EPSON PK - MK change

[Damir]

I wonder is there any change in a way how the head on Epson works after replacing MK - PK inks?

If there is no change in how head works I can change ink in a simple way - just put the PK chip on MK cartridge and continue to print after flushing ink by prinitng a peace of solid black on some cheap everday paper.

Any expirence in such way of working?

[Mark D Segal]

Unless you know for sure how the firmware in the printer actually determines which ink cartridge to draw the ink from, you could be wasting your time, risking your cartridges and perhaps causing other unintended side effects. I hope you've done your research thoroughly on whether this would work in principle before trying to actually do it.

[DeanChriss]

What printer, and why do you want to do that? If the printer has ink lines you'd need to flush the entire line, wasting many many times as much ink as just swapping via software. Regardless, I'd rather trust the manufacturer's MK/PK swap recommendations since they designed the printer and know how it's all supposed to work.

[Mark D Segal]

What printer, and why do you want to do that? If the printer has ink lines you'd need to flush the entire line, wasting many many times as much ink as just swapping via software. Regardless, I'd rather trust the manufacturer's MK/PK swap recommendations since they designed the printer and know how it's all supposed to work.

Exactly. Printing one piece of paper with black ink may use less than 1 ml, leaving a lot of the wrong ink in the required line. In any case it's unlikely to work. I don't think the chip has any effect on which cartridge the printer selects the ink from.

[Damir]

Printer is Epson 9800. Why - you must be kidding - to save a lot of money through saving in ink and waiste tank. Here is text from Epson site:

The amount of ink flushed through the printer in the switching process varies, but approximately 88 to 117 ml of ink (all cartridges combined) is used. All cartridges should be at least 30% full before you begin the conversion process. If your workflow requires both Photo and Matte Black inks on a regular basis, it is strongly recommended that you consider purchasing two printers: one for Photo Black ink and the other for Matte Black ink.

It is also complicated procedure:

https://files.support.epson.com/htmldocs/pro78_/pro78_rf/trans_2.htm

Anyway I found answer - thre are users that did that:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/printer/7800-9800_swap_black_ink.html

It is faster and only 20 ml of black ink was used. I can use old chips form PK ink on MK ink with the use of resseter.

[Wayne Fox]

Printer is Epson 9800. Why - you must be kidding - to save a lot of money through saving in ink and waiste tank. Here is text from Epson site:

well, it would have been helpful to include that information in your original post.  I don't think anyone reading your question would have any idea you were referring to a 9800.

You can do it without chipping the cartridge, I didn't take the time to read your links but I assume the are showing you how to reset the ink type in the printer itself. It will take a very large piece of paper, we're talking 40x40 or even larger to purge all the black ink.  I've done it myself this way before.  But definitely takes less ink.

[Damir]

Are you telling me that only 9800 purge all inks when changing blacks. Other Epson don't do that?

[dgberg]

No they don't.
My 9900 takes a couple of minutes and a couple of dollars worth of black ink to switch and thats it.
Although I do not like to waste ink either it just is not a factor.
Way cheaper for you to buy a second (newer) printer model with the new technology and keep the 9800 for one black ink only.

I use the inexpensive 3880 for all my pk sheet prints 17" an under.
The 9900 is left on mk ink for canvas with a once or twice a month shift when I want to print with pk on larger rolls.

[Paul2660]

Just to add a bit more to Dan's post.

The 9880/7880 was the last large format inkjet aqueous that Epson made that needed the matte/photo switch that your 9800 has.

The 7900/9900 and 4900 all allow you to have matte and photo installed but still require a swap, that does take some ink, but much less than the 9800 family and use the HDR ink set.

The 7890/9890 use the ink set of the older 9880 and 11880 no orange or green, and work the same way as the 7900 family on the black swap.

The 11880 has the same ink set as the 9880 and has both blacks on-line ready no swap needed and is 60"

The 3880 uses the older ink set of the 9880 family and has both blacks on-line ready to use no swapping required.

Paul

[Czornyj]

I wonder is there any change in a way how the head on Epson works after replacing MK - PK inks?

If there is no change in how head works I can change ink in a simple way - just put the PK chip on MK cartridge and continue to print after flushing ink by prinitng a peace of solid black on some cheap everday paper.

Any expirence in such way of working?

I used to do this trick with my hated ex-SP7880 - I switched the ink carts, fool the printer in the service menu, and printed huge amount of black on cheap paper until it completely ran out of PK/MK ink left in ink line. It takes a lot of time and also wastes a lot of ink, but so or so it's 1000x better than the paranoid Epson procedure that wastes a bucket of ink and fills the maintenance tank. From my personal experience the best way to avoid time and ink waste while PK/MK switch is a switch to Canon iPF

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/printer/7880-9880_swap_black_ink.html

[Damir]

Many thans to everyone for information.

I have HP Z 3100 as my main printer, but it is only 24". I use Epson 9800 which is 44" mainly for PK printing for large format posters, but I got few rolls of 36" German Etching and want to try it in Epson. Anyway I tried to print on it with PK ink and MK profile and it looks great, it is not a kind of picture that have very deep black, mostly portraits and fashion.