Digital BW, The Print

I would like to comment on this "Epson vs HP" issue as, in my small art studio, it was the source of many, many  discussions.

For the production of my fine art portfolios, we have been using for the past 2+ years an Epson 7800 filled with 5 shades of gray ink (only carbon pigments, of course). Basically, it is the exact same setup Paul Roark ended up with after quite a long R&D (see his message #98675). 

After few hundred 17"x24" fine art prints on uncoated papers, the  pro and cons of using this approach are coming to light:

PRO
1) Smooth tones
2) Consistent results over time
3) Versatile and powerful with QTR driving

CONS
1) Custom made base + carbon pigments clogs the dampers frequently (we change 4-5 dumpers/year)
2) Fine art printing daes not use the printer continuously. As a consequence, the plotter makes an automatic cleaning almost everytime we start a new print.
3) Head clogging occurs with some frequency because of the carbon pigmens, the rare usage and the paper dust from uncoated media. Cleaning cycles are expensive.
4) The dithering of Epson/QTr is inferior to HP's
5) High cost of the plotter (about EU 3000 in Italy)
6) High cost of head replacement (about EU 800) that sooner or later will occur with custom inks (can you match the PH of the inks?)
7) QTR is not a commercial product, if support is ceased, your workflow is broken

Since the printer is used only to deploy the carbon pigments on the paper, most of the cons make the process quite expensiv. Therefore, about one year ago we have started considering the possibility to use an HP DesignJet 130 loaded with carbon inks for fine art printing.
After all, some some of the HP DesignJet plotter do use pigment based for the black head. The PRO of using a DJ130 are obvious

1) Initial cost of the printer is much lower (about EU 1,200)
2) Clogging is solved by replacing the clogged head with a new one while the previous is cleaned overnight with a detergent
3) Heads replacement is cheap
4) Dithering of HP driver is smoother than the 7800
5) HP support should be more consistent than QTR's over the years

Definitely, a cheaper approach than Epson's and, at the very least, an very good back up system in case of a major problem with an Epson base system (its coast is certainly comparable to a major repair of a 7800 printer). Therefore, about one year ago, we invested in purchasing the following equipment to start some R&D during spare time:
a) An Hp DJ130
2) A set of rechargeable cartridges with autoreset chip
3) Pigment based black ink from MIS for HP DJ5000
4) A similar ink from an italian supplier
5) The pigment dispersion used to make the Eboni ink

The rationale of the project is clear: finding a carbon ink a' la Eboni usable with HP thermal heads. We considered two possible ways to do that:
a) Diluting an already HP compatible carbon ink
b) making the ink from scratch using the dispersion used for Eboni ink (preserving the achivability of the technique developed with the Epson 7800).

A quick search trough the internet shown that the ink base for thermal heads (being about 90%  water) is much easier to make than that for quartz heads. We  tested some Eboni in thermal heads and it did not work (of ourse), being much more viscous that HP ink.

Unfortunately, the spare time was quickly over and the project was halted. However, I will be willing to resume it in the coming weeks if I can share the burden of the R&D with someone else.

Thanks. Ciao,

  Mantinieri


http://www.mantinieri.com