Problems with Epson 1400 printer - second hand equipment!

[JSR]

it was more a question on the quality of the refillable inks , like the ones on ebay uv dye ink for £24 ,
compared to the artainium quality inks and high price ??

You'd still use whatever inks you're currently using, you'd just fill the refillable cartridges instead of a CISS.

Using refillable cartridges or a CISS has nothing to do with the ink. You buy your ink from your current source - that doesn't change.

I used to use a CISS with my Epson printers. Now I use refillable cartridges. I started out by just taking the ink out of my CISS and filling up the refillable cartridges.

[pisquee]

Also, don't assume that just because a product has a high price point that it makes it a better quality product than one that is less expensive. Sometimes this is the case, and sometimes it is not. Part of some companies marketing is to sell something for an inflated price because in the eyes of the consumer it therefore must be better than the other cheaper products available, even if in reality they are the same quality, or even if the less expensive product if better.

[Janjan]

Considering it was a brand new system - is it possibly still compromised?

[bms]

Considering it was a brand new system - is it possibly still compromised?

Very likely. Bubbling ink is a symptom of an air leak in the system and probably one of the most frequent problems.

[Janjan]

I take it by a couple of the replies the better option is to convert to refillable cartridges. Is the 'thickness' of the black in any different to that of the other colours, or is it just coincidence that we keep getting problems on the black? I reverted back to plain ink cartridges last week and they seemed OK, a few missing lines on the nozzle check on the black, other than that was better than the CISS system.

[JSR]

I take it by a couple of the replies the better option is to convert to refillable cartridges.

I use refillable cartridges because I use a printer better suited to refillable cartridges - Brother printers. I don't use my Epson printers now because (i) I don't like the flapping tubes and mucking about of the CISS, and (ii) Epson cartridges only hold a thimble-sized amount of ink. What's needed is a printer that takes large refillable cartridges and has them mounted remotely from the printhead. That's a Brother, but no authorised supplier or Sawgrass will look at you if you use Brother printers.

Is the 'thickness' of the black in any different to that of the other colours, or is it just coincidence that we keep getting problems on the black? I reverted back to plain ink cartridges last week and they seemed OK, a few missing lines on the nozzle check on the black, other than that was better than the CISS system.

I think different people get different problems with different colours. The fact of the matter is that dye-sub ink is thicker than regular dye-ink, and the printer was designed for dye-ink. There is no desktop inkjet printer that's been designed for dye-sub ink. When we put dye-sub ink in a desktop inkjet printer, we're asking for trouble - but we put up with it because there is no choice.

Some people say that the Ricoh printers handle dye-sub ink better because they were designed for a gel-based ink which is apparently thicker than regular dye-ink, so it should be better suited for the thicker dye-sub ink. That said, the Ricoh dye-sub ink isn't the same as the dye-sub ink we put into our CISS or refillables for Epson printers so YMMV.

[booflegem]

I,ve just got rid of a epson 1400 printer with CIS, i spent more time trying to get a decent print out of it than actually doing some work! The paper feed kept ripping the paper up, constant air trapped in the tubes of the CIS, numerous times head cleaning the thing. i have now bought a Ricoh GXe3300n printer and my life is so much easier