Epson R2880 with non OEM inks

[Gabriele Campagnano]

Dear All,

I have finally bought a good inkjet printer, an Epson R2880.
I would like to have your opinion about third part ink sets.
My main use would be printing in color and creating digital negatives
for contact printing on silver gelatin paper and maybe trying out
some alternative processes like Carbon transfer and Platinum/Palladium.

Thanks,
Gabriele

[Ari]

I used Ink Republic inks on the 2880, but got inconsistent results, so I removed the inks and just use cartridges.
The inks seemed of good quality, it was likely the delivery system that was not up to snuff.
Others can chime in as to the other part of your query.

[Peter De Smidt]

I would search around on places where people make such negatives, such as http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CarbronTransfer/. Ask them what ink sets they use. For these uses, UV blocking is important, and ink sets vary in their ability to block UV.

[Lenny Eiger]

Go to inkjetmall.com -0 or even better, go here: http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/

Here is the digital negative category: http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/category/blog/digital-negatives/

There is plenty of information on all you will need....


Lenny

[Peter De Smidt]

He also want to be able to print in color.

[Lenny Eiger]

He also want to be able to print in color.

He should cease those errant thoughts! ;-)

Just kidding......

I think its a problem to try and do both extremely well, but mostly on the printing side. I am just beginning to work with digital negs, and haven't tried them in enough configurations to have an opinion about whether color makes sense or not. I have been impressed with the depth of the information that Jon Cone's has been putting on his blog, and have been reading it myself.

Doesn't mean that there aren't other ways.... and I think this is a new enough activity where the science isn't settled one way or the other...

Lenny

[Gabriele Campagnano]

thanks for the first answers, my question was more towards: Third part inks vs Epson k3
in terms of quality of print and clogging problems....

[Peter De Smidt]

Gabriele, I expect that many people here that use third party ink sets are printing BW. The results can be excellent with minimal clogging. Mr. Cone's ink sets have a very good reputation, and I'm using an inkset from MIS based on Paul Roark's work, and it's been trouble free so far, but no pigment ink system likes to stay unused for very long. I would start with the OEM inks and something like Mark Nelson's Precision Digital Negatives, http://www.precisiondigitalnegatives.com/. His system uses color inks. You might shoot him an email and see if he has any experience with 3rd-party inks.

[DKirk]

Have a look at these guys, been using them for a while - http://www.permajet.com/