Carbon inks, which ones to use?

[Lenny Eiger]

I found Tyler's explanation of different models and their reliability very interesting. I think it's spot on (no surprise there), with one caveat. i think there are good printers and bad printers. I had a 7500 (which was the best of the lot) a 10,000, a 9600 and a couple of Roland's. The Roland's are a much higher quality overall, much easier to work with and to clean, its a real shame they were forced out of the fine art market by Epson. Software is not going to be available going forward, and they will not move to higher dot counts so I can't recommend them for new purchases. However, I digress...

I think there are 9600 units that were excellent and others that were not. There are people that had no issues with their 9600, but I am not one of them. I spent an inordinate amount of time replacing dampers, running power clean cycles, replacing the absorbent material in that ridiculous cleaning cartridge (finally just used paper towels) and everything else. I bought chip resetters, and took the thing apart multiple times. It did make some very nice prints when it ran right but I was happy to be rid of it when I sold it to someone who wanted to tinker....

I think if you get a good Epson, it means all the tolerances in the machine lined up just right; and you should keep it running and hold on to it. On the other hand if you have a machine that you are having consistent trouble with, get rid of it and get another one with a warranty on it. Then at least you will know by the time the warranty runs out whether its a good one or not.

Lenny

[SergeiR]

Got fresh cartridges, re-tuned my 1430 and happily printing printing again with EB6. No smudges, very nice "silvery-feeling" prints.

[Peter De Smidt]

That's good to hear, Sergei!

[SergeiR]

Thanks, Peter.

Now next quest is to get Q-Rip thingy to work with Maverick, as i keep hearing that its superior to regular printing with normal drivers

[coisasdavida]

I have been reading a lot about this recently and this thread has been very useful.
I was given a Epson 4900 and have converted it to B&W.
So far, the carbon ink I purchased has not arrived to Brazil yet, MIS delayed shipping for about a month.

I like onnect17 comments and since I didn't have the carbon, I took my chances on a very expired T474 cartridge I found locally and diluted that ink.
So far, a very interesting experiment.