Epson 3880 uses different chips in USA and in Europe?

[The Hat]

@RogerB that was a refreshing tale of common sense and not following the herd mentality, it’s nice to see not everybody has gone Cone crazy then..

 

[RogerB]

What Dmax was you achieving with Cone PK and what paper was it tested on Roger

My testing was done on Harman Gloss Baryta, my preferred paper for B&W, using the ABW mode. Wth ConeColor I achieved a Dmax of 2.1 whereas IJF gave me close to 2.4. OEM PK can give you almost 2.6 on that paper.

 

[Ian Barber]

@RogerB Thanks for the info, interesting results

 

[3dogs]

Imperical evidence in the integrity of the effects of uv in degrading material has resulted in a number of catastrophies, hence paint and coatings manufacturers do real world testing using just two items...the product and Sol.......and for good reason.

Gamut and Dmax are interesting and enchanting pursuits of mainly academic interest for endless scolastic debate.

When any device can read a print I make and tell me the colours I was looking at I will willingly switch from Cone inks......The 22year old 4 cylinder Toyota Carolla I drove 86 km each way, to and from work, that has 525, 753 genuine kilometers on the clock, and has the head off once to replace a head gasket I cooked, is also not the best car on the market, by a long way........but only a handful of the allegedly " better cars " of that vintage and travel are not scrap today together with a good number of 3880 print heads that used ......"good" inks.......

Only one test counts ..................performance, the rest is urine and hot air.

 

[Ian Barber]

Well my Cone Ink and cart order has been dispatched and is making its way over her to the UK. I am quite looking forward to testing the whole procedure of filling ink carts and also trying the Cone branded inks. Onwards and Upwards as they say

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Imperical evidence in the integrity of the effects of uv in degrading material has resulted in a number of catastrophies, hence paint and coatings manufacturers do real world testing using just two items...the product and Sol.......and for good reason.

Gamut and Dmax are interesting and enchanting pursuits of mainly academic interest for endless scolastic debate.

When any device can read a print I make and tell me the colours I was looking at I will willingly switch from Cone inks......The 22year old 4 cylinder Toyota Carolla I drove 86 km each way, to and from work, that has 525, 753 genuine kilometers on the clock, and has the head off once to replace a head gasket I cooked, is also not the best car on the market, by a long way........but only a handful of the allegedly " better cars " of that vintage and travel are not scrap today together with a good number of 3880 print heads that used ......"good" inks.......

Only one test counts ..................performance, the rest is urine and hot air.

Although I tend to be a devotee of the empirical evidence theory rules, I have to agree with the main thrust of your arguments. And I always love an argument.

For those who want to follow the various threads on the chattering forums, John Cone mounts a vigorous defense of his product(s) and testing methodology. He argues amongst other things that Adedenbergs (sp) and others results are flawed. Not at my home computer so cannot give links and references right now.

Further, as those of us who live on the real world know, sometimes results can be adjusted to please those who are paying for the study, lest the funding dies up. OK,I know the purists are shocked and horrified at that statement - please say it aint so.

Enough controversial statements for one day. I have other work to do - Lest the funding dries up.

RS

 

[3dogs]

@RogerB that was a refreshing tale of common sense and not following the herd mentality, it’s nice to see not everybody has gone Cone crazy then..

Agree 100%, @RogerB has tried and found Cone inks wanting in areas that are important to him, and at the end of the day that also is all that is important.

I am in hopes that this is NOT seen as an arguement out of which emerges one point of view or another because I confess to taking into account evidence that is purely academic in many of the choices I make.

To me the value of this discussion lies in those that follow this thread, and are further informed as to how they could make their own choices, and how they might get there.

 

[Ian Barber]

The PK ConeColor Ink arrived this morning along with a refillable cartridge.

The bottle contains 220ml of Photo Black encapsulated pigment ink.

According to John Cone. it's the encapsulation that makes this brand stand out from the rest as the encapsulation prevents the pigments from sticking together which in turn can lead to blocked nozzles.

Setting up the cartridge
All I needed to do was remove the chip from a used PK OEM cart and place it under the Auto Reset Chip which is attached to the refillable cartridge. Very easy process and took only a matter of seconds.

Refilling The Cartridge
Never attempted this before so was not sure what to expect. I removed the fill plug, drew 60ml of ink into the provided syringe and filled the bottle. I then drew a further 10ml and repeated the step.

After refitting the fill plug, I then removed the primer plug, and drew the air out with the supplied syringe and then replaced the primer plug. This process only has to be done the one time.

Last step was to remove and discard the pressure plug which is coloured orange.

Inserting The Cartridge
Inserting the cartridge is just the same as inserting an OEM cartridge. The refill cart slides in and out with ease causing no issues.

Turning On The Printer
After turning on the printer, the cartridge was recognised the first time.

Nozzle Check
I printed a nozzle check and did notice a couple of broken lines. I should have done this before inserting the refill cart to compare.

I performed one head cleaning cycle, re printed the nozzle check and it was clear.

Test Print
I did an initial test print and the results were very welcoming. Nice rich blacks and good results.

I have done a further 18 prints ranging from A4 down to 6x4 and no issues at all.

Blunders
Through out the entire operation, I only made one blunder, well 2 if you count not doing a nozzle check before changing over the cartridge.

The main blunder (user excitement error) was that during filling the cartridge, when I removed the syringe, I forgot to take my finger off the plunger and... well you can imagine what I said as the syringe needle left the cartridge and squirted some remanent ink into the bathroom sink.

Conclusion
Early days yet but so far I am very pleased with the overall procedure and results from the prints I have done.

 

[The Hat]

Nice going Ian, and a smashing set of photos too, well done..

 

[RogerB]

Test Print
I did an initial test print and the results were very welcoming. Nice rich blacks and good results.

I have done a further 18 prints ranging from A4 down to 6x4 and no issues at all.

I'm glad that the process went well for you. You have to remember however that the OEM ink has to be flushed out of the lines and dampers before you actually start printing with the new ink. It takes quite a few mls to do that so you are probably still running on OEM ink. PK usage is usually rather small, so you need to print a lot of area before you flush that line.

If you want to guarantee that you are on the new ink then the quickest way is probably to do one or two PK>Mk swaps. Of course you can just carry on and let nature take its course