3K B&W with OEM inks
2010-01-16 by ben
I have been experimenting with the 3K printing process with one of my R1800s for some time. My biggest problem with the process has been ink clogs, poor quality refillable cartridges, and CIS units. I have three of these printers. I print color with OEM inks in two of them, and the third I print B&W with third party inks with the 3K process. I took a two week break for the holidays. When I came back, I wanted to try out some new papers, and print some new prints for a show. The color printers filled with the OEM inks worked without a problem. BUT the printer set up for the B&W printing......... Two days later with ink stained hands, I gave up. I could not get a good head check with the third party inks. I tried putting in my head cleaning cartridges (cartridges filled with 90% pink head cleaned and 10% ink), soaked the parking station with pink head cleaner, and left the head parked on it over night, and I still had missing links! I had gone through so many head cleanings that I had filled my waste ink tank by a third. About 150ml of ink wasted! I have been wanting to print B&W on Silver Rag, and the new fiber based papers. The 3K process, out of the box, will only print on matte papers. Wanting to move away from the ink clogging problem, I thought of moving back to all OEM inks and dumping the third party ones. I also wanted to print on the glossy surfaced papers. So I worked out a system where I can use the OEM inks for the 3K printing process on both matte and glossy paper surfaces. I modified the two photo black cartridges to work in the matte black and gloss optimizer positions for glossy papers, and two matte black cartridges for the photo black, and gloss optimizer positions for the matte papers. I took an empty matte black cartridge, reset the chip, and removed it from the cartridge by shaving the top plastic pin off and prying the chip out with an exacto knife. I then put it in place of the original chip on the new photo black cartridge. I then put a label on it stating it was photo black for the matte black position. Then I had to cut off one of the indexing pins; match it to the old matte black cartridge copying it. It only takes a minute. I did the same for the gloss optimizer position. You do not want to shave off the pin at the bottom of the chip. The chip is slotted and pulls out from under it. That pin will help hold the replacement chip in place. A small tad of "Thumb Tack" will hold the top of that chip in place. I have read that placing an un-chipped cartridge in the printer will damage it, so you do not want it to fall off. Wonderful prints. The printer woks fine with the glossy papers. My favorite has been the new Epson fiber based paper. I like Silver Rag as well for warmer prints. For neutral looking prints, I set the sliders for tone at 50% neutral, and 50% cool tones. The ink limit, and gamma need adjustments as well. Increase the ink limit, and reduce the gamma. The prints I am making using the 3K OEM Ink process look much like the wet prints I made on Oriental Seagull. The only thing I do not like about them is a slight bronzing, and gloss differential. I am considering trying coatings on the prints to improve their appearance. To change to matte paper, put the modified matte black cartridges in. You will lose some ink in the change, but you will not need to purge any lines because there are none. The head changes inks with the normal loading purge. Hopefully I have put the head clogging issue behind me. As well as all the wasted ink, and ink stained hands. An exacto knife, a chip resetter, and a bit of "Thumb tack" is much cheaper then refillable cartridges, and CIS systems. The big savings is in time refilling cartridges, and unclogging the heads. Ben