We’ve completely reformulated the ConeColor ink line to bring the technology required by the ConeColor HDR inks right on down and across the ConeColor K3 and K3V ink lines. We’ve finally added the missing green position to HDR.

Many of our customers who were using some of the new HDR ink positions in their non-HDR printers noticed the better dMax and glossiness. That is what ConeColor Pro offers over ConeColor. It has noticeably better glossiness and dMax for customers who print on non-matte media.

We already offer the most trouble-free 3rd party ink on the market. We didn’t mess with that. ConeColor Pro is the same micro-encapsulated pigment particle in different chemistry and it is fully compatible with both ConeColor and Epson ink. The color match to Epson remains the same and uses the same ICC profiles even though we’ve made some minor color tweaks. But, on glossy the match now includes similar dMax and gloss to the OEM. That’s where we gave up a little edge with our first generation.

Next time you need to re-order ink, we wish that you will choose the PRO inks. There is no additional cost. When you run out of a color position, simply refill with the PRO version and slowly phase it in. All of the ConeColor products we are currently selling are already PRO. We will keep inventories of the first generation ink for some time, but there is no compelling reason not to use the latest generation PRO.

ConeColor PRO HDR inks in the Epson 4900

We have been working on this project for more than half a year. We’ve tested a wide variety of 4900 single use and refillable products that are being sold as “ready for the market”.

We even went to China to explore several 4900 solutions. We have rejected countless chips and cartridges as being very below what we consider to be standard or “stable”. We’ve tested cartridges that leak, cartridges that do not allow ink to flow well, cartridges that do not align well with the internal chip readers, and cartridges that are just plain flimsy (I believe the technical term is “crappy”).

The chips we have tested have behaved irregularly requiring incredible acrobatics to be all recognized by the printer at once. Many chip designs do not record any ink volume. Some chips have to be reset so often that it interrupts any resemblance of production and clearly will wear them out in months. Some chips simply fail quickly. All of these chips have been fairly expensive, so there is no point to releasing something that will require replacements.

Because we support our products, I have not wanted to release a product that would cause our customers trouble and take up our time with support and returns and replacements. InkjetMall standards are quite high.  If a turnkey product had come about, we would have released. I have wanted to have a 4900 product for many, many months. But, none have worked reliably for more than just a few days.

Our own design at late beta state. Nearly there!

So, we did start on our own product development with our chip supplier and with our cart supplier in parallel to our testing all the other “ready for market” products. And although we started later, we’re coming to market with a very high standard product. This is our third unique product that we have developed. First the R3000 and then the 350ml bag filled 7900 carts. Now we have a VPI 4900 cartridge with an auto reset chip that is not only sturdy but has a very reliable and steady auto-reset chip. This is a refillable cartridge that is eco-friendly and economical to use. We will sell it in sets as well as by the single color.

We are just about to begin the process of ICC profiling the Epson 4900 with ConeColor PRO HDR inks and more than 50 popular media.  The cartridges are a novel top fill design. The chip from our ultra-secret supplier. We are excited to be only a few weeks away from full release in ConeColor PRO pigment inks and also the new Ink•Thrift® dye inks for the 4900. Piezography will follow shortly after.

Helping you to help us to help you!  Technical support is a two-way street. How we do it here at InkjetMall is online through our technical support system. Every communication between us is stored on our system and gets associated with both the product and your customer file.

When you ask for help with our products and do not provide a very detailed account, we can look up the items you purchased and get a general idea from what you wrote. Usually, we need to ask you some detailed questions in order to understand enough to solve the issue. This information then help us to help others who may have similar issues.

So if you do need help and do not want unnecessary delays, try to give us as much info as possible. Some suggestions on how to use our tech form and what you can do and what we hope you don’t do. A Don’t would be: “Help my cart won’t work!”  We are definitely going to have to ask you questions and a lot of valuable time for us both will get wasted.  A Do would be: “I have the Epson 9800 printer. I’ve been replacing one position at a time with ConeColor as my Epson ink runs out. I’ve replaced four positions and they’ve all worked perfectly. On the LK position that I’m just replacing, I was able to fill my cart correctly and install it, but the error message says Cart Not Recognized. I checked to make sure that I have the correct cart installed in the slot. I also checked to make sure the chip was not missing off the cart. The instructions said I do not have to reset a new cart. I tried anyway and it didn’t help.. Can you help me?”  These are actual questions to the same problem. It took two days to solve the Don’t (mostly do to email delays and questions) and we were able to solve the Do with our first response.

About 75% of technical support comes from customers not reading our instructions. We realize that almost no one today reads instructions. But, we put a lot of work into ours and they are very detailed. If they get thrown away you can easily get an online copy for reading or print. Each of our items has a click for tons of info link which you can click.

When you click this, it opens up the product page which has Customer Reviews, Detailed Description, What’s Included, Compatibility, Technology, Related Items, and Instructions. If video instructions are available, you will see the link.

If you do not want to search for your product, we have assembled all of the instruction manuals in one location which you can get to from the Tech Products & Support tab of the Inkjetmall web site by hovering your mouse cursor over the Tech Products & Support tab and then hovering down to and clicking on Instruction Manuals. It is the item just above Video Instruction. You can click on that, too.

You can then click on any manual to download the pdf for reading or printing.

Piezography gets its own section on the website. Here we put a lot of information. You can hover over the Piezography BW Inks tab and then hover down to and click on How To Use & Get Answers. This opens a page full of information which you can browse.

Reading our instructions solves 75% of our technical support issues and frees us up quicker to allow us to get the other 25% resolved. It’s really important to us that you’re happy with our products. We manufacture the majority of our products ourselves. We try to make clear and concise instructions. Please let us know if you have any suggestions to improve them.

An Opinion

Ouch! The Epson 7900 and 9900 printers are taking a beating in the User Forums. There is a lot of talk about quickly expiring print heads that do not last the life of the warranty or expire just after the warranty.

Further, a lot of users of these printers are reporting that they need a lot of Epson service tech visits to get the printers running after they’ve just been installed. Our experience mirrors that in which our brand new Epson 7900 required two Epson technician visits to replaced circuit boards and print heads. One print head replacement for the print head replaced the previous week. Our PK channel would simply not stay clear on our brand new printer. YES! we were running Epson inks! But, that’s not the point.

Two long threads about this recently have been both amusing and frustrating for those involved.

Epson Wide Format Users Group: 9900 Woes

Luminous Landscape Forum: Epson 7900 from the inside – out

The short of these is that a lot of people are reporting similar problems and they often point to the Light Black, Photo Black, and Yellow channels.  No one seems to know the exact cause nor remedy. The Epson techs often give tips…  I liked this one:

“I had my printer serviced four times before = my 7900 actually worked.   One of the points the service man made was that the wiper needed to be cleaned every 6 to 9 months.   The wiper is a single piece of rubber (small piece)  that is used to clean the print head.    The wiper ends up with dried ink on it after prolonged use and there is nothing that cleans the wiper.   It is a rubber squeegee for cleaning the print head.  The Service Man let me rotate the gears that controlled both the capping station and the wiper assembly.”

The 7900 from the inside out thread is an excellent read in both words, pics and videos on how to maintain your printer. Definitely check that out. This new generation of printer may end up being the mother of all clogging printers – and it appears that much of the maintenance routine on earlier printers is going to be difficult because simple reset counter routines for easily replaced parts are not being made available to end-users.

So, we’re going to get an extended warranty our new 9900 which has just been bought. The 7900 is now  a year  and one half old and has been happily running on ConeColor inks since it’s parts replacements during the startup. But, I wish I had bought extended warranties for both! We could easily maintain our printers – but it appears that these have been designed only for Epson to maintain.

We’ve bought perhaps as many as 150 Epson printers since 1998. Nearly 1/3 of these have been large format printers. We’ve intimately known them in each and every model line from the 7000/9000 forward. While I believe the 7600/9600 may be the strongest and longest living models Epson ever produced…my humble opinion is that the 7890/9890/7900/9900 models need extended warranties. I base this opinion on the huge number of user reports as well as our own experience and the experiences of our customers who recently bought these printers.  My opinion is that an extended warranty is an excellent (if not necessary) investment. You need to purchase one before your printer is one year old – so pay attention!

Say hello to our newest new cart which we have made to our own specs. As I have said before, All China made carts look alike. But, when you actually begin to dissect them and compare them they are all quite different in many ways. Sometimes it is so very obvious that it is surprising you may have missed it. And sometimes it’s in the details. So this new cart we’ve compiled features components from three factories.

We’re also releasing this cart for our new second generation of ConeColorPRO inks. You can read about them here.

The casing and internal components are made of very heavy PP which is expertly welded and fitted. Most of the China made carts are glued. The chip is from our same source which we used to outfit the new R3000 carts. And this cart features an internal bag that holds the ink and keeps it separate from the air supply so that the possibility of contamination to the printer’s air supply is eliminated. Even ink bags are not all made alike.

A bag filled 350ml cartridge for the Epson 7890, 7900, 9890, 9900 printers

Although it’s bag filled, it is still a funnel fill cart. The ink goes into a heavy bag that is suspended inside the funnel fill cart. The ink supply is isolated from the air-pressure that the printer pushes into the cart. These printers require that the ink is pressurized so that it can feed the print heads at the requisite pressure. Our older style of carts used a one way valve through which air was put into the ink filled cavity. Air and ink were constantly in contact. With the new style – the ink in the bag is never subjected to air.

This particular cart is for the Epson Pro 7890, 7900, 9890 and 9900 printers and it holds 350ml of ink. The chip on the cart reads 350ml and can be reset with our new chip resetter.

By the way, we also now have a 7890/9890/7900/9900 maintenance tank chip resetter.

After we finish assembling, we pressure test the cart and the ink bag to assure as near a 100% fail-safe as we can. With the success we have had at a 100% rate with the R3000s – we believe that we have another extraordinary cart to offer.

New RCS Refillable carts contain an isolated ink bag.

We will produce a 700ml version of this cart next (about 30 more days), and we are already working on similar cart design for the 7800/7880/9800/9880 printers.

Filling is quite easy. You open up the silicone plug at the back of the cart, insert a funnel and pour in 350ml ink. After you reseal with the silicone plug, the cart is reversed and a slip tip syringe is inserted into the ink outlet port of the cart to pull out any remaining air. This also acts to “prime” the cart. Then the cart is inserted into the printer.

Because we are designing and finishing our own carts we have been able to reduce our costs and we are now passing this on to you. These carts are less than $30 each and they are absolutely the best quality on the market today.

We have a generous upgrade allowance to customers using older version carts without isolated bags – and we think it’s a good idea to upgrade especially if you do not print the entire contents of a 700ml cart within about six months. With the bag filled cart, you keep the ink supply isolated from air. That should keep your ink fresher for a longer period of time. Although Epson states that once an ink cart is inserted into a large format printer it should be discarded within six months, we believe that you need only to remove the carts and gently shake them every two weeks or so and you can extend the life much longer. However, ink in a bag is the best insurance against aging an ink prematurely. It also prevents damage to your printer in the unlikely event that ink leaks out of the air inlet port.

A good upgrade strategy may be to empty your existing carts back into the bottle and refill them with PiezoFlush so you can store your printer properly when you are not going to be using them for a period of 3-4 weeks or more. Flush carts can be safely stored for up to two years. You would not need to rinse them, although we would with a little distilled. You need just drain them as thoroughly as possible. A few drops of pigment ink in the flush solution is not a terrible thing at all!

The new bag filled carts could then become your main ink cart system. If you wish to continue using your 700ml carts – we have been using ours in a 7900 printer for two years. We remove and shake them every two weeks. They work well. Don’t feel pressured that you have to upgrade. We’re just giving you an option if you wish to have the latest and greatest.  If you’re an existing 700ml cartridge owner we have an upgrade for you – please contact me by email by clicking here

We are also designing new bag filled refillable carts for the Epson 7800/9800 and 7880/9880 printers.

You can find these carts with the new ConeColorPRO K3V inks for your Epson 7890 and 9890 printers by clicking here. For your Epson 7900 and 9900 printers, you can find these carts and the new ConeColorPRO HDR inks by clicking here. And like all ConeColor inks, you can switch out one position at a time and no need to flush.

We had several requests recently from customers who wanted to try the Piezography Carbon inks. They had recently read two interesting discussions on the Large Format Photography Forum between Sandy King and Mark McCormick-Goodhart who is the director of the Aardenburg Imaging & Archives (the leading inks/media longevity testing facility for fine artists and photographers.) Those discussions are (Permanence of non-carbon/sepia Piezography) and Jon Cone on Carbon Piezography.

While we haven’t quite made the announcement that All Piezography Ink Sets are NOW Matte and Glossy compatible – these try me kits on 8 position printers are matte and glossy compatible. So this is an opportunity to see not only the gorgeous velvety matte surface – but also how deep and dark carbon can get on baryta and other non-matte surfaces.

Pre-charged refillable carts with Piezography Carbon

While all Piezography inks can withstand long term exhibition, the Piezography Carbon inkset uniquely is the only ink set from any manufacturer that has met the strict Aardenburg criteria in both the upper and lower limits. In short, it is literally bullet-proof. If longevity is the most important criteria for your work – Piezography Carbon is the only ink set that you should be using. Anything else appears to have compromises.

However, I am not suggesting that longevity is the most important criteria, or that you can’t live with compromises. Many photographers claim that longevity is the most important factor in their decision when buying b&w capable printers. It is clear that Piezography Carbon is an exceptional ink. But, Carbon is a very unique substance. Along with it’s extraordinary half-life of 5000 years comes a warmth that may not be your cup of tea.

Piezography Carbon’s (like all the Piezography ink sets) final tone is actually determined by paper white. It is possible therefore, to get a very wide range of expression out of it by using warmer and cooler papers. The idea behind these try me kits is that for a small investment you can try Carbon. If you have one of our other Piezography ink sets installed, just remove them and pop in the Carbon carts. One head cleaning should remove all residual ink from the previous set of carts. If you have ConeColor or Epson color inks installed it will take two head cleanings.

You will run out of ink in one position most likely, rather than draw the entire set of carts down equally. But you will be able to make more than enough prints to get an idea of what the tone of this ink is like. If you want to continue using them, you only need to buy bottles of ink and some filling syringes.

You will find the tryme carts for Carbon located here for the following printers:

$90 Carbon (matte only) for 1400 click here

$120 Carbon (matte and glossy) for R1800 click here

$120 Carbon (matte and glossy) for R1900 click here

$120 Carbon (matte and glossy) for R2400 click here

$120 Carbon (matte and glossy) for R2880 click here

At least 50 cameras suddenly snapped our pictures when we stopped in a town infrequently visited by Westeners. One family asked their little boy to pose with us. (Left to right: Wells Smith, Dana Ceccarelli, Jon Cone, ??)

The key staff of InkjetMall (Sales Manager Wells Smith, Product Support Manager Dana Ceccarelli, and myself) were in China last month for two weeks visiting cartridge and micro-chip factories. It was an arduous two-week trip without a moment to rest. We managed to attend an inkjet trade show, and visit with one of our key partners to see their latest factory that has just been completed.

Because InkjetMall is a sister company to Cone Editions Press, we also spent three days to get an impression of the arts and photo “scene” in Shenzhen’s OCT Loft district (I will report more on this in the near future). In Shenzhen we were greatly assisted by InkjetMall customer, Aaron Chan.

Because we visited several provinces we were able to sample many different types of local cuisine. We ate exceptionally well (see below). A Tianjin feast, the spiciest noodles ever, whole young chicken cooked in wine, chicken’s foot, among other delicacies.

We saw the middle class in China expanding at triple and quadruple the rate of our shrinking middle class. In the larger cities we visited, China looks like a “Maxi-Me” of USA. In some cases it was hard to distinguish that we were not in wealthy USA suburbs. Some of the department stores and shopping centers exceed our wildest dreams. Exotic sports cars prowl the highways and most of the traffic jams are the result of new cars being purchased in droves.

Beijing's equivalent of NYC's "Times Square"

In the villages, and in the hutungs of Beijing some memory of post-Mao China is preserved. But, our overall impression of Tianjin, Zhuhai, and ShenZhen is that the middle class has adopted credit cards and a taste for expensive USA and European made goods. They want high quality for themselves even as most of the China factories seem to pump out low quality goods for our Walmarts. Is that what we really want? Or was that Walmart’s idea?

Local residents near our Yanyue Hutong hotel playing a traditional board game.

Cartridges and chips

We went to China to seek out the absolute highest quality plastic ink cartridges. A lot of research and expense went into this trip so that we could service our customers better. We narrowed down more than 40 cartridge makers into a group of the top five. We narrowed down five chip makers to two. We wanted to leave China and return to the USA with the goal of marrying the best chip to the best cartridge designs.

Seen at the Trade Show: A triple battery powered on-board chip-resetter built into the top of a 1000ml Epson Pro 9900 refillable ink cartridge. This one had thin bare wires present.

What we learned about cartridges (the main purpose of our trip) was incredible. We certainly gained a great understanding of the Chinese cartridge industry. We saw many fine examples of engineering. We also saw some very good copies of these fine engineering designs, and very poor copies of the copies of the fine engineering designs. It is very difficult to navigate the cartridge industry in China because there is very little internal copyright protections.

Last month I reported that China has barred EPSON entry into the Chinese CISS ink market because of patent infringement. The Chinese government is preventing the import of EPSON new CISS printer products that infringe Print-Rite CISS patents. However, it is clear that many Chinese cartridge manufacturers copy each other’s designs. The internal copyright protection seems non-existant. EPSON in the USA uses a similar form of patent litigation in which it asks the US Government to bar the entry of infringing products into the USA but does not turn it’s attention against USA made products. EPSON has been very successful using this manner. And according to Vermont US Senator Patrick Leahy’s office, to use patents to prevent competition from USA made products would trigger the US Anti-Trust Act. So, something similar in China must be occurring.

In my opinion, the only way to truly tell all these similar products apart is through the eagle eyes of Dana Ceccarelli. Dana can take four absolutely identical carts and within a minute divide them into four totally different carts. The differences are not manifest on the exterior or in the labeling. Nothing obvious. The differences are how they are constructed from the welds and gluing, the materials used for the chambers, and the internal designs. She can spot material differences in the plastics and metal components. Even the internal designs that look exactly alike are often made of subtley different parts.

This is very important because many of these carts fail where others which seem to be the exact same do not. Many companies in China selling carts pose as factories. It’s a very difficult maze. Some of these “factories” are agents buying up inventories of unknown origin. Some are renting time on idle plastic injection mould machines, renting moulds, and attempting to put together finished pieces. Others are actual factories which simply have no idea what they are doing other than copying designs. Few have means to test their products. Some have extraordinary testing facilities.

We now understand quite well who the better injection moulders are and which companies have the best engineers. We found an engineer who we believe has the best creativity; an engineer who can dream along with us. Many of his designs are legally licensed by other cart makers in China. That was very reassuring to see that there is some form of protection going on, and some attempt to control quality. We are now working in a more and more exclusive manner with this factory. They make cartridges full time. It is their only business. Many of the China cartridge factories make carts one day, and then any number of other products the next. Whew!

Chips

We have already received 1000s of new micro-chips which we are using to replace the generic chips on many of our carts.

Changing out a chip on a LF PiezoFlush cart.

The higher quality chip installed.

New Products

So, now that we have the opportunity to redesign many of our cartridge supplies there are several products in design phase that we hope to release in time for the New Year. We will even introduce a CISS that is compatible with our color ink formulations. And in the meantime we’ve married an excellent chip (from the best semi-conductor maker in China) with a beautiful example of a R3000 cartridge to introduce our new ConeColor Pro inks. We’re introducing our new ink on the R3000 printer. We’ve made an excellent profile library of 56 ICCs that are now online. You can read more about the R3000 ConeColor Pro system here.

Piezography K7 is now up and running on the R3000 and that should be released upon our next shipment of R3000 carts. I still have some profiling to do with the K7 inks.

Piezography Warm Neutral K7 inks in R3000 refillable cartridges.

We believe that China can produce some very high standard products. But, it is very difficult for a customer or an end-user to find these. If they looked substantially different from one another it might be easier. But, then that doesn’t really speak for the manufacturing quality. The Chinese are fond of saying something that goes like this…  ”It is EXACTLY the SAME, but DIFFERENT.” But, this is not something our new relationships says. He says something that goes like “Tell me exactly what you want, and I will make it exactly that way.”

Our trip was made to benefit our customers. While we have absolute control over the inks we produce, we do not manufacture our own cartridges. Now, we have a relationship in which we can manufacture to our specifications and have a measure of guaranty that what we specify remains consistent.

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Guest Blogger: Justin James Reed was born in Oregon in 1980. He has lived all over the United States, and currently makes Pennsylvania his home. He is an adjunct professor of photography at the Tyler School of Art, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, and The College of New Jersey. His photographs currently focus on the suburban communities and their infrastructure that are becoming an integral part of the American experience. Recently, Reed was selected a Flash Forward 2011 “Emerging Photographer” in international competition, including the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. 

Firefly invisible ink is an incredible product, I have had an absolute blast experimenting. It is reminiscent of my first experiences with b&w chemical prints. Seeing the image form only after having gone through the process of printing, not knowing exactly what I am going to end up with, is really quite exciting. It is something that I, along with many of my colleagues, have expressed missing when creating digital inkjet prints. Part of the “magic” of photography appears to be ingrained into the very nature of this process.

Technically, I have been exploring how different kinds of modifications in Photoshop affect the image. My most pressing concern is how to make the image as bright and vivid as possible under black light. Playing around with saturation and contrast have been most effective, but I am still trying out different techniques. Experimenting with the print dialogue controls, seeing how profiles, rendering intent, etc., affect the print generally has also been part of my early process, creating a reliable work flow is a current priority.

Probably one of the most fascinating things I am finding artistically is the inability to reproduce the finished Firefly print via photography and video in order to share the results. In many ways the process lends itself to being experienced first hand, truly creating a unique object. This is very exciting to me personally, as the experiential qualities of photography seem to be potent through the Firefly medium.

When I first met with Dana at SPE last spring, my immediate reaction was of excitement at seeing something that actually felt new. Moving forward with this project, I am encouraged by the prospect of creating something that has not been realized before through this process. The fact that the development of a product like this could open up that possibility in particular is probably its most enduring quality in many ways.  Firefly is quite unique in that the application (or potential) of it is not fully realized until printing actually begins. Unlike traditional digital printing, the process itself is truly where the artistry lies. This has yielded some great results and also very encouraging feedback.

- Justin James Reed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGGm-xOmtbA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQeewu4O2e4