Piezography: Getting Started

[Rick Popham]

+1

[Ken Doo]

do the OEM chips (in my case, 3800/3880) have a lower limit on what makes them usable?

In other words, do the chips need to come from carts that were something like >15% full or could they be from
carts that were drawn down to as empty as possible?  I have a set of carts that will very soon be completely empty.

If I understand your question correctly Howard, it shouldn't matter.  You "reset" the chip with every time you refill the ink cartridges.  As long as the chips remain in working condition, you should be good to go.

William---your first B&W printer conversion may at times seem to be difficult or confusing.  There is room for some better website organization of information from IJM. But the resources are there, and the customer service from IJM is top-notch.  Once you've completed the B&W Piezography conversion, it'll seem pretty simple from there!  It isn't as hard as it appears, and the workflow isn't difficult either.

   ken

[William Walker]

Thanks Ken

Yes, it appears that once you have got yourself organised with the correct items, the information regarding printing seems much easier to follow.

I placed my order this morning!

Thanks again to everyone who helped me!
William

[Some Guy]

do the OEM chips (in my case, 3800/3880) have a lower limit on what makes them usable?

In other words, do the chips need to come from carts that were something like >15% full or could they be from
carts that were drawn down to as empty as possible?  I have a set of carts that will very soon be completely empty.

I've read that stuff too.

However, I have used chips off discards that were empty.  Most of the empties still have about 10-15ml of ink in them too.  I'm guessing IJM sold the chips off used ones too.  How much empty is the question.  So far I haven't had any issues with the OEM chip off empties other than one time I managed to install it the wrong way under that snap-on chip.  I thought it was maybe too low for the cart, but just flipped around 180 degrees.

For the 3880 specifically, I believe Jose (Toolman) got a resetter tool (Hard to find, Alibaba I think is where he found it?) for the OEM carts.  He did come up with a way to fill the OEM carts as well, but it takes a bit of mechanical work to defeat the valve and bag inside the OEM ink cart.  The resetter he got made the chip operate like it was a normal cart, and not always showing full like the pirate chip cart does with the OEM chip under it.  Would be nice if some refillable carts had that snap-in thing replaced with the OEM chip and a resetter tool both like the Canon's are capable of.  With those, it shows normal full to empty in the printer's maintenance/driver window.  Epson 3880 is always indicating full so I check and shake the carts once a month.

Oh.  The bottles Cone supplies with some ink has a soft pointy nozzle that you can just press into the refillable cart's hole and not use the syringe again after the initial filling and sucking out the ink for the priming part on a brand new cart.  Saves some clean-up time of the syringe and needle doing it that way too.  It's easier to pull the nozzle off the bottle the first time with the syringe to fill it too (vacuum sucks ink back into the bottle otherwise.).

SG

[shadowblade]

Any idea if the refillable carts at Inkjetmall for the 7900 come with the right chips already installed? Or do you need to buy the chips separately?

[KeithR]

The carts that I got from IJM(when I 1st ordered Piezography inks), for my 4800, had the chips already installed. I had ordered another set of carts(exact same design as what I got from IJM) from the internet(from Canada) and those also came with chips that all read 100% whan I put them in the ink bays.

[StephaneB]

I have used Piezo many years ago on a Mac with great success and recently on a Windows PC and went back to Epson ABW.

The big difference is the driver. On the PC it is the poorly (if at all) maintained QTR-Gui. That produced posterization in some pictures withgradients in bright highlights. In ABW, the same pictures printed flawlessly.

I never had that problem with the Mac-based QTR software.

It didn't make me switch back to a Mac, though, because today I find the results from Epson ABW plenty good enough, especially with B&W ICC profiles.

All this on an R3000. On the Mac, at the time, I used piezo with Epson 1280 and R2400.

[Manoli]

...  today I find the results from Epson ABW plenty good enough, especially with B&W ICC profiles.

Good for PC users but it is no longer possible to use B&W ICC profiles with Epson ABW on the Mac. PC only.

[shadowblade]

I thought QTR was the same on both PC and Mac..

[Manoli]

It may well be, it's been a long time since I looked at it.
The 'PC only' was in regard to StephaneB's post on combining ICC profiles and Epson ABW (not QTR), under OS X

Edit:
In the OS X|Lightroom Print tab, under Colour management, you need to set it to 'Managed by Printer' in order to access the Epson ABW settings. There is , AFAIK, no workaround to allow you to use, for example, Eric Chan's 3800 ABW B&W ICC profiles.

[darinb]

Thanks Ken

Yes, it appears that once you have got yourself organised with the correct items, the information regarding printing seems much easier to follow.

I placed my order this morning!

Thanks again to everyone who helped me!
William

Will,

As you've already found, getting started is tough due to unclear information from the Cone site. What you need to know, what you need to buy is scattered all about, mixed in with old information to boot. You'll also find that it doesn't get much better. For example, you may find that you want to use a printer profile that for a paper that inkjetmall recommends--and the link to it is broken. Then they suggest a different profile, made for a different printer. Then, a few months later, suggest a profile for a different paper for the same printer. A little confusing.

But once you get it working it seems to work well. I've been using it for less than six months and I'm o.k.

My discovery today--something worth noting--is that the inkjetmall inks don't seem to clog as much as OEM from sitting idle but will sometimes, inexplicably, sort of clog all at once. I'm starting to clean the heads more often, even mid-printing session. (This on a 3880).

--Darin