Continuous Ink Systems

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John Hawk

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After finding this site from the official Lightroom one , I was hoping to ask you all for any help you can give me in choosing a good Continuous Ink System for my Epson R8'' - personal criticisms of systems on the market both positive and negative would be very welcome .
Of course , you may know a site where there's been an exhaustive discussion of available systems - please point me at it . Having done several searches , I can only find rather bitty reviews of a few systems at a time .
Thanks in advance .
 
I had one for my Epson 21'', from Marrutt. They were an extremely helpful company always willing to sort out the odd glitch.
Generally the CIS was OK. (no more than that) Over about 16 months I probably had 9 months of good printing and 3 months of OK printing and the rest was no printing and problems.

Would I use Marrutt again? Yes. I buy the Epson cartridges from them as they offer a good price and service.
Would I buy a CIS again? No. They are too fussy and prone to problems (I still have the ink stains on my floor!)
 
Richard, a quick question:

Did the third-party inks print well with the paper manufacturer's profiles or did you have to do custom profiles?

TIA,
 
Custom profiles were essential. Mind you the 21'' had Epson pigment inks and the Lyson CIS were dye inks, but I think you'd need them anyway.
 
Do Lyson still provide custom profiles for their ink/paper combinations? It's a few years since I last went down the inkjet route.
 
They provide canned Profiles, but they weren't great - they may have improved since. But I would still recommend not getting one. There are great cost savings until it all goes wrong!
 
John,

Dont do it! Just don't. Sure it all sound pretty and amazing cost savings but really you are playing with more than just colors on a page.
Rather than go into any details on warranties, policies, profiles and printheads dying before their time just think on this for a moment.

We all know that they make no money in the printer hardware and its all in the ink and paper combination, so why is it that none of the major players offer a solid CI system.

The current crop of inkjet heads and cartridges along with the precision delivery systems are just too finely tuned to be messing with.

Of course, all this could be negated if you are running a printer for 2' hours a day in which case the volume alone makes the risk worthwhile.

But if you choose to go that route I for one would be very interested in what you decide and then 6 months later to see if it was a wise move.

Good Luck. David
 
I use one on my Epson 21''. Daft thing is I can't remember whose it is and I am at work at the moment. It works well and the profiles that came with it are pretty good for their paper.
 
As my sig says, I have an IJF SmallFoot CIS on my R-8''. Only had it about a month and haven't done a lot of printing yet, but I do intend too.

A CIS takes a more watchful eye than the native cartridges I am finding. I had let the tanks get quite a bit low and learned from another forum that I need to raise the CIS up a half inch of so to keep the ink at the right height compared to the print head. After I raised it, intermittent missing colors (nozzle check revealed such) fixed it. Now I am suspecting that I also need to keep all inks at the same approximate fullness and not have any too full or too low because the inks have gone intermittent again after I filled only two rather full. I have an order of new ink on the way and will soon be bringing all inks to the same fullness and see if that fixes it..
 
Just remembered mine is a Permajet system

Andrew
 
On a cost note - rather than just about CISs...

...the 38'' seems to be the best Epson to get - although it is a big old beast. Someone on another forum did the maths and a 24'' + the ink they supply, plus enough ink to get you up to the 38'''s amount costs about £3'-5' less which makes the 38'' seem a bargain.
 
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