PDA

View Full Version : Ink Life



swimwivsquid
23-10-2010, 10:51 PM
I'm still having problems with my D88 which is driving me mad with frustration. The black ink is not responding properly, it worked for a while when I replaced the ciss system and now its playing up again. I put a set of ordinary inks in the printer and it printed fine so that kind of eliminates the black head. Has the ink got a shelf life by which I mean does it go gloopy at all or separate in some way? It looks ok but I put some fresh ink in with some that is probably about a couple of years old and wondered if that might have a bearing on the problem. Although it looks ok its a bit difficult to tell with black ink.

DREAMGLASS
24-10-2010, 10:41 AM
From personal experience, dye inks last usable for a very long time. I've put dye inks that are four years out of date into an Epson printer to ensure they working before fitting bulk systems and have never had any problems.

Pigment inks are a different beast and the particles do tend to separate from the carrier liquid after a long time and can be prone to clogging but a thorough shake up of the ink usually cures that. Just leave for a few hours to let the air bubbles disperse. Pigment inks are also more likely to block ink lines from bulk systems as they form a coating on the inside of the ink lines, whereas dye inks don't 'seem' to suffer those problems.

swimwivsquid
24-10-2010, 06:55 PM
Thanks for the reply Dreamglass. That has been my experience with pigmented ink printers in the past. Wasn't sure if dye sub ink fell into that category or not. I'll persevere with this....haven't much choice as getting a printer out to Grenada is traumatic to say the least.
Cheers Richard

swimwivsquid
25-10-2010, 08:17 PM
Well I've had a closer look and pulled about with the tubes and stuff and got a gloopy bit out of the tube which would suggest that the black ink does degrade after a while. I am awaiting a replacement cartridge this week so will fill it with fresh ink and see if that does the trick.

swimwivsquid
07-11-2010, 10:06 PM
Well just to update in case anyone else has this problem. It was the ink. The black ink had got globs in it and after emptying the cartridge and main ciss tank and flushing them out including the tube I then filtered the ink through a pair of my wifes best tights and refilled the system. Have been printing all afternoon without a murmer. This is Rotech ink, don't know if Artanium has a different mix but worth keeping an eye out if a colour suddenly packs up for no reason.Oh and it was the new ink in the bottle that was the culprit not the old.

bms
07-11-2010, 10:44 PM
Great that you've given the d88 a new lease of life. Hope tights are locally produced or if imported you don't get a huge duty charge :P