Epson CISS - Can anyone recommend a good reliable set up

[cube101]

Hello, I need some advice from any of you who have an Epson pigment ink based CISS setup working successfully.

I need to set up a CISS system to print thousands of A6 retail labels.

I would ideally like to use a fairly low cost printer e.g. Epson s21 sx215 etc

The problem I have is that the previous systems I have set up tend to get permanently clogged nozzles within a month or two.
I am not sure whether the ink or the printer is to blame.
Does anyone have the same problem?

I am about to print another 5,000 full colour labels over the next month and would appreciate any advice on a good set up.

Can you recommend a printer, ciss and ink.

I am based in the UK and so need ink and printers available in the UK. The ink needs to be pigment based as the labels get direct sunlight.

Thanks.

 

[pharmacist]

Have a look at Coralgraph. I bought one with dye ink for my Epson 1400 just to see how it works and actually the results are quite good, even without any profiling and the gamut is very good, producing prints which are extremely vibrant and vivid compared to the original Epson Claria inks. The price is very good and service is excellent and most important to you: they also sell CISS with pigment inks at a very reasonable price. However: not sure about this particular pigment ink (CcMmYK 6 colour), but the dye ink they sell is quite good for a rather unknown CISS-seller.

You might go for the US-sellers as well: I recently purchased an Epson 1400 CISS-system with pigment ink and the results are very impressive even without profiling to compensate for the different ink. I purchase it at www.inkrepublic.com. You might have a look at my recent youtube movie here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKgp3lQ2Rcc

note: the print is made on my favourite SihlX high glossy paper (Aldi supermarket) and using the standard Epson Premium glossy profile and the colours are very vivid and neutral (no colour cast). Inkrepublic.com seems to have produce an Claria compatible CcMmYK pigmented inkset that do not need any profiling to obtain satisfactory results on most photo papers.

I tried a set of refillable cartridges (Coralgraph) which I had refilled with the CcMmYK subset of the Image Specialists K4 inkset (which also includes Matte Black(MB), Light Black (LB) and Light Light Black (LLB)). It turns out by just using this subset on my Epson 1400 gives horrible results (very greenish cast). Only after having corrected this by making a dedicated profile I could remove this cast.

I believe Mikling from www.precisioncolors.com is now selling an optimized Claria compatible pigmented inkset for the Claria dye ink printers (Epson R260/R280/Artisan 700/800 Epson 1400 etc.) which he calls "Klariah". Probably he discovered that the normal IM K4 subset does not produce good results. The IM K4 inkset is very very good and I use it my Epson Pro 3800 refillable cartridges and produces stunning good prints, both colour and most importantly very neutral B/W-prints using the ABW-mode.

The problem with most pigment ink based CISS system is the ink outlet is at the bottom of the bottles and this will sooner or later clogging when the pigment particles will gradually precipitate down and clog the tubing. The best way is a simply designed system like the ones from Inkrepublic.com or similar using simple bottles where the tubing is entering from the top, so the ink is sucked from the bottle like a straw: this guarantee that precipitated pigment particles will not clog the system.

 

[cube101]

Thanks for the advice.

I have set up 2 Epson printers, both will refillable cartridges for now.

One is using Coralgraph pigment ink and one is using OctoInkjet pigment ink. I will see how they perform over the next few weeks.

If no problems I will change to CISS but with the same ink.