Digital BW, The Print

I wanted to post something on the topic of clogging as we seem to have many different experiences and expectations.

Most of the concern appears to come from the many serious clogging problems people experience with the original Piezo inks. What this has left in its wake is a lot of skepticism about the new Piezo inks and the mistaken idea that any sign of clogging in a ink/printer combination is unacceptable.

This last point is what concerns me the most. The simple fact is that if you use an inkjet printer you will get clogged nozzles. This is completely independent of whether you use genuine Epson ink or a third party ink. It doesn't matter what printer model you have. Epson did not include nozzle check and nozzle cleaning utilities for no reason. They expected that people using their printers and inks would get nozzle clogs. This is indeed the case.

The amount of nozzle clogging will vary from printer to printer with the same ink set. Robert Morrison reported recently that his father's 1200 requires daily nozzle checks and cleans with Epson OEM inks. I have had periodic clogging with Epson inks on a couple 1270's. Others may go for months before they hit a clog. All of this is normal.

Now if we take these printers that were designed for the Epson inks and we install pigment grayscale inks, it should be obvious that the rate of clogging is  likely to go up. In general this seems to be the case.

So what is acceptable clogging? Well first unacceptable clogging was my experience with original Piezo where I would come home from work to print and not be able to get a clear nozzle check after 4, 5 or more nozzle cleaning cycles at which point the cure was to let the printer sit over night. I can't tell you how frustrating that is especially if you have limited time available to print. And this does not happen once a year but once a week of more. Worse you come back 24 hours later and it is still clogged. Then it is off onto soaking the parking pad with Windex, paper towel under the print head, green shift, clog from hell, etc. Reports of these kind of problems with the original Piezo inks came in a flood and consumed much of the Piezo list activity.

So again what is normal and acceptable clogging? I would say any clogging that can be cleared by running nozzle cleaning cycles and then lets you get back to printing is acceptable.

Having said that, there are middle areas where the frequency of normal clogging is so high it becomes very annoying. If every time you start a print session you have to run 5 nozzle checks and 4 cleaning cycles, you may decide that this is just too much hassle and look for another ink or printer, or you may decided that you like the results of this particular ink so much you will put up with this behavior. Even an occasional major clog that causes a delayed printing session or some extraordinary cleaning activity may be acceptable if it only happens once or twice a year.

So we have a wide range of experience regarding clogs. What we need to keep in mind, is that if someone posts that ink "X" in printer "Y" caused clogging, what exactly do they mean? Likewise if you want to report a clogging issue please let us know exactly what is happening. Is it a normal clog that cleared up with nozzle cleaning cycles? Was it a clog from hell? How often does it happen? Did you have to delay your printing session as a result? What was the condition of the printer? Was it new, well used  or had it been sitting in the attic with no cartridges installed?

None of the MIS VM or FS inks has resulted in the scale of clogging problems associated with the original Piezo inks. This is not to say that some people did not have a bad experience with one of these inks, but there has been no flood of posts about clogging. With the PiezoTones initial reports indicate that they do not suffer the unacceptable clogging problems of the original Piezo inks either. There may be some indication that the PT's experience normal clogging more frequently than the MIS inks but we will need to wait and see if that is generally true or not. The clogging behavior of the PT inks seems to be close to the MIS inks and not at all similar to the original Piezo inks.

Keep in mind that due to the variation in printers, the effects of different climate conditions, cartridges vs. CIS and other factors there are and will be exceptions to these general statements. Even with the original Piezo inks many people never experienced unacceptable clogging and are still happy with them today.
 
Martin Wesley

http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html





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

Martin-

I think you're right...the ratios of clogs seem to increase across a 
spectrum of OEM, MIS, PT, BW. I've been trying PT carts and the first 
3 sets were great (what fabulous prints they make !) but now I'm in a 
constant banding situation where I could not even print a whole 13x19 
print without banding creeping back in in the final quarter print...a 
nozzle cleaning after every 2 8.5x11 prints kept it in check, but 
this was a pretty high price to pay.

The other factor that you don't address is (from my experience) 
clogging definitely is reduced by switching to a CIS system from 
carts. The problem is that someone who has a significant problem with 
the carts is very unlikely to take the chance of investing time and 
money in a CIS for the same ink that might have caused the problem.

I had "some" clog issues with MIS carts...since installing CIS, 
almost never a problem, and all easily fixed. I think this is due to 
the constant "connection" advantage of the CIS vs. introducing air 
and uneven fill issues every time you change a cart, but you may know 
more about this than I.

This is certainly not an invitation to a piezo bashing thread because 
I think Jon is really on to something with the PT inksets. There seem 
to be more complaints in 1160 cart usage than any other (might just 
be that the 1160 is everyone's "experimental" platform or maybe the 
newer printers really do work better ((what a concept))). 

We've all heard the issues of clogs and banding being blamed on the 
inks...wonder if it is more an ink/printer combination? Are some 
printers really handling 3P inks better than others? I've read in 
other forums that Canon printers, for instance, handle 3P color inks 
better...

Any thoughts? For now, I'm back to MIS FS, but only to avoid being 
sucked into a struggle that I would rather watch than participate in 
<g>...if 6 months from now the reports are all great on PT, I'll be 
there again!

Tom O'Connell

TomOC@...
www.thomasoconnell.com



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> I wanted to post something on the topic of clogging as we seem to 
have many different experiences and expectations.
> 
> Most of the concern appears to come from the many serious clogging 
problems people experience with the original Piezo inks. What this 
has left in its wake is a lot of skepticism about the new Piezo inks 
and the mistaken idea that any sign of clogging in a ink/printer 
combination is unacceptable.
> 
> This last point is what concerns me the most. The simple fact is 
that if you use an inkjet printer you will get clogged nozzles. This 
is completely independent of whether you use genuine Epson ink or a 
third party ink. It doesn't matter what printer model you have. Epson 
did not include nozzle check and nozzle cleaning utilities for no 
reason. They expected that people using their printers and inks would 
get nozzle clogs. This is indeed the case.
> 
> The amount of nozzle clogging will vary from printer to printer 
with the same ink set. Robert Morrison reported recently that his 
father's 1200 requires daily nozzle checks and cleans with Epson OEM 
inks. I have had periodic clogging with Epson inks on a couple 
1270's. Others may go for months before they hit a clog. All of this 
is normal.
> 
> Now if we take these printers that were designed for the Epson inks 
and we install pigment grayscale inks, it should be obvious that the 
rate of clogging is  likely to go up. In general this seems to be the 
case.
> 
> So what is acceptable clogging? Well first unacceptable clogging 
was my experience with original Piezo where I would come home from 
work to print and not be able to get a clear nozzle check after 4, 5 
or more nozzle cleaning cycles at which point the cure was to let the 
printer sit over night. I can't tell you how frustrating that is 
especially if you have limited time available to print. And this does 
not happen once a year but once a week of more. Worse you come back 
24 hours later and it is still clogged. Then it is off onto soaking 
the parking pad with Windex, paper towel under the print head, green 
shift, clog from hell, etc. Reports of these kind of problems with 
the original Piezo inks came in a flood and consumed much of the 
Piezo list activity.
> 
> So again what is normal and acceptable clogging? I would say any 
clogging that can be cleared by running nozzle cleaning cycles and 
then lets you get back to printing is acceptable.
> 
> Having said that, there are middle areas where the frequency of 
normal clogging is so high it becomes very annoying. If every time 
you start a print session you have to run 5 nozzle checks and 4 
cleaning cycles, you may decide that this is just too much hassle and 
look for another ink or printer, or you may decided that you like the 
results of this particular ink so much you will put up with this 
behavior. Even an occasional major clog that causes a delayed 
printing session or some extraordinary cleaning activity may be 
acceptable if it only happens once or twice a year.
> 
> So we have a wide range of experience regarding clogs. What we need 
to keep in mind, is that if someone posts that ink "X" in printer "Y" 
caused clogging, what exactly do they mean? Likewise if you want to 
report a clogging issue please let us know exactly what is happening. 
Is it a normal clog that cleared up with nozzle cleaning cycles? Was 
it a clog from hell? How often does it happen? Did you have to delay 
your printing session as a result? What was the condition of the 
printer? Was it new, well used  or had it been sitting in the attic 
with no cartridges installed?
> 
> None of the MIS VM or FS inks has resulted in the scale of clogging 
problems associated with the original Piezo inks. This is not to say 
that some people did not have a bad experience with one of these 
inks, but there has been no flood of posts about clogging. With the 
PiezoTones initial reports indicate that they do not suffer the 
unacceptable clogging problems of the original Piezo inks either. 
There may be some indication that the PT's experience normal clogging 
more frequently than the MIS inks but we will need to wait and see if 
that is generally true or not. The clogging behavior of the PT inks 
seems to be close to the MIS inks and not at all similar to the 
original Piezo inks.
> 
> Keep in mind that due to the variation in printers, the effects of 
different climate conditions, cartridges vs. CIS and other factors 
there are and will be exceptions to these general statements. Even 
with the original Piezo inks many people never experienced 
unacceptable clogging and are still happy with them today.

>  
> Martin Wesley
> 
> http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I posted about a month ago expressing my frustration with the 
frequent clogs I was getting with an Epson 1200 and MIS VM inks.  It 
appears, that at least to some extent, the problem was printer 
maintenance.  While I had lubricated the bar on which the heads, they 
still seemed to "catch" at times.  I went over the bar carefully with 
HD-40 --which I was reluctant to use given its penetrating 
properties -- and cotton swabs and was amazed at the amount of grime 
that came loose.  Since then, I have had only very minor clogs with 
the black ink and those clear quickly with a cleaning cycle or two.  
It may have been coincidental, but I don't think so.  (Knock on wood.)

I should also add that I had the printer hooked up via a USP port on 
a pentium II and given that there were only two ports, that required 
a usb hub.  I recently upgraded to a new computer with six ports and 
connecting the printer directly seems to make a big difference -- I 
had to reinstall the driver regularly with the older computer.  I 
suspect that did not affect the tendency to clog, but who knows.

Steve