Digital BW, The Print

Anyone have any tips on how t best store a partially used cart ?

Thanks

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

This is a good question, that I wish I had asked when I first 
archived some partially used ink cartridges.

Basically there are two issues you need to deal with

1) Evaporation (which is obvious) and,
2) Bacteria growth (which, at least for me, wasnt initially obvious)

You can slow evaporation by sealing a cartridge in a well evacuated 
plastic bag, but, this will not prevent bateria from  growing within 
the ink itself. If bacteria forms, you'll be able to tell because 
the ink will become *stringy* (which is actually the bacteria!). You 
can slow the growth in several ways: placing it in a well evacuated 
plastic bag, seal all the ports on the cartridges and put in a cool 
place (think of it as a piece of meat - but DONT freeze it!). This 
could keep a cartridge for up to a year (I've done it with ok 
success), but its not guaranteed, and different inks are prone to 
bacteria growth at different rates.  You can also try to *seal* the 
cartridge in a food storage vacuum sealer (for instance something 
like http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=302042) , 
which, in theory, will slow evaporation and bacteria better than 
just a platic bag. Of course, if its just a cartridge or two, it 
just easier and cheaper to not risk gumming up your print head and 
buy fresh cartridges... or print more often :->

Hope this helps.

Howard



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Good" 
<agood214@c...> wrote:

> Anyone have any tips on how t best store a partially used cart ?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is weird......
I normally get maybe 30-45 8x10 prints out of Ut2 color cart. The eboni 
cart lasts maybe 5 times as long or more, because I do a lot of prints 
on costco glossy, but I have this one color cart in my 1280 right now 
that I swear has to going 80 prints. That is so wierd. After about 40 
or so I checked the levels, and it was almost out. Basically empty, so 
I got out the box of new carts, and made a few more, then a few more, 
then I did a whole photo album on costco glossy for my brother-in-law 
as a gift, all the time ready to rip off the taper from the new cart. 
Then I checked the level again and it's significantly more full than it 
was 30 prints before, which was after about 40 prints! Weird. OK by me 
though, but I wonder why that is. It makes me think that maybe there is 
still a lot of ink left when the light goes on. How many would be about 
the max on a full color cart. Most of the pictures were from a wedding 
that I did, which were of various densities from light to dark. Lots of 
black tuxes, but also white dressed etc......Any ideas why this is 
lasting so long?
Doug M