P6000 minimum number of channels for PiezoDN?

PiezoDN Digital Negatives
1

With Epson continuing to make their printers harder (resistant) to work with piezography, and turning to the used market where there may be a dead channel or two, what are the minimum number of channels needed using piezography pro inks for PiezoDN digital negative creation? For example, can a 5 channel (plus MK/PK) be used for PiezoDN? If so which of the cool or warm tone inks could be removed in this 5 channel configuration?

thank you.
Michael

2

Hi Michael,

The traditional PiezoDN Piezography Pro ink layout for digital negatives is PK, C, LC, M, LM, LK and Y which correspond to PK, CTDG, CTMG, WTDG, WTMG, CTLG, WTLG. You could drop the WTLG and get by with six. PPETv2 will handle that during calibration. You would probably not notice any dottiness in the shadows of your resultant prints by doing so…

Best,

Jon

3

Thanks Jon. If I removed WTLG from the yellow channel and replaced it with flush, say, do I need to do any remapping or tell PPETv2 not to use that ink or…. ?

4

Yes, this channel will need be set with all zeros which you can do in a text editor - or with null in PPETv2 channel remapping. By setting to zeros no ink will print from that channel.

If your channel has gone bad there are cases in which installing flush has freed it over time. It can take a long time but more than one person has brought a channel back from the “dead” this way. The PiezoFlush is slowly administered each time the printer starts up, shuts down, or a nozzle check is performed, or any of the automated and manual cleanings.

Best,

Jon