CIS for Epson 1290

Hi everyone,

looking for opinions on the CIS (continuous inking system) for the Epson 1290. I am about to upgrade to this printer, and would like to hear from people who use this system. Am looking for actual experiences and potential problems that I might encounter. If you bought all over again, would you go with the CIS again? Has it ever presented any problems? Reliability? Will the printer head be more likely to clog? (etc., etc., etc...)

Hi Rudi,
I've been using a CIS with my Epson 1280 and MediaStreet (www.mediastreet.com) dye-based inks for over a year now. The sytem I have was one of the first ones out, marketed by www.nomorecarts.com. The marketing of this product has been taken over by several outfits; the one I deal with is http://www.inkjetart.c​om/cis/index.html out of Salt Lake City, Utah. I have been very satisfied in my dealings with them. They also sell ink and replacement parts. I use Monaco EZColor 2.1 with a colorimeter to profile my monitor, scanners, and papers. I've been able to get very good matching between screen and print with this system by doing minor editing of the profiles within the EZColor software, which is very easy to accomplish.

The cost savings on ink are unbelievable. I can buy 6, 8oz. bottles of ink for about $70.00 US. I can print picture after picture after picture and not see a noticeable drop in ink levels in the supply bottles. For that reason alone, even though my experience hasn't been without a couple problems, I hope I never have to go back to buying factory cartridges. I will often leave prints lying around for weeks in my work area, which is exposed to strong afternoon sunlight, and we have a hot tub with an ozonator in the next room, and I haven't ever experienced any of my prints fading or "orange-shifting", even when left out uncovered. YMMV. The sytem has worked flawlessly with one significant exception.

We were gone on a river trip this summer for about two weeks. As you may know, it has been extremely warm and dry in Colorado, where I live. Our house was closed up for those two weeks and I'm sure it got quite warm in here. When we returned I began having trouble printing; the light cyan ink was not feeding through the system. I spent a lot of time trying to flush out my print head with a syringe and solvent, with no luck. Finally I pulled the CIS cartridges out and put in some Epson cartridges. Voila! The sytem worked perfectly...it wasn't my print head, thankfully. So I examined the ink carefully. As I slowly poured the light cyan ink out of the supply bottle I noticed that small amounts of it had thickened slightly. So I contacted MediaStreet, who were very responsive. They said that a problem such as mine was extremely rare and asked me to send in what was left of the bottle. According to them, when such a thing happens it is usually because algae has grown in the bottle. They replaced it with a full bottle of ink, no charge. Now I'm just waiting to hear from them to see if that's what the problem actually was.

The downside of this story is that I had to buy a new set of replacement cartridges, which cost $45, from inkjetart.com. The entire rest of the CIS system - chips, supply bottles and tubing, etc., was still perfectly useable and just had to be flushed out and dried thoroughly. It was very easy to replace the carts, reprime them with ink, and get everything back up and running perfectly. The cost of the new empty carts was less than the cost of one replacement set of Epson carts. So considering how much I have saved on ink over the past year the cost was insignificant, though I did have e few days of down time and the hassle of figuring out what the problem was.

Would I do it again? You bet! It's a great system, well-designed and simple, the chips work perfectly to fool the printer into thinking the carts are always full, and I like the mediastreet inks, particularly the yellow, better than Epson ink. The incident described above is the only time the system has clogged in a year. There are other ink brands and also some new CIS sytems that you might want to check out before you buy one, although I know very little about them.

Here are some things I am doing differently:

1. I run a cleaning cycle much more regularly than I used to - at least once a week and before an important print job - even though I don't think that a lack of head-cleaning was the cause of the original problem. It just seems like good practice to me now.

2. I shield my CIS supply bottle and supply lines from light by covering them with aluminum foil...funky, but it should prevent any adverse effects light may have on the inks.

3. I am trying to be more careful to protect the printer from the heat of the afternoon sun.

4. And I always have kept the extra ink in a cool, dark environment before adding it to the supply bottles.

If you don't do a lot of printing, you may want to buy 4 oz. bottles of ink instead of 8 oz. bottles, although the cost savings aren't quite as great. If you are a print maniac, you can buy even larger bottles for more savings!

Hope this helps. Just ask if you have any more questions!

Mark
www.pbase.com/redrock

Mark Zarn wrote in post #18555
Hi Rudi,
I've been using a CIS with my Epson 1280 and MediaStreet (www.mediastreet.com) dye-based inks for over a year now. The sytem I have was one of the first ones out, marketed by www.nomorecarts.com. The marketing of this product has been taken over by several outfits; the one I deal with is http://www.inkjetart.c​om/cis/index.html out of Salt Lake City, Utah. I have been very satisfied in my dealings with them. They also sell ink and replacement parts. I use Monaco EZColor 2.1 with a colorimeter to profile my monitor, scanners, and papers. I've been able to get very good matching between screen and print with this system by doing minor editing of the profiles within the EZColor software, which is very easy to accomplish.

The cost savings on ink are unbelievable. I can buy 6, 8oz. bottles of ink for about $70.00 US. I can print picture after picture after picture and not see a noticeable drop in ink levels in the supply bottles. For that reason alone, even though my experience hasn't been without a couple problems, I hope I never have to go back to buying factory cartridges. I will often leave prints lying around for weeks in my work area, which is exposed to strong afternoon sunlight, and we have a hot tub with an ozonator in the next room, and I haven't ever experienced any of my prints fading or "orange-shifting", even when left out uncovered. YMMV. The sytem has worked flawlessly with one significant exception.

We were gone on a river trip this summer for about two weeks. As you may know, it has been extremely warm and dry in Colorado, where I live. Our house was closed up for those two weeks and I'm sure it got quite warm in here. When we returned I began having trouble printing; the light cyan ink was not feeding through the system. I spent a lot of time trying to flush out my print head with a syringe and solvent, with no luck. Finally I pulled the CIS cartridges out and put in some Epson cartridges. Voila! The sytem worked perfectly...it wasn't my print head, thankfully. So I examined the ink carefully. As I slowly poured the light cyan ink out of the supply bottle I noticed that small amounts of it had thickened slightly. So I contacted MediaStreet, who were very responsive. They said that a problem such as mine was extremely rare and asked me to send in what was left of the bottle. According to them, when such a thing happens it is usually because algae has grown in the bottle. They replaced it with a full bottle of ink, no charge. Now I'm just waiting to hear from them to see if that's what the problem actually was.

The downside of this story is that I had to buy a new set of replacement cartridges, which cost $45, from inkjetart.com. The entire rest of the CIS system - chips, supply bottles and tubing, etc., was still perfectly useable and just had to be flushed out and dried thoroughly. It was very easy to replace the carts, reprime them with ink, and get everything back up and running perfectly. The cost of the new empty carts was less than the cost of one replacement set of Epson carts. So considering how much I have saved on ink over the past year the cost was insignificant, though I did have e few days of down time and the hassle of figuring out what the problem was.

Would I do it again? You bet! It's a great system, well-designed and simple, the chips work perfectly to fool the printer into thinking the carts are always full, and I like the mediastreet inks, particularly the yellow, better than Epson ink. The incident described above is the only time the system has clogged in a year. There are other ink brands and also some new CIS sytems that you might want to check out before you buy one, although I know very little about them.

Here are some things I am doing differently:

1. I run a cleaning cycle much more regularly than I used to - at least once a week and before an important print job - even though I don't think that a lack of head-cleaning was the cause of the original problem. It just seems like good practice to me now.

2. I shield my CIS supply bottle and supply lines from light by covering them with aluminum foil...funky, but it should prevent any adverse effects light may have on the inks.

3. I am trying to be more careful to protect the printer from the heat of the afternoon sun.

4. And I always have kept the extra ink in a cool, dark environment before adding it to the supply bottles.

If you don't do a lot of printing, you may want to buy 4 oz. bottles of ink instead of 8 oz. bottles, although the cost savings aren't quite as great. If you are a print maniac, you can buy even larger bottles for more savings!

Hope this helps. Just ask if you have any more questions!

Mark
www.pbase.com/redrock

Mark,

I found your input about your Epson 1290 and its CIS from Media Street most helpful 6 years later. It was because of this find that I jumped to a CIS from MS a few weeks ago.

What I want to ask is:
How is your system holding up six years later?
How is the quality of your early prints holding up?
What is your input of the MS CIS system.

Thanks,
-Darryl

Dumale wrote in post #6418552
Mark,

I found your input about your Epson 1290 and its CIS from Media Street most helpful 6 years later. It was because of this find that I jumped to a CIS from MS a few weeks ago.

What I want to ask is:
How is your system holding up six years later?
How is the quality of your early prints holding up?
What is your input of the MS CIS system.

Thanks,
-Darryl

I wouldn't mind hearing from others; especially if it would help others benefit in this forum.

Some threads on POTN on CIS's:One, Two.

Since Mark Zarn's last post here was more than 6 years ago, 6 days after the post above, it seems very unlikely that he will see this. However, if he is still using the same email address a Personal Message might find him.