fter a few months has passed, there are quite a number of e-mails asking the same questions. Some of these question are not related to refilling but still related to printing and many of these questions are being discussed every now and then on dpreview's printing forum.

1. Where can I find the tubing for the negative pressure refilling?

2. What's about the quality or performance of the 3rd party archival inks?

3. Should I leave the printer on all the time ? Will this minimize the clogging?

4. Is printing at 2880 dpi use twice much more ink than printing at 1440 and so on for 720, 360 dpi ?

5. Is clogging from air that bad ?

6. What is an insensible ink loss ?

You need only a piece of small plastic tube that one end can fit the syringe. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain this part is adapting from the medical/veterinarian devices. Below are the links where you can find the sample of these parts. But according to the US law, these devices can not be sold without the prescription unless you're the physicians/veterinarian.

If you discover that you can not purchase from them (e.g. nobody prescribe those devices for you), you can adapt from what is currently available for example :- the MIS supply is currently selling the tubing and the bottom fill adapter. If you put 2 of these together you'll get something similar to the picture of your right.

MIS BOTTOM FILL ADAPTER

+

MIS-TUBE-6

=

If you want the filling tube that similar to what I used and like me to help you to get those. Please click here to order the filling tubes kit. The kit contains 10 tubings. Some restrictions applied and please read the instruction before placing the order.

All the bad experiences I got from one trial of one 3rd party archival ink set during the winter of 2001 had taught me well. I confidently believe that no any 3rd party archival ink will has similar quality like the Epson's genuine. But people will keep looking and feel tempted to buy those just because it's much cheaper. You don't know how good of the quality control at their production and also after and where is actually the source of ink and how they make it. So, if you are confining yourselves to the top quality, never look for the 3rd party archival inks.

I found myself to get quite irritated hearing people said "I don't see any differences between them". The ink (both dye and archival) actually look quite different between the OEM and the 3rd party's (if you choose some colors to look at, of course, you can't tell between the black !) from outside. It's impossible that the ink that look different to your eyes will give the similar identical printing results. For the dye based ink, due to the wider color gamut and the dye ink has been in the market long enough and tends to work well on many media, several people are happy with those 3rd party inks. Even so, I still recommend you to refill with the Epson genuine inks.

The following is the sources of the 3rd party inks.

-Mediastreet.com :- mediastreet has many archival ink sets including the latest one - ProPhoto® G5 ink set which goes for $16.75 per 4oz bottle. Since they are making many of these inks and you should read about the differences of each here before making the decision. I tried the Enhanced Generation ink set one time and I didn't get good results with it at all. Of course, that was after I read some posts from some people who is happy with it. My print looks terrible, the ink doesn't print on coated paper (it prints but can be rubbed off) and my brand new CIS kept clogging constantly.

However, mediastreet has claimed that their ProPhoto ink set now is working on the many coated papers with very little or no rubbed off.

  ".... allows for printing onto most resin coated (RC) glossy papers with little to no "rub-off" effect so commonly associated with pigmented ink."

and then when you read more carefully, notice this statement

  " The only color that has a slight rub-off issue is the black. Try to use composite black (CMY) and you will have 100% no rub-off "

When I was buying their Enhanced Generation, I didn't get any warning about this rubbing off, now you're getting a fair warning and should seriously consider it unless you're only printing matte paper. Not every printer will let you print color photo by using only CMY and you basically have no control over that. It's the printer's driver and the one in the market I know that will do that are C80, C82 for example and also some lower end printers model of Lexmark and Canon (which may not compatible with the ink). None of these printers are dedicated to photo printing. In fact, they said these ink will work best with some of their papers e.g. ProPhoto Luster, ProPhoto Gloss, etc. The results with other has yet to be explored. And also noted that they suggest you to flush the old ink with their flushing cartridge, this also indicated some compatibility issues.

Some people also concern about the longivity issue with the 3rd party ink. Honestly, this doesn't affect me since I never encounter this problem (I never had to sell my print without protection, yet). Most of the 3rd party ink retailers tend to brag that their ink is as good as or even better than the genuine inks.

Whenever you want to try the 3rd party ink, don't try it on the CIS because it's a big investment and you are encountering the high possibility of not liking the results. It's ridiculous to see these retailers are selling the prefilled empty cartridge with their ink at higher price than the genuine ink that you can obtain from some reputable store. For example, mediastreet listed the compatible cartridges for Epson 2000P that filled with their ProPhoto ink for $22.69 (black) and $42.95 (color). Atlex.com list the genuine Epson T015 (black) for $23.76 and T016 (color) for $27.42.

-MIS associates : - MIS was my no.1 resource for the after market cartridges and accessories when I was using and making my own CIS. They certainly has a very good customer support e.g. they will send the right color bottle immediately upon their awareness that they have shipped you the wrong color ! (yes, be careful, especially between the pC vs C and M vs M - don't trust the paper label - there is a hand writing label underneath it and sometimes they don't say the same thing. The best way is to drop the ink and compare). I was also using their dye-based ink with my very first CIS for 1280 with a pretty good results. However, my very first CIS running this ink didn't last that long and later I tried that 3rd party archival inks (on another new CIS) and got horrible results. I have now believed that no 3rd party inks will beat the genuine inks period. Even though their dye based inks run long in my CIS (about 6-7 months or so), the genuine Epson archival inks run my CIS longer than that ! . I remembered when I was disappointed with the above 3rd party archival ink sets (the other brand) and ask them about their archival ink set, they admitted to me that their ink also has the rubbed off phenomenon. (this is to show that they are a truthful merchant)

However, lately - they are now carrying the Ultrachrome version of pigment inks that called MIS archival 7600 for $18 per 4oz bottle. This ink set seems to be the same ultrachrome version that sold at weink. This ink set is supposed to work on the RC coated papers. It's so typical of these retailers to advertise the quality of the ink to be as good as or better than the genuine. For example, they said that their ink has higher DMAX than the genuine Ultrachrome (read this). I am very suspicious about that. I have never tried this ink set and never look forward to it. But there are at least 2 people who has done so. One is happy about it (noted that he is using only matte paper) and the other one is not quite happy (he used this ink set with 9500 machine). Read their post in dpforum by clicking on the following links.

The unhappy result from the 2nd user may be from the property of inks. If you have used both Epson and non-Epson pigment inks before, you'll be amazed how the Epson genuine pigment inks can print on those coated paper (even with their old archival version used in 2000P, 5000, 7500, etc). One property that Epson claims is the resin polymer micro encapsulation. I got the source to confirm that none of these 3rd party pigment ink has achieved that.

From this source

   " None of the 3rd party pigment inks are micro-encapsulated, so none of them (at this time) will adhere to the glossy, semi-gloss or luster media's. These inks perform somewhat similar to the UltraChrome ink set with the Matte Black ink. "

Another observation about MIS archival 7600 is the word about the ink stability

   " The inks have a 2 year, room temperature, shelf life, and will not settle or fall out during this period. You do not have to shake our inks before installing a cartridge in the printer. We have not experienced any clogging or performance problems with our inks in Epson cartridges, or in aftermarket cartridges. These inks have a high pigment load and are therefore more expensive to manufacture. "

First of all, I noticed the small precipitation/settle with the old Epson archival inks when I was using it in the bottle for CIS for 1280 at about 6 months. This is to show that even the genuine Epson ink is still settling. However, even MIS has said that but they also state that their ink has 2 year shelf life which is about the same as Epson's. And Epson recommend a gentle shaking prior to installation but MIS doesn't !

After all, about a month later. I purchased one of their prefill cartridge to explore their cartridge. I draw all the ink from the cartridge into the syringe and I inadvertently found this about 2 weeks later. This is another proof that you can not believe what they said, period.

-Weink.com :- Since the owner of the weink has admitted that his Ultrachrome version (called RE2200) is the same as Mediastreet ProPhoto and MIS archival 7600. I would assume that everything discussed above will also be applicable to weink's ultrachrome ink. While I doubt about the similarity between mediastreet's ProPhoto and MIS archival 7600, but they never admit it and we will never know the truth. weink sells the ink for $17.99 for 4oz size.

-Lyson :- Lyson is a very famous company long before I have entered the digital photo printing world. They do not supply the bulk ink like the others but selling their ink in prefilled cartridge for some models and none for 2200 yet. I have never used any of their ink because the well-known incompatibility issue. You will need to flush out the nozzles prior to using their ink, even with the brand new printer. It's funny to know that even the factory's fluid that left over in the brand new printer is still not compatible with these ink. More info about their ink can be read here. I had to admit that I was pretty confused with the categories of their ink - "what is dye-based archival inks ?"

You will hear differently from people. The fact is Epson always recommend you to turn the printer off when not used by turning off the switch on-off printer - not pulling the power cord (cause you can have the cartridges' house stopping right in the middle of the printer).

I have tried both practices. I would say that I don't notice any benefits from leaving it on at all time. Even though you leave the printer on but not using it for a while, at the very first time you order the print, the printer will run a small flushing cycle exactly the same way it does when you just turn it on after it's off for a long time.

Meanwhile, the contrary. If you just finished printing something and turn the printer off and need to print again and you turn it on, it will start printing right away. And there is essentially no warm up time (like the laser printer), so leaving the printer on all the time won't save you a time.

I believe the printer itself has some memory or timer and know when to run a short flushing cycle prior to printing. So there is simply no differences between the 2 practices. The problem with leaving it on all the time the exposure of one electrical compliance (which happened to be associated with computer) to the surge or electrical instability and failure.

This is one of the most favorite questions that I like to answer. The definite answer is no - you don't use twice as much ink when you double your dpi setting for printing. Printing at higher dpi will certainly use more inks than the lower dpi but the amount of the differences depends on your shaded area in the print.

At the dark area, let's say you're printing a whole page of black color (or other primary colors). The usage of the ink will be the same for either 1 dpi or up to any number of dpi. To think about this, let assume that the printer will lay a circular dot at the same size and no overlapping (in fact, it's not circular, it's elliptical - e.g. 2880 x 1440 dpi and also they may overlap). Anyway, calculating the circular dot's area is much easier.

For a 1 square inch, we have an area of 2.54 x 2.54 cm (assuming 1 inch is 2.54 cm) = 6.4516 cm²

For a printing at 1 dpi (complete circular) you will cover the area of ¶ x 1.27 x 1.27 = 5.067 cm2
For a printing at 2 dpi (4 complete circular dots) you will cover the area of ¶ x 0.635 2 x4 = 5.067 cm2
For a printing at 2880 dpi (roughly 8 millions dots) you will get ¶ x 0.0004412 x 8294400 = 5.067 cm2

So, no matter how many dots you lay on one square area, from 1 dpi to 2880 dpi and so on, it still cover the same surface area.

What actually influence the ink usage ?

How much of the shaded area of print is the major part of this. The printer is making the decision to place or not to place the dots in these shaded area and the higher the resolution, the more dots of the same or the different color are being used. We can not accurately measure this and the shaded area are different from one print to another. So there is no definite answer of how much more ink will be used when you double the resolution. The answer is - yes, it will use more and how much depends on how much of the shaded area you have in that picture. But certainly it will not be twice as much more ink used.

These 2 crops are from the shaded area of the above picture. As you can notice that the print at 2880 dpi contains more dots and the density of the color (where you can't see the dots). This part is contributing to the ink usage differences between the 2 settings.

No, but.... ! and why's that ?

But....., it must not be a complete stream of air or too much quantity of air.

You can see the Epson are very conservative about this. They probably find that majority of the printers that returned to them are having problem with this. That's why the smart chip (very smart) will never really read the cartridge empty (it always leave some cc inside). Every methods are employed so that the nozzles don't get air in e.g the one way valve, the exit valve, the circular and column area that can capture air in the top part, etc

Many people get air in the nozzles from an improper refills or the stinginess by trying to use the last drop left in the cartridge. The bad CIS can give you that, too.

Normally the small amount of air that entered the nozzles can be flushed out by using (or wasting) cycles of cleaning (normally, more than 1 cycles). Each cleaning cycle is not the same, the very first one will be a baby cleaning, the 2nd and the 3rd one will become more grand (that you can waste about 1/2 cartridge to get rid of the air). So actually, it's no use to do > 3 cleaning cycles consecutively. If you know it's an air and you don't get perfect nozzle check in 3 cycles. You should give it a rest at least hours or overnight and try again, later.

But if the nozzle clogged from particles, ink precipitates, that's another story. This one, it won't be easily fixed and the best way is to call Epson if your printer is still in the warranty. For the printer that's out of warranty, you can try flush it with warm water, Windex® outside the printer !

This is the nozzles head of Epson 1280. The flushing is perform outside the printer. Dissembling the printer is not recommended by Epson but doing so in 1280 (and also in Stylus 800) is not difficult. I used the warm water to flush and notice the micro stream of the water. Normally, you'll flush until you get every nozzles opened and the stream is straight. The bent stream means that there is still some partial obstruction. You should never flush the nozzle inside the printer (I mean manual flush with water or Windex) because underneath the nozzle, there is a limited absorptive pad that can become full or saturated with this fluid (or your previous excessive inks from cleaning cycles) and it will haunt you with the excess ink smearing on the paper forever.

Why it's not too bad ?

Well, before Epson has invented the system to monitor the ink level - this is back to around 1999, perhaps. The older models like Epson stylus Pro or Stylus 800 (the one that I used to have) do not know when the ink will be out. Not until the users have noticed the lines/gaps in the print which mean that some air has already entered some nozzles. Then users still can try a cleaning cycle and then if it doesn't go away, they'll know that the ink run out and time to change the cartridge.

Started with 1160 which doesn't really have the chip on the cartridges but the printer will aware of when users push the button to change the cartridge and some how guesstimate that the ink is out and discontinue to print until user change the cartridge. This system is completely inaccurate and you can't use a partially used cartridge and finally, Epson invent the smart chips started in 1999-2000 with the early model like 1270 and after that, every Epson printer now use the chipped cartridge and the printer know how much the ink left by calculation.

This is perhaps one of the reason why the sponge is included in the earlier model. There is a need for the cartridge to have the ability to retain some ink inside (easily with a sponge, or more complicated with the newly designed ink path like 2200's cartridges). So, even though the cartridge is out, it's not completely out and some ink and air will mix and go in.

The best practice is to avoid this. Having air in the nozzles is not fun because it takes ton of inks to flush it out and also there is no guarantee that you'll be able to get it out. To achieve an air-free nozzle, you should stay with the genuine cartridge or completely understand the refill method or CIS's mechanism and practice a safe refilling or CIS maintenance.

This phenomenon was observed during the winter of 2002 when I was using the CIS with my 1280. I like to intentionally let the small air bubble get into the tubing system of the CIS every now and then. This is to test how healthy of the system (the good CIS will make that air bubbles dancing back and forth along with the cartridge's movement while printing).

Anyway, during the winter in NYC, the humidity of the air is so low (could be as low as 20% - compare to 60-70% in the summer). I notice those air bubbles spontaneously move toward the printer even the printer is off. This movement was recorded and I found that it can move anywhere from -0.5 cm (yes, someday it come back toward the bottle) to 10+ cm in 24 hours. Calculation (my CIS tubing hold 2.14 cc for 60 cm long) will interpret this equate the amount of -0.018 to 0.35 cc. The distance of the movement is completely dependent on how low of the humidity. And in an extremely dry condition, you can lose 0.35 cc per day unknowingly.

Is this mean that you can empty the full cartridge (let's say 17 ml capacity) in 48 days ?

Probably not, that may be another reason why the cartridge need to have the ability to retain some ink inside (sponge, or complicated narrow path of 2200's). And when you're using cartridge system (not CIS), the height of the column of ink is not constant like CIS (my observation found in the CIS which the cartridge is getting ink supply continually from the bottle and remain at the same amount or the same height or the same pressure exert on the exit at the bottom). So in the cartridge system, a lesser pressure created when the level of the ink came down. So the amount of the ink that spontaneously going away would be less.

And hopefully you don't get 20% humidity for straight 48 days !

Epson said (click here) that the printer can be stored (in shipping container) in the humidity of 5 to 85% (RH) and operational between 20 to 80% RH. That is for 1280 and that is the humidity without condensation, doesn't guarantee the evaporation (of ink). After this observation, I am now keeping the room humidity at least 50% all the time. Epson must have already aware of this problem, otherwise, they won't change the design of the cartridge's vent from a simple straight hole (like Stylus Pro's) to the crooked path vent since 1270's until now with newer models including 2200's.

So, that may be another reason why the cartridge's life after opened will be 6 months. Actually, if you left the cartridge in the idled printer in the low humidity environment more than 30 days, don't expect your chip to read empty before the cartridge is really empty anymore.