It is difficult to say indeed.
I think now that the new printheads with 1440 dpi in y direction are
needed, or the variable drop size technology, or a high number of nozzles,
or a combination of all or any of those.
The stylus color 600 i have here has 64 nozzles on black, 32 on each
color. It has 1440x720 resolution.
Using only the black head, black and white setting, extra fine setting,
and photo quality film setting, i see two problems, gaps between the bands
of ink, and puddling where there are no gaps. This tells me there seems to
be too much ink and not enough resolution in y direction. It is
interesting that there are no gaps in x direction, even on fine setting,
which seems to be 720x720. The gaps are irregular, but periodic, so maybe
they have to do with slightly misplaced nozzles.
With the CX4200 and similar, maybe one can lift the scanner up or put it
to the side after extending some of the cables?
Reasons for using the C6* or C8* are not only that they have no scanner
but also they seem to come up much cheaper on ebay.
I think it is required for us to go forward to figure out first what makes
the printing possible, and what prevents it, and thus determine which
models of printers are thus useable and which are not. Any mechanical
considerations of board feeding and stuff are really secondary to me. Of
course it would be nice to have that easily solved, but if the printhead
won't work it is no use. I think any printer can be converted if a
sufficiently large amount of effort is put into it. If the head just can't
do it no amount of effort will help.
Just to make sure it would be good to rule out any effect of the tarn-x.
Maybe Volkan if you have time you could just scrub a PCB and skip the
tarn-x?
Also, could you try only printing with one head, maybe yellow, single
color? Or maybe black, it doesn't need to be etched. Only to see if you
get a continous layer as before or if you see any banding/gaps.
Is anyone currently working on trying the C6* or C8* cheap printers with
MISPRO ink?
My gut feeling is i should have gotten one of those instead. But not
anticipating the problem with the gaps i went for the more reliable older
option.
ST
On Fri, 12 May 2006 22:33:45 +0200, Volkan Sahin <vsahin@...>
wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> Hi Gerard, It is difficult to say. The problem with CX4200,38xx, 4800
> is their scanner. I need a free access to printing area but these
> printers have a scanner and if you remove the connections you will get
> so many blinking leds, errors. On the other hand, their mechanics are
> much more robust than C68 and C88, they have also 90 nozzles for each
> color and both x-y axis are feedback controlled which means there is no
> missing step problem as in step motor controlled ones.
> Another problem with Epson printers they are using abrasive roller for
> paper feeding/positioning and when you use PCB you slowly started to
> damage the abrasive coating of roller. This causes y-axis starting
> position errors because of fast feeding during start phase of printing.
> Now, I have faced with this problem and decided to disable y-axis motor
> during paper intake/feeding phase. I think this will solve the problem.
> Any ideas?
> So, what is the answer? I think, since I have so much experience and
> understand the operation of CX4200 and CX4800, I will choose CX4200
> again.
> Cheers,
> Volkan