Initialising an older 9600 6-ink machine - use K2 or K3 inks?

[narikin]

Hi all, I'm going to be initialising an older 9600 style 6 ink machine that has been drained, cleaned and stood idle for some time now.

It used to have the old Epson K2 inks (K,M,C,Y,Lm,Lc) and I can replenish it with those or equivalent, but wondered if I should be using the inks of the x880 K3 range now that is easily available?  (or even the current generation x900 HDR equivalents?).  Did people with older 9600 machines ever use the K3 generation ink in their K2 designed machines, or was this a bad idea?

As its only 6 inks, I cannot utilize the K3 LK or LLK inks, so have to work with old 9600 style profiles and gamut, but that's ok for this machine's workload. 

Any tips or ideas?  Thanks.

[Paul2660]

I would stay with the Epson ink for the 7600/9600.  The K3 use the vivid Magenta and there has been quite a bit written as to fact that this color/ink will not work in the older heads of the 9600 or 9800 family. 

Paul

[huguito]

I have a 9600, got it used, already had cartridges installed with K3 inks.
When I buy ink, assuming you will use Epson inks, I only know of two options, either K3 inkset of pigment inks without the vivid magenta, or Dye inks.
I have had no problems with the Epson K3 inks, beautiful output, and almost never clogging issues although this printer some times rest unused for weeks at the time.
Hugo

[narikin]

Thanks.

And just to be clear, you are using the K3 inks but * not with K3 vivid magenta. (Including vivid light Magenta?) So are you using the old K2 formulated magenta, or what? Thanks.

[Paul2660]

I forgot the 9600 also had the dye based inks.

Except for the newer vivid magenta (gen x880) and orange and green (x990) as I understand it the inks for the rest of the K3 are the same across the entire line. K3 should be fine unless there was a difference in the heads between dye and ultrachrome inks.

Paul

[huguito]

When they started using the K3 inks, as far back as when I had an epson 2400, they already had K3
The vivid magenta was an addition, years later, the original set of K3 pigment inks for my 9600 includes magenta and light magenta.
The vivid magenta is not available for the 9600
In any case, with the magenta and light magenta, the colors out of this printer, when using a good paper, are just beautiful.

Good luck with yours

Hugo

[langier]

You may only have the dye inks and the original Ultrachrome inks to use since the cartridges are keyed so you can't put the wrong cart into the wrong slot.

About the only thing in common between the x600 the x800 printers and newer are the waste carts and cutters and paper. As far as I know, you can't put an x800 cartridge into an 4000/7600/9600 printer. The only series of printers Epson made that I think all three sizes of printers shared the same ink carts was this series. When they "improved" to the 4800, it took its own special carts that wouldn't fit in the 7800/9800. Same for the x880 and especial for the x900 series. Even the carts for the 4900 are of yet another capacity compared to the 7900/9900 and the 4880 before it.

[shadowblade]

You may only have the dye inks and the original Ultrachrome inks to use since the cartridges are keyed so you can't put the wrong cart into the wrong slot.

About the only thing in common between the x600 the x800 printers and newer are the waste carts and cutters and paper. As far as I know, you can't put an x800 cartridge into an 4000/7600/9600 printer. The only series of printers Epson made that I think all three sizes of printers shared the same ink carts was this series. When they "improved" to the 4800, it took its own special carts that wouldn't fit in the 7800/9800. Same for the x880 and especial for the x900 series. Even the carts for the 4900 are of yet another capacity compared to the 7900/9900 and the 4880 before it.

There's nothing stopping you from putting newer ink into x600 cartridges, though.

[Dan Vincent]

You may only have the dye inks and the original Ultrachrome inks to use since the cartridges are keyed so you can't put the wrong cart into the wrong slot.

About the only thing in common between the x600 the x800 printers and newer are the waste carts and cutters and paper. As far as I know, you can't put an x800 cartridge into an 4000/7600/9600 printer. The only series of printers Epson made that I think all three sizes of printers shared the same ink carts was this series. When they "improved" to the 4800, it took its own special carts that wouldn't fit in the 7800/9800. Same for the x880 and especial for the x900 series. Even the carts for the 4900 are of yet another capacity compared to the 7900/9900 and the 4880 before it.

This is about right according to my recollection. I've worked with almost all of these models.

It's dumb (or profitable) that they made two separate cart form factors for the 4800 versus the larger printers because the carts on offer were the exact same capacity (110 and 220ml carts were available for all x800 series). Seeing a 4800 loaded with 220ml carts was amusing, and they were exactly the same size as the 9800 220ml carts... just keyed differently.

The 7/9900 series changed the form factors completely and all the carts are the same physical size, they just hold different volumes of ink. For the 4900 they had to make the cart smaller to accommodate the smaller form factor.

Interestingly enough the 3880 and 3800 use the same carts except for the Magentas (which are keyed differently). So if you have a friend getting rid of ink on a 3800 and you have a 3880, take it!