I have never used a 4900, but most of the more recent Epson wide format printers use carts that have one-way valves in them that stop refilling. I tried to remove those valves, but the success rate was low. I'd recommend that you wait until you have good refillable cartridges. Even if you manage to remove the valves, rinsing a wide format cart is a pain.
If you use a rip like QTR, it doesn't much matter where you put the dilute inks. The jets appear to be the same regardless of position, but do keep the PK and MK in their assigned spots. The profile will determine the firing order.
If you want to use the Epson driver, you'll need to have the LM and LC significantly more dilute than the M and C, respectively. I've had success with dilution differences of between 50% and 20%, with 30% being my target. What that means is the the LM and LC should be 30% M or C, respectively, and 70% dilution base. So, for example, if the C is 30% K, then the LC should be 9% K.
I fact, I've found that having the lighter ink have only 30% as much pigment as the darker one is a good target for any cross-over, whether it's QTR or the Epson driver.
With the original Eboni-6, which was, in part, made for the old 7500 and 3000 (which had relatively huge drop sizes compared to today's printers) the Y position was only 2% K, 98% dilution base. Note that I no longer recommend that. The dots are small enough that pumping that much fluid onto the paper is worse than having dots that are a bit more prominent -- under a microscope. So, we no longer need such a dilute ink. Also, we don't need to hide the fact that we're using inkjets. We';ve beat the silver print. Carbon is king now in almost all respects. Silver printing is an "alt process."
So, if you combine the 30% ink dilution target with the dilution end point being closer to 6% K, you'll find that you need more than just a simple single partition. In QTR that means setting up those "toner" channels as carbon channels. I use different dilutions in them so that the cross-overs are at different point. That hides the cross-overs well.
Alternatively, if you want to just put clear base in a number of channels, you can use the generic base for this and then do a simple, single partition of carbon inks. You might, however, find that on close inspection you have some microbanding. I still have a simple "quad" printer that does a good job, but many of them are less than perfect. You may find you need more than 4 channels for top quality output.
You say you want 100% carbon. That's great for warm, but do you also want to be able to make a neutral print? If so, you might want to consider having a color pigment based toner in the printer. As you can see from my main ink information page ( http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/ ) I've settled on the single toner setup for my printers now because it works and is easy to profile.
Good luck,
Paul
On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 5:45 AM, coisasdavida@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
The above exchange was kind of what I was looking for.
I recently got a used 4900 with PK and MK channels and I'm planning on a 100% carbon ink set. I still have 9 cartridges left and was thinking of using 4 too.Is there a rule as to how to position the inks in the printer, from darker to lighter?I wanted to fill the Epson carts in the printer with clear base, while I wait for the refillable to come by mail, should take a few months. Is this viable?