How to purge and dry a Cone-cart?

I did something stupid some days ago - I refilled with this:
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Refill-9x-25...hash=item5d6b707fa7:m:mNxTf12OcThdsoh2zQ2cqJQ

from "mindcomputing" (a member here with another AKA) - that not said to harm or offend him in any way. This whole thing might be my own fault - and is anyway!!!!

It's capsules is marked OCP - so I presume that is what it is. I didn't think much of it but it did not smell like other third party inks - ammonia. I used a new set of Cone-carts to do that - I did not want to contaminate with different inks. OK! Result was rather good using ordinary Epson profiles - but much better after "Argyll-ing" the ink set.

However I did not like the fume of ammonia. After printing some A2's the smell reached my wife - wondering what I was doing.
Other members here on Printerknowledge have stated only to use "Windex" with great care and just for cleaning purpose as it contains ammonia. Ammonia is not at all good for some metals like copper etc. That is - it should not be left in the printhead for a longer time.

Yesterday evening xxxx hit my 3880. Yellow and some other colours clogged - a lot!!!

No words on how I de-clogged it (it's written all over this place here) I used all the tricks but it was a mixed result- it took me about eleven hours using 300 ml "Octopus" - cleaning and flushing fluid from Germany. I did the "under-printhead-wetting-and polishing-method" - overfilled the cleaning-station with that fluid and put the printhead over that carefully by hand letting it stay soaking for an hour to wet. Repeatedly. It didn't solve the problem.

All of sudden I understood how silly I was!
I still had that OCP-ink in the 3880. So - out with the cartridges and in with the OEM-carts that I have mainly for reference. Silly - I should have done so from the beginning.

Two real "deep-cleaning" with the "Epson LFP Remote Panel" with OEM-inks and .... whiiiipe!
I now think I have one of the cleanest 3880 ... at least in Sweden.

Someone nearby in the south of Sweden can feel free to come and collect about 250ml of each color OCP-inks. Just PM me!

Now I want your help.
How do I flush and clean the Cone-carts? It hurts in some way to throw them away. They are new as well. There must be no inter-contamination at all. What do you say about first emptying the carts as good as you can soaking out the xxxx-inks (self-censorship here) and then repeatedly fill-emty-refill etc with battery-water (deionized water) until seemly clean. Then put the carts in the "dry-shelter" or some hot place for some days letting the rest-water slowly evaporate. However - can You really reach every chamber in those third-party carts.
Anyone else done that changing inks in their carts? Suggestions are appreciated.

(Hmmm...80$ or there around is easier...and might be worth the money...)

I need clean carts - and Ebay-ing or otherwise send for new carts takes time.
Third party cartridges can also be a hit or miss thing. The one I have works great.

Cone has rather good inks I think - a bit less money than OEM inks - however last time I ordered all of sudden there was "export-taxes" added from US (US don't like selling to Swedes???). So no more Cone - sad as I have "learnt" that ink. I shall study here and the net - would like to buy from hour neighbours now - Germany and GB. And of cause there is the @jtoolman-method - hunting OEM-inks on Ebay.


/berserk

Conecolor/inkjetmall has separate webshops for domestic and foreign customers which differ in the sales tax charge. US prices are typically w/o sales tax in the first place and would be added later when you close the deal - for domestic customers. I understand that they now have a dealer in France which should resolve your taxing problem. I like the Conecolor Pro inks overall, I measured a very large gamut and saw a good /uniform gloss, but they are pretty pricey, and I found some Chinese inks almost as good - by my judgement - but significantly cheaper, it's always to be balanced - price vs. performance - for the inks or the same for papers.
Rinsing those cartridges should be o.k.as you did, but drying would not remove any remains of the previous inks, I just would continue to use them in the condition they are now.
I tested those inks you refer to, I don't remember the smell anymore, they were printing o.k. but I was not so happy with the gloss/bronzing overall. I'm mixing pigment inks , I'm only doing a small cross check with yellow inks prior to any mixing whether there is any flocculation which I observed in a few cases in the past, and then I would not mix them.

Not just sales-tax - now also export-tax.

OK - I tried to empty tone cartridges. Easy just upside down with filling hole down and wait, the rest with the help of my set of syringe adapters used with former printer-filling experience and CISS-time. That xxxx-ink did not adhere at all to the chambers in the cart. Like water on a goose. Just about two drips left. That is I can use them again without ink contamination.

Now I have my reference OEM-inks in the printer. Also can use the old OEM carts. Inks left in them when robbing them of their chips. With the @jtoolman method I have inks enough until I have done research on new inks - preferably from GB or Germany - those are BTW my second languages.

As German, You might help me finding a German forum where people use and test European inks.
((Ich muss doch nur sagen - keine OCP-tinte!) Of cause I'll listen to You as well.
However the phrase "Chinese inks" do not appeal to my ear. OK - if they are just made in China under quality control and/but designed by a respectable ink producer. Or that one can suspect they sell that very ink under the table. You know Chinese business.......

I agree with You - just studied my prints with OCP-inks from last week - the errors You found, I agree,I have a feeling it has to do with its magenta-inks. Printed a "mix-ramp" (that is different color circles going into/over one-another and mix/blend in many different ways) The ones with magenta looked in a way odd to my eyes and also in a way had another feeling on the surface - that is, it did not reflected light in harmony with the other colour surfaces.

/berserc

I'm overall reluctant to make straight recommendations for this or another ink, there are too many variables in the game, I have tested lots of inks over the last two years - dye and pigment - to my expectations - and reported the findings here quite in detail, and other members have done as well quite some more testing over time. I don't think that you will find more and better/detailed/interesting information elsewhere. You may look to the German forum druckerchannel.de but they deal more with clogged printheads and alike than with ink testing. You may look for some lfp-type forums more business oriented but they don't do so much ink testing either.
There are two organisations with extensive ink tests - aardenburg-imaging.com and wilhelm-research.com which focus mainly onto the fade resistance/UV stability.
farbenwerk.com is a German supplier, for Lyson inks and their own private label. If you like to buy inks by the cartridge or litre bottles easy-inks.de manufacture their own inks.
You may try the K3 HD inks for the P600/800 by precisioncolors.com which I tested and found them very good - quite uniform gloss, not so such bronzing and a large gamut.
And there is another variable in the game - the choice of paper, it has a visible impact how the colors look like, the gloss, the smoothness, the gamut, the black level. You can have a very good performing paper in the budget range - the Aldi/Netbit for 10 cts per A4 sheet up to the premium papers like HP Premium Plus Photo Glossy at 70 cts. And there are the specialty papers by Hahnemühle, Tecco, Ilford etc beyond that, and those silk, lustre, semigloss, velvet type papers all looking different with another sheen.
I cannot disqualify Chinese suppliers via Aliexpress at all, I got what I ordered, and some inks perform better for me than others, you can get the very cheap ones or pretty expensive ones.
Just to give you an example, druckerpatronentankstellen.de is very much at the bottom pricing range, they manufacture their own inks in Germany, they run as low as 13€/litre for dye inks . But this is an ink which fades pretty fast - you get what you pay for, here or in China.
When you look for dye inks for the Epson Surelab printers like a D3000, you may pay 70€ /litre for a dye ink in China, much more than even for typical pigment inks there. The ink business appears to be pretty competitive and companies cannot efford to deliver changing quality.
So it's up to you to find that ink/paper combination which best suits your needs - by price and performance.

Thanks for all help! Yes - in France Cone has a supplier. Prices are almost the same as in the US - however less postage time, less for postage and handling, no export taxes and just French VAT. Good.

Yes all those delivering inks...for the time being I'll stay with OEM and Cone.
I have noticed other problems.



You see that pic. OK - not really like that - From D55 to D65 - just saved for the web. In reality on its a bit duller/darker - feeling it's ruff weather.
It's from a famous artist - it was in our family and however when my mother passed my sister got it with the help of a lawyer. Another story.
We had earlier agreed that painting should go to the maritime museum of "Brantevik" as a gift. They wanted to buy it.

Now - I should print it after photographing it - the museum wants one and of cause me myself one.
I snapped it rather in rather controlled lightning- some flashes and diffusers - camera set to whitebalance 5500K - the same as the flashlights.
All other settings in camera was "normalized" or "nullified...
The histogram etc looks great - It looks great on my monitor after some very small tweaking, studying the original painting.

But printing was a h..l.
Printed it with both Epson driver and Printfab - both calibrated with ArgyllCMS and Colormunki. (Had no canned profiles for that canvas paper)
Other photo calibrating test photos from the webb looked great. Soft proofing the pic. gave me confidence.
But theprint went out crazy-dark in the darker parts- just as if blacks was full on or full off and also out of real tonal range. OK I'm picky here - but this printing
should resemble somewhat what the real painting and the what artist wanted to express.

The dark tones - the blacks was wrong but colors in a way was right - The midrange was OK.
OK - struggled and tried to understand was wrong. I worked hard in PS to isolate the problematic parts -
but ended up destroying the felling of that painting.
So I went to a friend who lives on photo and printing. We agreed that the blacks distribution destroyed everything.
He just took it in his studio and printed out a very acceptable resemble of the painting/photo in A4 on his impressive printer.
He asked me what printer calibrator I had - "Colormunki".
He followed me home and he looked at the tone-response-curve in DisplayCAL of a profile for the colormunki done for the monitor.
I did not first understood what he was doing and why. Suddenly he said - there it is. (Rem: If you in DisplayCal press the exclamation sign -
up the right - you find a drop down thing - there chose "Tone response curve" - it tells in a way how the instrument reacts on L*in and RGB-out.
When the line is not stright the ICC-profile shall compensate for that.) In my case RGB-out was very distorted and wrong in the black area L*in under 10.
He told me - if the instrument acted wrong or could not keep up measuring emitted light you are to expect it acts in a way the "same" measuring reflected
test charts. It's the same sensor that reads) That is - my ICC-profile pumped out too much black inks for compensating for the distorted readings in the verydark area. In other words my Colormunki was a very bad performer in the deeper dark areas.
Problem solved. After reading the links below I was convinced. I Ebay:ed a used I1pro 2 for about $300. Just a used naked instrument and the stand plus the usb-cable.
Now it was late and I went to bed.

Argyll-soft will do the rest and if it works well I'll build a ruler for it.

The "bad" printing was not "thaaat" bad - however it was not not right - if that artist was still alive I think he would never have forgiven my results.
Now my friend will print out the artwork in real size and frame/mount it - one for the museum and one for me.
By the way - I'm related to one of the fishermen on the closest trawler. The painting has a note on its back: "On the way back home".

https://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/MonitorCalibrationHardware.html
https://photographylife.com/the-basics-of-monitor-calibration

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2534630

After that reading I also ordered a new I1pro Display.

In the future I'm just the only one to blame if some things goes wrong.
The other thing is almost for free - getting more knowledge by studying more hard!


/berserk

@berserk, you could try a test on Canvas with that print, first set the resolution to 50 Pixels and the document size to the exact size of your canvas and print it with a standard media setting, not high, and see how the print will look with those setting.

Nice print by the way...

I'm in a way exited and exhausted - first the REAL clog and then, before getting help, trying to read and understand what da .... was wrong.
My friend offered he should do it - he liked my PS-job and thought the pic. was ready for printing.
He also looked at my 3880 and me, knowing what trouble it is to get that canvas (Canson pro something 380g/m2, cut from a roll) through the printer. We agreed - and I was in a way relieved. He took the canvas with him. He has a REAL EPSON and some other LF-printers. To put it short - I respect professionals. The real print shall be 16.65" to full length. As the original.

However today, as I now have OEM ink in the printer, I decided to test two Hahnemülle papers. A3 "Albrecht Dürer" 210 g/m2 Rag and "William Turner" Rag 310g/m2 - downloaded the ICC:s from their site and made one print on each. Let me say - if a person did not had the painting besides - they looks great on both paper-textures. The Albrect Dürer" paper looks at distance as the canvas that shall be used. I'll save those A3's.

You wrote "nice print" - so do I also think, but it's the originator, the artist, to thank for that.
Anyhow - thanks!
I'm just struggling with it.
BTW my friend came by today to collect his gloves and scarf he forgot yesterday. And asked to test my monitor "if the white backlit IPS monitor was leaking" that is if black was black. It was well in the tolerances no problems with that at all. No new monitor on top of all (puh!). I didn't see how he did it. I was in the kitchen making coffee for him. But I believe he used his spectro. We are members in the same veteran car club - so we did not talk about printing at all today. Nice of him thinking it might be something else that caused the miss readings.

However - I think and hope my buy of better hardware might serve me better in the future.The rest of the week I want to spend some time with my fellows in our garage among all the scrap and get dirty - in another way. No inks there!!!!

/berserk

Is it possible you need a better spectrophotometer than a colormunki for your profiles? It is basically an entry level instrument and not as sophisticated as an industrial strength version, which will typically read the patch multiple times and average the result for better accuracy as well as generate better and more accurate profiles.

Another possibility is to purchase a high-end custom profile from a professional colour house.

Neither option is cheap, but you seem to be operating more in the realm of professional rather than amateur colour reproduction. For professional results you need the correct professional tools. That is why they exist, and are priced accordingly.
rs

....for me..I always start as a fool with great enthusiasm but it repeatedly ends up in $$$$$$ in state of the art equipment and endless nights studying the subject...

Though I'm an amateur or better an "enthusiast".
I do it just for fun and to show/test my abilities.
You might compare it to that I'm a "winner type".
I never sell photos - I give them away or they ends up in the "boxroom". On the walls in my home I have the real art - done by real artists.

But let's say - all the cameras and my printingthings has given me a gift - it has given me the ability to see!

And let's say "The more I know, the more I understand how little I know". In the end I hardly dare to open my mouth, revealing my ignorance. (Like here..)

However proper tools, some $$$$ and stubbornness helps! Not?

In a way I can afford it - but only if I have around five hobbies. There must be a limit.

Now to my next!

PS - just got a note that my used I1pro2 and my new I1pro-Display are on its way by post. Do not tell my wife!!! --- last month I bought that very camera lens Ds

berserk said:

However proper tools, some $$$$ and stubbornness helps! Not?

Click to expand...

I'm afraid that are signs of a printing addiction, but you are not alone, just look here for help in this thread
https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/you-know-youre-a-printer-addict-when.1401/page-9,
it could be excessive printing, printer hoarding or ink hoarding or too much pixel counting or compulsory hardware purchases....