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Author Topic: Z3100 Low Ink  (Read 2325 times)

Charlesu

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Z3100 Low Ink
« on: May 26, 2007, 11:51:53 am »

I just started to print a large B&W and got the message that my gray ink was low.

Should I have cancelled the print job?

Take a chance on completing it?  

Wait til the print job is over and then replace the cartirge?  

Keep on printing additional jobs until it actually fails?

The print has already started while I was looking for my replacement cartridge.  So this time I will wait.  I'm just curious if anyone has worked out a best practice on this?
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Ernst Dinkla

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Z3100 Low Ink
« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2007, 02:55:40 pm »

Quote
I just started to print a large B&W and got the message that my gray ink was low.

Should I have cancelled the print job?

Take a chance on completing it? 

Wait til the print job is over and then replace the cartirge? 

Keep on printing additional jobs until it actually fails?

The print has already started while I was looking for my replacement cartridge.  So this time I will wait.  I'm just curious if anyone has worked out a best practice on this?
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The estimates for ink use (not counting GE) is 11 ml total per square meter. there must be obvious reasons when one ink cart is going down more than 5 ml on a square meter (night scenes in the coal district etc).  The printer tells you how much is left in the carts. Replace a cart when you are not sure it will cover the next print, reinsert the old one when the jobs are small in size. The printer counter doesn't know a lower number than 2 ml left as far as my experience goes but often there are 5 to 6 left in the cart if I check them on weight and the printer will use a cart till it is really empty so not 10% left in the cart like with Epsons could happen. Weight of the carts is: 42 grams for a totally empty 69 ml cart, about 59 grams for a 130 ml one.

For GE you can not take risks, it goes faster, on the other hand it is easier to predict how much is needed.

Other strategies are harder to evaluate, the paper can be inexpensive but if you waste 10 ml of other inks to really empty a 2 ml yellow cart you still loose time and money.


Ernst Dinkla

try: [a href=\"http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/[/url]
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ternst

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Z3100 Low Ink
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2007, 04:06:11 pm »

This is one of the issues I've had with this printer - if it runs out of ink in the middle of a print the print is wasted. With Epsons you can simply replace the ink cart and it will keep on printing - no waste of time, paper, or ink. I wish HP would figure out how to do this (of course the Epsons are almost constantly throwing away ink in other ways!). I've had carts go dry within inches of the end on several 24x36 prints lately (one print was within 1/2" of finished - had to trash it)...
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