Epson R280 Printer (pigment and Dye )

[sound427]

Hello everyone,

I'm new here as of today. LOL..

Here is my situation ladies and gents. I currently have 2 epson r280 printers. One is being used and the other is still sitting in it's sealed box from Epsom. The one I use I bought a CISS dye base ink system for it. It was working great for the longest time but until one day for the love of god my cyan on the print test will not completely print all the bars, the only time it will is if I do a head cleaning numerous times and it will work for one print out and then go back to printing some cyan bars but all of the other colours will print out great. I had a heck of a time with it and had a few tears when I saw my ink tanks deplete each time I do a head cleaning. It came down to the point I said enough is enough I couldn't figure out why it will not print out properly. So I went out and bought epson cartridges (cried some more after paying for them) and installed it into the printer and what ya know printer was restored to normal after a couple of prints. So I took out the Dye Ink system sealed it up and put it aside for the last few months and used regular epson ink until now. I looked at the ciss and all the cartridges seems ok, but still cannot figure out why the cyan will not completely print out the proper test sheets. Do you guys have any idea on how to solve the problem?


Now 2nd issues since buying this new CISS Pigment system about 5 months ago and it is being sitting on my shelf since then. I'm now ran out of my Epson ink yesterday. I mentioned to a buddy tonight I'm going to install the pigment system in my printer, but I'm now being told by a him and reading some reviews online after the fact that I shouldn't install the pigment ink ciss in the same printer which I used the Dye Based ink Ciss and Regular Epson ink otherwise I will run into problems. Is that true? Since I have the 2nd R280 printer sitting there never been used, should I install the Pigment Ciss system into that and I am good to go without any issues?

Either way I think I'm up the creek and i'm taking on water slowly.. Anyone please help me in providing some good data for me.

Much appreciated, and thanks again.

 

[sound427]

P.S I did use the search function and found some things but nothing like my problem.

 

[websnail]

Ok... starting at the top and working down...

1. Your CIS problem is probably old ink.. The dyebase Cyan is known for getting quite gloopy and causing problems... The fix is easy... just purge ALL the old Cyan ink out of the system and buy some fresh ink. You'll probably find it fixes the problem pretty quickly.. Be prepared for your other inks to follow suit eventually though as the ink age will affect them all at some point.


2. Pigment in a dyebase printer isn't recommended but after numerous discussions on here and elsewhere the trick always seems to come down to quality ink. If you're using some "latest amazing all singing, all dancing" ink (marketing spiel) and very cheap you can forget it... Think about Image Specialists, Hobbicolours or whatever is regularly recommended around here and check to see if anyone has done what you want to do before you jump. You will certainly need to print very regularly and likely require more cleaning routines as a result... which leads me on to the fact that the R280 has no waste-ink/protection reset that I know of, so you might want to check that out before the printer decides it's "service required" time and game over.


As for being up the creek... I'd say you just have the map upside down and you're a bit wary... Sounds to me like you're doing the smart thing and looking (ie: asking around) before you leap

Good luck...

 

[mikling]

websnail might have overlooked teh restting issue.

1. The R280 does indeed have the Epson reset utility and the one I posted here http://rapidshare.com/files/199766310/epson12462.exe should work for the R280.

One benefit of the Epson piezo head is that it can work perfectly fine with both pigment and dye ink as long as the properties of the ink are suitable for the head and only high quality pigment and dye should be used.
The OEM Claria colors are not very close to existing pigment inks for the better higher end printers. As a result you will need to use color management in your printing if you use the pigment inks and want color fidelity.

I can vouch for interchanging pigment and dye inks on the same machine. It can be done but the user should flush or print enough to flush out the prior inks when changing. I have been doing this on two different printers from different generations for about a year with no ill effect. I am going to ascribe prior problems of others to incompatible ink formulations and not flushing and printing enough to cleanse the system each time. You see some ink formulations can gel if mixed. So should you use some other dye/pigment formulation your results may differ. That I cannot predict.

About the Cyan being old ink it is very true that this indeed is a possibility. Also you should be aware that forms of algae can form within the tanks and within the tubes over time. Again depending on the quality of your ink, some kind of algicide should have been added but who knows really. Even if algicide was added, its effectiveness might degrade over time. The general rule is that you should acquire enough ink to use within a year. Fresh ink is always better as you can eliminate the age of ink as a possible problem when problems arise.

Also be aware that pigment inks, all of them suffer from settling to some degree. even expensive OEM types like Epson, Canon etc all recommend shaking the cartridge prior to installation and some will shake the tanks even when installed in the printer. This settling is not a good thing for CISS systems for obvious reasons.

CISS systems can be finicky at times if not properly engineered by the factory. All the wide format printers use a built in CISS and even they have issues with keeping the system totally stable at times. So purchasing an aftermarket product is not without some risk of unreliability. I will say that the new Epson Artisan multifunction desktop units do come with a built in CISS but with tanks the size of cartridges. Epson has designed the printer to make extending tubes to the cartridges near impossible unless some cutting of the scanner top and document feeder is performed.

Take your CISS, rip off the tubes from the ends, install the bodies and see if it prints properly again. If it does, then you know the tube/tank issue is the culprit. This one reason why I don't recommend a CISS unless you really need it and yes some people really do need it. More often than not though, the refillable cartridge system is good enough with much much fewer problems.

It would be truly interesting to find how many eventually scrap their CISS systems over time.

i won't bother to go into the issues with changing atmospheric pressure, fluctuating room temeperatures etc . none of which affect the cartridge by itself but can have effects on some CISS systems.

 

[sound427]

Hey Guys,

Thanks you for you're response.

Here is the link for the pigment system which I bought on ebay and the guy is local here in Montreal, Canada. http://cgi.ebay.ca/pigment-ink-syst...3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:4|65:7|39:1|240:1318

For using the pigment ink in the new (unused) printer. I'm now unsure what to do, as I have put invested money into this and I can't return it. The ink looks totally different from the dye ink, it ink almost looks like a milky solid colour.

It is so confusing to me and a little upset as I blame myself for wasting all this money. I would like to say that I did use the Ciss system on a regular basis to print on blank watersheild media. When I bought the dye base ink system from another seller online I did buy a back up ink supply from him and by looking at this site http://www.precisioncolors.com it is the same person I bought all of the stuff from online, I still have the bottle with their logo on it . It worked for a long time and I think when the problem started to happen is when I filled up the ink tanks with the 2nd set of ink which I bought off the seller at the time. I will try what you suggested and report back. It is just weird as I took out the CISS (Dye) system out and put in OEM espon ink it worked fine, at first I thought I had a clogged head problem but it wasn't.

Now I see you guys talking about good colour profiles. I'm a little lost but I'm am a picky guy on a perfect print out IE great colour matches. Judgeing from this I see allot of time messing around with settings on which I have no clue what to do.

P.S If I were to go out and purchase another ciss system where should I buy one from which will not break my budget. (I'm now back in College and not in the finincial state I was in before)

Thanks again

 

[mikling]

You've proven to yourself that it is not clogged. What you need to prove to yourself is that it is not the ink. I can bet it is your CISS setup.

Again why do so many people fall in love with those CISS things when they don't begin to understand how to care and diagnose them? and then come back for more punishment. If they are skilled and familiar with printers, fine but otherwise stay away.

 

[sound427]

You've proven to yourself that it is not clogged. What you need to prove to yourself is that it is not the ink. I can bet it is your CISS setup.

Again why do so many people fall in love with those CISS things when they don't begin to understand how to care and diagnose them? and then come back for more punishment. If they are skilled and familiar with printers, fine but otherwise stay away.

Thanks for the slap in the back of the head. LOL. It comes down to the money factor for CISS systems, even refilled ink cartridges run into problems also. The cost factor is a huge thing, as I only do this for myself, and I just went on information from a friend who does the same thing I do, but more on a everyday scale of printing. I get the point you don't like them but how come you use it as I see in you're sig line you mention some stuff about it and linked a site.

Within that last 1hr I've re-installed the my original CISS Dye ink system. Did about three high res photo print out and some text printing. Everything is printing alright, but I know things changes in time I will see how long things goes, and report back.


As for the pigment ink do you recommend me to install it in the new printer which doesn't have any ink at all ? Will that route be safer and keep dye ink and pigment ink separate ?

Thanks
JP

 

[sound427]

websnail might have overlooked teh restting issue.

1. The R280 does indeed have the Epson reset utility and the one I posted here http://rapidshare.com/files/199766310/epson12462.exe should work for the R280.

Sorry about the multiple posts. Can you explain a little more about this Util ?

When I tried to run it says something about resetting the pads and a huge warning comes up about this before you actually get into the program.

Thank You
JP

 

[websnail]

websnail might have overlooked teh restting issue.

1. The R280 does indeed have the Epson reset utility and the one I posted here http://rapidshare.com/files/199766310/epson12462.exe should work for the R280.

Sorry about the multiple posts. Can you explain a little more about this Util ?

That's the official Epson utility that they were forced, in North America, to provide. It allows you to reset your waste ink pad protection counter (otherwise known as the "waste ink counter" or "protection counter".

You use it when the printer errors with the warning "service required" (ie: my nappy/diaper is full, I need a change). You still need to redirect the waste ink flow if you use it though as the pads will fill up.

When I tried to run it says something about resetting the pads and a huge warning comes up about this before you actually get into the program.

Yep... the explanation above should help with most of it. The rest is legal backside covering with good reason. Too many people have used the unofficial utility from SSC to reset their waste ink counter and then not bothered dealing with the ink in the pads or redirecting the flow. Net result, ink puddle, ruined carpets, desks, walls, etc...

Of course Epson also like to scare the heck out of inexperienced users too. A lot of people don't go any further for fear of the black helicopters and men in black type scenarios..

 

[mikling]

Yes and that is why if you want an R280 long term, look for a used R260. The R260/380 have huge waste ink tanks that can be directly inspected without opening up the printer. This will allow resets for multiple times with no surprises as you can visually inspect the situation. Those printers were bulky at the front compared to the R280 and R1400. That extra bulk housed the larger waste ink pads. So if you don't mind the extra bulk, look for the older printers.

If you have a vacuum pump you can directly empty the tank pads and recondition it, without opening up the printer as well.