We’re getting an Epson 9900 (refurbished, never been inked up, with 1 year Epson warranty) to replace our current 9900.
I know IJM recommends testing a printer with Epson ink before flushing and installing Piezography inks. But if the Epson inks make the heads more prone to clogging, wouldn’t it make sense to keep the OEM ink out of the machine? Or does the OEM ink allow for some internal calibrations or setup that is difficult/impossible to do without the OEM ink? For example, our Canon printers read a set of printed patches at initial setup and head replacements that help linearize the output and align the print head.
Also, to allow for gloss and matte printing without going into service mode and changing PK>Mk, would it make sense to omit one of the very light inks (for example, install matte black in the orange channel and omit warm:very light)? Then one could remap the curves to account for the different ink positions. Kind of like a P2 installation in a 9800.
I know the 9900 lets one change between photo and matte black easily and with a small amount of ink waste, but I thought maybe this would reduce wear and tear on the machine. We don’t swap black inks too often, maybe every other week.
Yeah, Putting MK in the MK channel and PK in the OR channel is great. This way you get the benefit of K5 cool (which is the dominate ink that is printed) and no switching PK/MK.
You can then put flush in the PK channel so it doesn’t wear out (or you could but a silk screen dye in there if you are doing alt process type printmaker stuff).
I would use the same carts you have been using as you know they draw well and this allows you to do the initial fill with Pro ink instead of the Epson ink. These printers are warrantied even with third party supplies (newer SureColor ones aren’t btw, even though Epson is in violation of the law there . . .).
Thanks Walker, this all sounds good. There are four cartridges I was planning to replace since the ink positions will be different for a few channels in the new printer. Is it possible to swap chips to reposition a cart?
As an example, our orange cart currently in our dead 9900 has Warm Very Light ink. In the new machine, we’d put Photo Black in the orange channel. Rather than purchase a new Orange cart, or try to flush it out with distilled water, maybe the chips could be swapped on the cartridges? Or is there something in the cartridge’s shape that would prevent this?
I asked a similar question the other day. Walker informed me there is no physical difference in 7900/9900 cartridges, it’s just a matter of swapping chips over.
Thanks Walker and Jeremy for the information. I have the new machine up and running and was able to swap chips, remap curves, etc. Question about updating firmware - Is this a good idea or will it interfere with something (3rd party cartridges, cleaning ability, something else…)?
The printer is running HW122F4, 2.11, A000. - I think this refers to the firmware version.
We chose to print without using the Gloss Optimizer for now, so I was wondering if I could just put the MK in the LLK channel (where the Gloss was), to avoid wasting ink every time we switch from PK > MK - would that work fine?
Can I simply keep my MK ink in its actual MK cartridge but replace its chip by a LLK chip?