I now have the converted Epson R220 up and runny in place of the now
defunct Espon C94. Yes the head plugged on it too...Well why be any
different than the rest of the group ;) Tried the hot air heat routine
with it and the head promptly plugged. I think it might have worked
had I rigged a shield to keep the hot air from the front of the C94.
One thing I have learned is that when a C94 head is plugged there is
only a slight chance of unplugging it. Tried for two days on this one
with the head sitting in a mix of Ammonia and Alcohol still no go.
The R220 is a more robust machine with many similarities to the C94 in
overall design. The print head rids on a round machined stock that
makes its travel very smooth. There appears to be some sort of sensor
in the printhead as well, so there is the "gap sensor" for the media
as well as the sensor in the head. Both need to be satisfied before
the printer will accept the media to be printed on. This required
cutting identical gaps on both sides of the carrier. In this case a
sheet of Formica. Also the two switches living in the pull down CD/DVD
carrier need to be satisfied. (one open - one closed). Then as Bora
mentioned the height can be dealt with manually. As can be seen from
the pictures I uploaded - Mardocks Projects - I went with the infrared
heater. The housing is 3" from the board and bulb, a 250W Sylvania
Infra Red, is closer about 2 1/2" I left the lamp on the PC board for
5 minutes with no ill effects and enough heat was retained through out
the printing as evidenced by the ink still being smoothly applied,
with no signs of beading. Tried to measure the temperature but was
unable. The settings of the driver software are interesting and not at
all like the C94 settings. The best I have found so far is "Premium
Luster" Paper with "Photo RPM" and this allows selecting "Super
Microweave" . This makes printing slow but the detail and consistent
application of ink make it the best choice I have found so far. I had
to get a couple of other boards made today and did not have a chance
to run my test boards for resolution. I was very happy with the boards
I did get done today though. Resolution is at least 4 Mil. I will run
some resolution tests as soon as I get a chance. MISPRO yellow in all
six carts. BTW it seems that the C94 MIS Carts will fit in the R220
just change the chip. I cut them off the originals and then used some
of the putty supplied by MIS to attach them to the blank carts. Oh one
more thing I took the Epson CD/DVD carrier and cut the wedge off the
front ( approx 1" ) then I tape this in front of the PC board, makes
the transition from the carrier to the PC board ..well..stepless, smooth.
More as time permits...
John
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