own personal take on all this is that I'm probably going to go CFS 
in a month or two, and use the cart clamps and MIS's new f16 resetter 
which is roughly 1/2 price of the read only CIS chips. Since MIS CFS 
is so cheap and parts are available, I'll toss the tubing/cart/ink 
every 4-6 months, and replace, along with ink.


  
> 
> Also, how many times can you refill a cartridge before you need to 
> discard it and buy a new one?

On the We-Ink site they think refills are possible. MIS doesn't 
recommend it. I have never refilled, I've always used virgin carts so 
I'm not qualified to comment.
Jim H.

> 
> Thanks,
> --Peter Klein
> 
>