Digital BW, The Print

Your advice is most appreciated. I need to choose between the two in a 
hurry. I have had good results with a R2400, but want to use K3 inks on 
semi-gloss papers and my wife likes to print color.

I tried Piezo K6 neutral inks in my R300, but have problems with 
banding, paper feeding, and I don't like to be limited to 8.5" wide.

Your choice and rational appreciated.

Can someone help me out here?

My thinking is as follows. The R1800 might be better, as it has an 
extra ink cartridge, thus making room for the pink cleaning solution to 
prevent clogs. Also, I belive the R1800 has a higher resolution and 1.5 
picolitre drop size compared to the 4 picolitres drop size of the R2200.

Then again, until you actually see the results, you never know. There 
are also factors like clogs, paper feeding issues, etc. to consider. 
This is the sort of information only long-term users can provide. I 
have the opportunity to buy a used R2200 for a great price, but I'm 
wondering if I should wait for a R1800 instead. Keep in mind, this is 
purely for use with Piezo NK7 inks.

IMO, the extra ink position of the R1800 should not influence your 
decision. In fact it is just one more extraneous thing to deal with. 
A cleaner cart will only keep the jets associated with the cart 
position clean.  It won't keep the entire head clean. So why bother?

The smaller drop size is very important if you are using Paul 
Roark's 3-Eboni Black only workflow.  The larger drop size should 
not affect the smoothness or ink drop visibility of the K7 prints.

Jeff

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "pglombick" 
<glombick@...> wrote:
>
> My thinking is as follows. The R1800 might be better, as it has an 
> extra ink cartridge, thus making room for the pink cleaning 
solution to 
> prevent clogs. Also, I belive the R1800 has a higher resolution 
and 1.5 
> picolitre drop size compared to the 4 picolitres drop size of the 
R2200.

Another consideration might be the upcoming gloss version of the K7
inks. Glop is added to the mix, so the extra 1800 position would allow
7 dilutions plus glop. The 2200 would still work, using 6 dilutions
plus glop, but the 1800 gives you more options.

In my case I use a common K plus 3 Sepia and 3 Neutral K7 ink. Works
fine in my 2200 right now but I'll be one ink short when gloss is
available.

Terry.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Jeff Randall"
<jrandall@...> wrote:

>
> IMO, the extra ink position of the R1800 should not influence your 
> decision. In fact it is just one more extraneous thing to deal with. 
> A cleaner cart will only keep the jets associated with the cart 
> position clean.  It won't keep the entire head clean. So why bother?
> 
> The smaller drop size is very important if you are using Paul 
> Roark's 3-Eboni Black only workflow.  The larger drop size should 
> not affect the smoothness or ink drop visibility of the K7 prints.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "pglombick" 
> <glombick@> wrote:
> >
> > My thinking is as follows. The R1800 might be better, as it has an 
> > extra ink cartridge, thus making room for the pink cleaning 
> solution to 
> > prevent clogs. Also, I belive the R1800 has a higher resolution 
> and 1.5 
> > picolitre drop size compared to the 4 picolitres drop size of the 
> R2200.
>

Thanks for the feedback. 

I forgot about the upcoming gloss option and ended up getting the R2200 
based on price. I had an old R300 lying around and I tried using a 
Piezo (K6) ink, but I had problems with banding and a grid-like pattern 
that Was still visible with the naked eye even at 2880. I tried 
different dithering patterns, but it didn't solve the problem.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Jeff Randall" 
<jrandall@...> wrote:
>
> IMO, the extra ink position of the R1800 should not influence your 
> decision. In fact it is just one more extraneous thing to deal 
with. 
> A cleaner cart will only keep the jets associated with the cart 
> position clean.  It won't keep the entire head clean. So why bother?

I've gone through 4 of these machines, and none of them had more than 
3 ink channels that printed completely banding-free. One of them was 
the gloss channel, so I've used it for that critical LK in a K4 all-
in-one configuration. I don't see having an extra channel to choose 
from aa a liability. OK, if you're going for a single tone, matte-
paper solution, you don't need it, but OTOH having the option of 
setting it up with A) matte K4, B) Gloss K3, and neutral, cold, 
carbon, or deep sepia variations of either, has a great deal of 
appeal to me

Steve Karafyllakis


> 
> The smaller drop size is very important if you are using Paul 
> Roark's 3-Eboni Black only workflow.  The larger drop size should 
> not affect the smoothness or ink drop visibility of the K7 prints.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "pglombick" 
> <glombick@> wrote:
> >
> > My thinking is as follows. The R1800 might be better, as it has 
an 

> > extra ink cartridge, thus making room for the pink cleaning 
> solution to 
> > prevent clogs. Also, I belive the R1800 has a higher resolution 
> and 1.5 
> > picolitre drop size compared to the 4 picolitres drop size of the 
> R2200.
>

Steve:  I agree 110% about the general fleibility of the R1800, but I 
was focusing on the Piezo K7 inks only question.  I've got two R1800s 
and love them -- they are great BW experimental platforms.

Yes, but does the smaller drop size make for better prints over the 2200?

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

With 6 or 7 inks being laid down, I seriously doubt you could tell the 
difference between the two. 

Steve Karafyllakis


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Glombick" 
<glombick@...> wrote:
>
> Yes, but does the smaller drop size make for better prints over the 
2200?

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