Digital BW, The Print

I had the opportunity to dedicate a SP1290 to BW. 

I finally ordered a neutral K6 set of piezography inks with a CIS. 
Inkjetmall sent me a Lyson CIS. Not specific problem to prime the 
system, excepted that I found the equipment quite "dusty", scaring if 
you think of this dust going in the printhead! (hopefully there are 
filters in the ink tank and in the fake cartridges)

I compared SP1290 K6 and B9180 on HPR paper. 

I'm disappointed by the smaller Dmax of the piezography inks. 
I'm also disappointed by the performances of the SP1290: 

- slight banding in midtones (despite a perfect nozzle check and same 
ink level in the CIS - half the bottle)

- for small prints, (5x7"), banding at the beginning and the end of 
the print (not present on large prints)

- huge banding at black-only printing 
- nozzle check compulsory before each print 
- frequent nozzle cleaning cycles 
- difficulties to grip a heavy paper (photorag 308 in this case) 


I also noticed the black ink dribbling (deterioration of the finest 
details), I'm not abble to tell if this is because of the ink or the 
printer.

If I add to this all the advantages of the B9180: always ready to 
print, no banding, no nozzle check, no missed print, no gripping ich 
with the special media tray, easy possibility to tone a print... the 
Epson is going directly to the dustbin! The inkjet printing 
technology made huge improvements during 4 years, between a SP1290 
and B9180!

I guess the newer Epson (R1800, R2400) have improved the banding 
problems, but if equipped with piezogrphy ink, the lack of Dmax 
should be still there.
What are your thoughts?

I also print with an HP pigment based printer (Z3100) and wholeheartedly agree with you.  However, I also use an Epson R1800 and don't have the nozzle clogging problems that you described.  My thinking is that the 1290 is such old technology by today's standards that it just can't measure up in many ways.  The paper handling issue is clearly a relic of the fact that the older Epson printers were designed to handle much thinner, more flexible papers.  Also, these printers were designed for dye based inks and you are in essence "re-purposing " them when you use the Piezography inks in them.  So yes, your findings are in no way surprising.



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

What kind of Dmax difference are you seeing on matte papers?  I'm 
surprised there's that big a difference among modern pigment blacks.

It's clearly noticeable by eyes.
I have no spectrophotometer, but after noticing it, I dug on the net 
and found : 
piezo black on HPR Dmax 1,58
B9180 on HPR: Dmax 1,75


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Roger" 
<rsmith02@...> wrote:

>
> What kind of Dmax difference are you seeing on matte papers?  I'm 
> surprised there's that big a difference among modern pigment blacks.
>