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Author Topic: Which printer for piezography ?  (Read 7643 times)

Jasamkarlo

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Which printer for piezography ?
« on: June 28, 2012, 01:14:55 pm »

Hi,
I guess that this subject has been discussed over and over again but I'd need some help.  
I have read different opinions about piezography inks and both the pros and cons, but i'm still not sure which printer would be
a good printer to completely dedicate to piezography printing ?

I'd like to stay with Epson...

Thanks in advance !
« Last Edit: June 28, 2012, 01:24:56 pm by Jasamkarlo »
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aaronchan

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2012, 03:57:56 pm »

I think Epsom is basically the only brand you. An use piezography ink with.(of cuz there are other piezo print head printers as well but those are mostly for commercial use.) so the rest would be what size of printer do you want? IMHO 3880 is a good printer to start with.

Aaron

KeithR

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2012, 05:36:15 pm »

I have a printer(4800) dedicated for B&W using one of the Piezography inksets. It would be best if you went to the site it self to see which printers they support. Right now they are primarily supporting Epson printers.
http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.362672/.f
and
http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/
The one thing that I like about Jon Cone & the ink sets is the customer service. They will always try to help you if they can.
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Ken Doo

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2012, 06:53:34 pm »

I converted my 9800 to K7 Piezography MPS---and really enjoy it.  The curves are good and the quality of prints top-notch.  The 9900 is excellent with B&W; the 9800 Piezography printer edges it out.  I especially like the Cone5 paper and Canson Platine Fibre Rag using this system.  Innova Fibaprint Warmtone Cotton Gloss, Hahn PR, and Harman Gloss are also excellent.

If you're converting an older printer (used) you really need to be sure that the printer is in great condition.  If not, you'll be lucky to get the printer or patient off the operating (conversion) table alive, absent repairs/replacing inner workings/parts (dampers, capping station, wipers, etc.).  I think the wider carriage printers (78/79** and 98/99**) printers are better because it is easier to access the inner workings of the printer.  I would be hesitant to convert a 38** series printer because of pizza wheel issues.

Epson really is the only choice for Piezography; it's more a decision of which model to convert, if you don't already have a printer on hand.  I'd spend some time looking at the different inksets, and order some sample prints.  MPS glossy was a no-brainer for me, and the decision came down to MPS selenium or the split tone neutral.  Piezography 2 is the latest inkset release, but with a recent and successful K7 conversion, I have no desire to try piezography 2.  Customer service is excellent which is great because the information on the website(s) and blog are in dire need of reorganization.  There were three different sets of instructions given to me for the K7 conversion.  The one to use is on the blog website.

ken

eleanorbrown

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2012, 11:18:39 pm »

Ditto to everything Ken said.  I will emphasize do NOT use the 3880 for the MPS glossy system.  I recently bought a new 3880 just for this system and after weeks of testing and wasting boxes of fine art papers and a set of MPS inks trying every setting and printing method I could think of, I came to the conclusion the this is not a good printer for the MPS glossy system and fine art papers.  Rear manual  paper load puts the inks (which are NOT DRY AT ALL) under the pizza wheels.  On prints with lots of detail the wheel marks do not show but when you print has mid and darker smoother tones the pizza wheel marks make the print unacceptable.  You can get away from the pizza wheels by using the front load option (really designed for stiff thicker media) but the head alignment utility won't work with front load and you will get "fuzzy" ink dots and some loss of fine detail.  I tried putting the fine art papers on mat board using front load but this creates a whole other set of issues....print head has a tendency to scrape on the paper and the head gets knocked out of alignment big time, paper occassionally gets jammed on exiting the printer, etc.   NOW...it you are not that particular about marks on your prints or the fact that the fine detail is slightly "off" then the 3880 can be used.  I personally am very particular and compulsive about print quality so I was not happy with the 3880 and MPS system combination.  (when the system works the prints are gorgeous but the 3880 printing is too unpredictable for me anyway.)  Eleanor

I converted my 9800 to K7 Piezography MPS---and really enjoy it.  The curves are good and the quality of prints top-notch.  The 9900 is excellent with B&W; the 9800 Piezography printer edges it out.  I especially like the Cone5 paper and Canson Platine Fibre Rag using this system.  Innova Fibaprint Warmtone Cotton Gloss, Hahn PR, and Harman Gloss are also excellent.

If you're converting an older printer (used) you really need to be sure that the printer is in great condition.  If not, you'll be lucky to get the printer or patient off the operating (conversion) table alive, absent repairs/replacing inner workings/parts (dampers, capping station, wipers, etc.).  I think the wider carriage printers (78/79** and 98/99**) printers are better because it is easier to access the inner workings of the printer.  I would be hesitant to convert a 38** series printer because of pizza wheel issues.

Epson really is the only choice for Piezography; it's more a decision of which model to convert, if you don't already have a printer on hand.  I'd spend some time looking at the different inksets, and order some sample prints.  MPS glossy was a no-brainer for me, and the decision came down to MPS selenium or the split tone neutral.  Piezography 2 is the latest inkset release, but with a recent and successful K7 conversion, I have no desire to try piezography 2.  Customer service is excellent which is great because the information on the website(s) and blog are in dire need of reorganization.  There were three different sets of instructions given to me for the K7 conversion.  The one to use is on the blog website.

ken
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Jasamkarlo

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2012, 10:23:53 am »

Ken, Eleanor thank you so much for your in depth input, I was not aware of the pizza wheel problem on the 3880.
In fact I am looking to buy a completely new printer and tie it in with Piezography system, what I'd like is to stay in the smaller format  (avoiding the 9900 and 9800 if possible for now at least).

You are right concerning the piezography site, I am almost completely lost there but after seeing a print done by their inks in real life I think I'm completely sold on the idea...
If you could lead me to a printer that is not of the larger format group that doesn't have as much problems as the 3880 has I'd be more than thankful! Oh and by the way I am unfortunately very clinical
regarding my prints so I doubt that 3880 would do it for me in any way.

thanks !  :D
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JonCone

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2012, 11:24:12 am »

I'll just chime in here a little in regards to printer choice. First of all, the 3800/3880 is one of the most popular Piezography platforms for matte and glossy, so I would not shy away from it. We have sold hundreds and hundreds of matte/glossy system on that platform. The prints need to be hair dried before passing through a second time for the GO overprint. I can't explain Eleanor's experience with it and her persistent pizza wheel marks. It could be her printer's specs are on the tight side. But, we do have a ton of 3800/3880 happy piezographers and they nearly all use a 2-3 minute forced air dry with a simple hair dryer - then do the Piezography Gloss Overprint. I recall that Eleanor could not get good print quality unless she used the top feed. By using an alternative feed there are no pizza wheels - and most of our customers are able to use the alternate feeds and still align their print heads properly. Having said that, if you buy a new 3880 - just run it through all of its alignment tests in color and if you get fuzzy dots - just return it for a better one. But it remains a printer in which the GO and both the matte and glossy ink options are all installed at one time.

We are now offering Piezography2 systems on 8 ink slot printers which reduce the K7 to a K6 but both matte and glossy options are installed on the 4800, 4880, 7800/9800, 7880/9880 legacy systems. Not officially released until all of the curve libraries are completed but we are doing private profiling for those who choose to get the system from us. It will not be on the inkjetmall website until in official release - and then we will send all the curves to Roy Harrington for inclusion.

Also, we now have a digital negative option for regular K7 systems for the 3800/3880, 2400, 2880, 7800/9800, 7880/9880. This matters to some when they are choosing a printer model.

For desktop sizes and matte only the R1400 is hard to beat for the value but it does require hand feeding of thicker art papers (but it does take them). This printer is often in the Epson refurb store for under $200 and you can buy a pair for less than the cost of a R2880. However, it is very easy to change cart sets on the 1400/1430 and the R2880 or R2400 so that you can run multiple Piezography ink sets by simply changing out carts. No flushing needed. The R2880 is a good matte/gloss system and our cart sets come with both black ink options.

The new R3000 must really be dedicated to one ink set. But, this is also a very nice printer. There is no POWER CLEAN available for it and it does have dampers and ink lines - so that best to start it up as a virgin or to download the Epson PC Utility so that you can perform an ink initialization. Great printer for Piezography.

All of the PRO printers remain the most popular for conversion. We probably convert more 7800/9800 and 7880/9880 than any other platform. The 7900/9900 is beginning to get popular, too. And for some we have devised a sort of multi-ink split toning option which allows choosing a main ink set and then having a blending option with 3 shades of a second ink - and then using two curves and blending feature.  We will soon expand that into a dual matte/glossy two ink system called Piezography Pro2. later in the summer...

Because Piezography quality is the same from printer platform to printer platform - you can choose by you budget.  For my own work, I use an R2880 because I like having all of the ink sets at my disposal and I can change from Neutral to Carbon in about 5 minutes. I happen to like 13x19 prints. Otherwise I print giant on a Roland.  So - if you wanted to build a dream system in which you could use any of the ink sets including split tones and your own custom Piezography ink blends - the R2880 remains the only printer that gives such easy and fast freedom. Changing a set of carts in it cleans out the ink from the previous carts automatically.  If that is something that might interest you - you can contact me offline or you can ask more and I will try to monitor this thread.

Best regards,

Jon Cone
Piezography
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Jon Cone
Head guru at Piezography; Master Printer at Cone Editions Press; CTO at Vermont PhotoInkjet; Product Development at InkjetMall

artobest

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2012, 11:47:49 am »

I really wish I could try Piezography. I've seen samples, and they are beautiful - my HP does good neutral B&w, but there's something deeply appealing about the dedicated b&w approach; it feels like true craft. Shame it's still not easily available in the UK.
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eleanorbrown

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2012, 12:48:26 pm »

I would absolutely love to hear how people get their print heads aligned exactly using front feed on the 3880 using fine art papers .  I talked via email with Eric Chan, expert on the 3800/3880 printers and he confirmed that the head alignment utility only works using rear feed (ie: with front feed the head alignment is not exactly matched to the distance from the print head to the fine art paper (as it is with rear feed)thus giving misaligned ink dots .) This becomes evident when printing fine detai on front feed, on my printer at least. In my experience one can get the paper using front feed closer to the print head  thus better alignment, by sitting the paper on 2 ply mat board but this is when the paper has a tendency to scrap the print head because there are no pizza wheels to hold the fine art papers flat.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2012, 02:45:44 pm by eleanorbrown »
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Eleanor Brown
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deanwork

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Re: Which printer for piezography ?
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2012, 10:10:38 pm »

I'm using the Epson 9890 for Piezography K7 Carbon and it is fantastic. I have the Canon 8300 set up with True Black and White which is really good, and I have the HpZ with their quad set up and it is really good too with the darkest dmax. But the 9890 with K7 is sharper, smoother, and way more dimensional. I do all my own work that way from drum scans of  iso 100 4x5 film. I'm running these 40x60 prints at 16 bit 2880 uni and the printer is fast as hell.  I've found my medium and I have no desire to look elsewhere after doing this.

Thankfully the 9890 has not clogged at all with these inks so I'm not spending anything on wasted ink with head cleanings so far.
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