I tend to agree with you Mike. With the prices at places like sharpprints.com I find it hard to justify the expense of an inkjet. In many cases you are going to have to gamble on $100 or more for a set of ink just to see what you've got. I'm in that position right now with an old Epson R800. It was given to me and I assume there will be heads clogged (which is why I'm researching). I'm mostly interested in using it to print on overhead transparency material to make digital negatives for contact printing/alternative processing. I think I remember seeing a process that will allow you to use only three black/grey inks (that you can put in any three working positions on your printer (forget the clogged ones)... so may try that approach if I can't get all of them unplugged.
If I can learn the transparency digital negative technique, I might think about a wide format printer for the same purpose, down the road. On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 11:30 AM, mike wilson <m.9.wil...@ntlworld.com> wrote: >> On 06 March 2016 at 01:08 Darren Addy <pixelsmi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> This is a side discussion to Ann's purchase of a lightly used R2400. I >> agreed with Mike Wilson's caution, but not necessarily his view of >> "Irrecoverably". Using Epson's print head cleaning utility is >> guaranteed to use up a lot of ink, if not actually unclog the print >> head. >> >> I like (much better) this guy's tutorial: >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1hxljJhi9M >> His use of aquarium pump tubing as a reservoir/sight glass is ingenious. >> Also worthwhile is his formula for DIY Inkjet print head cleaner: >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHUQAZFdTOM >> >> With these techniques in your pocket you may find a real bargain out >> there, even if the printer doesn't work perfectly when you purchase >> it. > > I can only go by my own experience. Two very expensive printers (and a > cheaper > one) failed due to head clogging that Epson's procedures would not clear. > Having access to a large variety of chemicals, I used internet knowledge to > try > a number of different options. No success. Finally, for the last machine, I > found a recently damaged one that had a good head. Over a week, I swapped the > head only to find that Epson has the neat little trick of killing the printer > if > you access the head. This can only be fixed by some firmware kludge that only > Epson engineers know. I couldn't find it on the internet. So I then had the > choice of paying about 2/3rds of the new cost for Epson to replace the head > (no > nearby agent, of course) or walking away. It was one of the best walks of my > life. > > In my ever so humble opinion, inkjet printers are the spawn of the devil and > the > fact that they print anything at all is nothing short of a miracle. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- “The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness ” ― Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Earth from Above -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
