Inexpensive pigment printing and digital negatives?

[Thebes]

I am searching for an entry level printer. The printer will either be dedicated to B&W or color, using 3rd party inks, maybe the Cone ones but I am open to others. With B&W I want to use a multi dilution system like the MIS or piezography ones.

This printer has to do a decent job at printing digital negatives. Its being bought soon for a cyanotype portion of a mixed-media fiber-art piece my wife is working on (must keep her happy with the photography expenditures). I've done alt-process work before but that was a decade ago and I've never dealt with digital internegatives. I expect to also print ziatypes. I don't plan to do traditional pt/pd at this time, but it would be nice if the printer could lay down enough density should I wish to in the future.

So, I am looking for an inexpensive printer and ink system that can do either color or B&W very well, and do decent diginegs on occasion. I am fine with spraying fixatives on the negs but would need know more about how that works out. I figure I'll be using Pictorico OHP for the neg media and will probably want to use QTR to drive the printer.

I have a budget of around 300-400 for the printer including enough ink to get the cyanotype project done. I don't want to be swapping back and forth between inks. I don't want to use stock inks because they make the cheap printers a poor long term value.

What would you get? What should I be thinking about? Is buying a used printer a bad idea, I'll probably be replacing the ink system anyway? How big of a deal are clogged heads on a used printer?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Thebes]

Would it be reasonable to try the UT14 UltraTone MIS inks on an Epson 1400?
Has anyone heard of someone using UT14 on Pictarico OHP?

This specific ink system seems to be for the 1400 only and I can't find any user reports for diginegs.

[robert j fallis]

have a look at these people. there's a lot of info on printing and inks
<http://www.inksupply.com>

bob

[Lenny Eiger]

Cone inks are fabulous. Superb quality control. Encapsulated ink. Can't beat it, IMO.


Lenny

[Peter De Smidt]

Check out Paul Roark's pages for info on BW printing and inksets.