Digital BW, The Print

I'm about at the end of my rope with my 1280.  I've tried windex on
the pad.  I've tried using ink base in the cartridges and running
multiple cleaning cycles.  I've tried just printing lots of documents.

Any last suggestions before I recycle my 1280?

Thanks,
Earl

On 19/07/2008 esharamaki wrote:
> I'm about at the end of my rope with my 1280. I've tried windex on
> the pad. I've tried using ink base in the cartridges and running
> multiple cleaning cycles. I've tried just printing lots of documents.
> 
> Any last suggestions before I recycle my 1280?

It may just be badly clogged but the microfilters in the head eventually 
clog - especially using pigments - and at that point you can try flushing 
them but most likely a new head is needed. See 
http://www.mwords.co.uk/catalog/articles_info.php?articles_id=106 for some 
heavy-duty cleaning ideas. You can try cleaning the filters by small 
pump-suck actions with the syringe. It didn't work for me.

Blocked filters are indicated by nozzle checks returning varying nozzles 
not working. The ink isn't getting into the heads adequately.

New heads are about 80GBP (~165USD) if you fit it yourself, a fairly easy 
10minute job if you're handy at that sort of thing, just screws, plastic 
clips and connectors. There is no 'engineering alignment' procedure on 
this printer unlike some Epsons so it's straightforward. However it will 
happen again eventually. I had this happen with both an 1160 using Piezo 
BW and 1290 using G4 CIS. I gave both mine to an optimist when the second 
heads appeared to be going the same way.
-- 
Regards

Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk

Thanks for the link Tony.  I decided to send it off to the recycler. 
Ever since I got it, it's had problems with clogging.  So, now I have
one less clogging problem to worry about!

Hi Earl:

With the printer on, press the yellow button under the cover as if  
you were going to change an ink.

Then pull out the plug which will allow the printhead to move back  
and forth.

Then take a paper towel, fold it over a few times, soak it with  
windex and tape it down to the center area of your printer under  
where the head travels/.

Move the head with your hand back and forth over it. You should see a  
lot of "gunk" come off.

Return head to right side.

Plug in printer.

I know you said that you tried Windex on the pads, but after the  
procedure above, you might want to use an eyedropper and soak the  
cleaning pad area where the head rests with about 10ml of Windex or  
similar product. Then return the head to the right and wait about  
10-24 hours. Then fire it up and give it a try.

Hope that helps,

Andrew
---------------------------------------------------
Andrew Darlow
Editor, The Imaging Buffet
http://www.imagingbuffet.com
Author, 301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques:
An Essential Printing Resource for Photographers - http:// 
www.inkjettips.com



On Jul 19, 2008, at 2:09 PM, esharamaki wrote:

> I'm about at the end of my rope with my 1280. I've tried windex on
> the pad. I've tried using ink base in the cartridges and running
> multiple cleaning cycles. I've tried just printing lots of documents.
>
> Any last suggestions before I recycle my 1280?
>
> Thanks,
> Earl
>







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

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Darlow <ad@...> wrote:

I'll second Andrews method only I use a heavier blue "shop towel", (less lint).  I inherited an 
r1800 that had been helplessly clogged by a leaking CIS.  The parking pads were gummed up 
with thickened ink, the bottom of the head would sit down into the thickened ink on the pads 
and re-clog immediately.

As well as running Andrew's method see If you can locate the tube leading from the parking 
pad and try inserting a syringe into the tube.  After soaking the parking pad with Windex 
keep sucking the residue out with the syringe until it is cleaned of all the gummy stuff. 

The 1800 I revived has worked flawlessly since then.  I've even left it for a two month long 
stint and all it needed was a couple of cleaning cycles and it was right back on its feet.

On 20/07/2008 esharamaki wrote:
> Thanks for the link Tony. I decided to send it off to the recycler.
> Ever since I got it, it's had problems with clogging. So, now I have
> one less clogging problem to worry about!

Probably wise. Both my 1160 and 1290 were used with CIS from new. 
Initially they just worked. After a year or so I spent more and more time 
trying to get them working reliably. By 2yrs I'd replaced the head on the 
1290, and it was actually far better than the OE had ever been. But within 
another year it had degraded and I was spending 4 times as long trying to 
get it working as printing, and wasting 80% of ink and considerable 
amounts of expensive paper.

Possibly this was partly my fault as I'd quite often go a month or so 
without printing at all, but when I did need to use them it was usually on 
deadline. I got fed up with the utter unreliability, being up half the 
night covered in ink and Windex, or having to send printing out because I 
couldn't fix the damn things. I never got on with Cone BW ICC after the 
original plugin was ditched and inkset changed for legal reasons. I just 
couldn't get the same print quality with the revised stuff. Since then, JC 
has said the 4ink 1160 was pretty poor anyway with BW ICC. I wish he'd 
said that before selling me the compulsory 'upgrade'!

I since bought an HPB9180, which cost 35% the price of the Epsons + CIS, 
and so far, at 8m old, has been no trouble at all. It just works. I never 
need to do a nozzle check even when left unused for a month, thamks to its 
daily self-clean maintenance cycle - which BTW uses almost no ink as it 
only cleans problematic nozzles. I did think about a 3800, but my Epson 
clog traumas and the ludicrous PK/MK swap regime put me off.
-- 
Regards

Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk

At 05:41 a.m. Monday 21/07/2008, you wrote:
>I since bought an HPB9180, which cost 35% the price of the Epsons + CIS, 
>and so far, at 8m old, has been no trouble at all. It just works. I never 
>need to do a nozzle check even when left unused for a month, thamks to its 
>daily self-clean maintenance cycle - which BTW uses almost no ink as it 
>only cleans problematic nozzles. I did think about a 3800, but my Epson 
>clog traumas and the ludicrous PK/MK swap regime put me off.

Hi Tony,
you don't have to swap MK/PK with the 3800. 

The HP is interesting, but there are two things that make me hesitate about this printer: 
1. BW can't be toned in the driver.
2. No LLK, only Light Gray (same as Light Black?)

How have you found these features impact on your BW printing?

Richard


--
richard smallfield photography
http://smallfield.vze.com
http://www.photoforum-nz.org/gallery/thumbnails.php?pageID=19&showID=50 

   "We are more easily led part by part to an understanding of 
   the whole."
   --Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger 4 B.C. - A.D. 65

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

Folded paper towel on the platen, dampen with cleaning fluid, park heads there and do a little back and forth scrubbing. Let sit. The only thing that restores my 1270.

gar

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/19/2008 at 6:09 PM esharamaki wrote:

>I'm about at the end of my rope with my 1280.  I've tried windex on
>the pad.  I've tried using ink base in the cartridges and running
>multiple cleaning cycles.  I've tried just printing lots of documents.
>
>Any last suggestions before I recycle my 1280?
>
>Thanks,
>Earl
>
>
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On 20/07/2008 Richard Smallfield wrote:
> you don't have to swap MK/PK with the 3800.

? Every source I've seen indicates PK and MK are not available simultaneously
and must be swapped to suit the media.


> The HP is interesting, but there are two things that make me hesitate 
> about this printer:
> 1. BW can't be toned in the driver.

That's true, there is no ABW equivalent. There are two B&W modes, Black & 
gray only, and composite. Of course if you want toned results you can 
print as RGB.

Each method has limitations.

- black and gray only : utterly neutral image colour, no metamerism, but 
really only works on matte papers such as HPR. Back-to-back with Cone 
Piezo BW ICC from my old 1160, the HP has far better Dmax and (amazingly) 
smoother tones, especially in the lighter values. The old Cone plugin was 
good there, but 4-ink BW ICC is obnoxiously 'dotty'.

On semi- and gloss- bronzing is quite bad, although can be almost totally 
cured by overcoating with lacquer, but Cone inks didn't work at all except 
on matte. The bigger, costlier Z3100 adds a second gray amd Glop, and 
works extremely well on surface such as Harman FB AL gloss, producing the 
closest to un-ferrotyped gloss bromide that I've seen from any inkjet. 
There is however a slight lack of depth that comes from the image sitting 
'on' the paper.

Where black+gray mode loses out is the neutrality, which to my taste is 
just a touch clinical. I printed bromide for 30 years in the darkroom, and 
no bromide was ever quite that neutral, nor did I want it to be. Dmax is 
very good, but not quite good enough IMV.

- composite mode adds a small amount of colour, which increases DMax 
significantly and is really nice, improves compatibility with gloss and 
semi- surfaces to the extent that bronzing becomes a non-issue, and also 
introduces some metamerism and gloss differential. Nothing is perfect! 
That bothers some people but I don't find it too bad. Anyone who printed 
bromide knows that was metameric too, diverging from neutral in some 
illuminants, eg warmish bromides would often veer toward olive green 
unless toned. However, there is no ability to change the tonal colour, no 
ABW equivalent. That's quite limiting.

- B&W as RGB. For me this is the exciting and interesting bit about the 
HP. I am able to quadtone images and print as RGB to get extremely close 
to selenium-toned 1970's Agfa Record Rapid (before Agfa took out all the 
noxious Cadmium and ruined it). That was my favourite paper of all time, 
utterly sensual to print and look at. What metamerism there is is almost 
hidden by the relatively strong image colour, DMax is superb. There's just 
a bit of GD to object to on some papers. On Harman FB AL glossy or Innova 
Fibaprint glossy and also some matte surfaces, this is as close to 
perfection as I've got. What issues remain I can easily overlook, and the 
colour printing is superb too. Sure, it doesn't have the absolute 
permanence of pure carbon printing, but it should outlive me by some 
margin given the Vivera inkset's stability.

The HP isn't perfect by any means (it's a goddam inkjet!), it's just a 
different set of compromises that happens to suit me and may not match 
someone else's aspirations. I like what it does, especially the freedom 
from clogs given my pattern of intermittent use. That has been a major 
problem with all of the 4 Epsons I've owned and I'm delighted to see the 
back of it. However I think current Epsons are improved, so maybe this is 
not such a big deal.  Best of all I can get excellent colour and B&W from 
one printer which was impossible a few years ago. But HP's not unique in 
that, I know quite a few very happy 3800 owners.

It also uses ink very efficiently compared to every Epson I've owned, 
seemingly getting about 1.5x-2x as many prints from the same ink volume. 
There are some downsides eg question marks about long-term durability of 
the printer with some people having serial warranty replacements. Some 
people have head-crash problems with Harman in particular (curls when 
wetted by the ink) though I have not; and there are idiosyncrasies with 
the HP PS software which I avoid using Qimage. And Epson is more widely 
supported with a huge user base and paper mfrs fixed on the Epson market 
which perhaps means slightly worse paper compatibility with the HP (Ilford 
papers except Fiber Silk don't work well). But this is a tiny problem 
compared to my experiences with Cone and G4 inks, which worked well with 
very few papers I liked, and not at all with non-matte. There's an B9180 
list at hp9100Series@yahoogroups.com for anyone who wants to know more.

-- 
Regards

Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk

Hi Tony-

Could you elaborate a little on how you use Quadtone and RGB?

Thanks, Bill

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:46 AM, Tony Sleep <TonySleep@...>
wrote:

>
> - B&W as RGB. For me this is the exciting and interesting bit about the
> HP. I am able to quadtone images and print as RGB to get extremely close
> to selenium-toned 1970's Agfa Record Rapid (before Agfa took out all the
> noxious Cadmium and ruined it). That was my favourite paper of all time,
> utterly sensual to print and look at. What metamerism there is is almost
> hidden by the relatively strong image colour, DMax is superb. There's just
> a bit of GD to object to on some papers. On Harman FB AL glossy or Innova
> Fibaprint glossy and also some matte surfaces, this is as close to
> perfection as I've got. What issues remain I can easily overlook, and the
> colour printing is superb too. Sure, it doesn't have the absolute
> permanence of pure carbon printing, but it should outlive me by some
> margin given the Vivera inkset's stability.
>
>
-- 
Regards,

Bill Morse
Wm. Morse Editions

http://www.MorseEditions.com/


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

On 23/07/2008 Bill Morse wrote:
> Could you elaborate a little on how you use Quadtone and RGB?

Basically quadtone a greyscale image in PS, convert to sRGB, print as RGB.

I started out using the quadtones from Ken Lee but keep adjusting them 
slightly. http://www.kenleegallery.com/html/tech/bronzeOld.htm
Curve tweaks are usually necessary as they add density, especially in the 
shadows. Lately I've been selectively blending the quadtoned layer with a 
greyscale or tinted layer, to adjust the strength and extent of the effect 
more controllably.
-- 
Regards

Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk