[Leica] Epson 1280: New liquid diet, or the landfill?

[kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney)]

Peter,

Been there with MIS etc.  I now use an Epson 2200 with ImagePrint 6 for
matte papers, and an Epson R1800 with Inkjetart.com profiles for gloss or
semi-gloss.  Both with Epson OEM inks.  Life is good, though a tad expensive
due to the tiny ink cartridges.  My CIS is in a landfill somewhere.  If I
had more print volume (only 10+ large prints per months at most), I would go
with the 3800 or 4800, even though 13x19 is fine for me, but I am unsure as
to the life of the inks.  Incidentally, the R1800 b&w driver seems
excellent, as are the inkjetart profiles for mono "toned" or color prints.

Ken

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-bounces+kcarney1=cox.net@leica-users.org [mailto:lug-
> bounces+kcarney1=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Peter Klein
> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 7:48 PM
> To: lug@leica-users.org
> Subject: [Leica] Epson 1280: New liquid diet, or the landfill?
> 
> I've mentioned before on the list that I've had troubles with my
> Epson 1280 with MIS Ultratone 2 carts. I've now had several
> instances where I changed cartridges, and either the greytone
> distribution or the "tint" of the prints changed. A while back, my
> Roarke curves workflow, which had worked for 2 years, just stopped
> working. Gray tones were skewed or missing. Both with the Epson
> driver and with QTR, which eliminates driver problems.
> 
> Well, it just happened again. This time I changed to a new grayscale
> cart, and my "neutral" workflow (EZ Slider method) turned distinctly
> bluish. Changing the sliders to the "warm" settings does little to
> change this.
> 
> And there are no clogs. I had a clog when I changed carts, but I cleared
> it. Every nozzle check I print comes out fine, but the prints come out
> quite bluish. The Sepia ink prints out lighter than it should on the Purge
> Pattern 6 file (compared to an earlier cart's printout of the same file).
> 
> I should also mention that when I print a Black-Only print, I get
> slight to moderate banding. But if I print the same image twice in a
> row, the banding will be in different places.
> 
> It's possible it's the cart, but I'm coming to the conclusion that
> it's my printer. Unless MIS has much worse quality control than their
> reputation, it's just happened too many times for it to have been
> MIS' fault every time.
> 
> So here's my question: If it is indeed the printer that's the
> problem, what are the chances that the problem would go away if I
> went back to the dye inks the printer was designed for? In other
> words, supposed I went back to color dye inks on the 1280, and
> switched to UT-R2 grayscale inks in my R200? If it worked, I could
> delay buying a 3800 for a while, and my finances would thank me. If
> it didn't work, I'm out a hundred bucks of ink and some more
> frustration.
> 
> If there's a good chance that my problems are some long-term
> consequence of using pigment inks in a printer designed for dyes, I
> might chance the color/BW switch. If it's more likely that my 1280
> is just slowly dying, maybe it's time to pull the plug.
> 
> --Peter
> 
> 
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