 My Experience with Inkjetfly CIS
After a couple of months of procrastinating, I finally got around to installing a CIS I purchased from Inkjetfly.com for my Epson C88+. I didn't install it immediately after purchase as I still had factory cartridges in my Epson and I wanted to use them up as much as possible before installing the CIS.
Installation was relatively simple. The CIS came with decent instructions. The CIS is 2 basic components, a reservoir and replacement cartridges connected by small diameter vinyl tubes. The system I bought came with (4) 4 oz bottles of pigment ink. You fill the reservoir with the ink. The CIS also comes with 4 syringes. You stick the tip of the syringe into the valve in the replacement catridges and use it to suck the ink from the reservoir into the cartridges. As you fill up the catridge, you can see the ink from the reservoir travel to the cartridge in the tube.
A couple of notes on this. Make sure you clean the syringes before using them to suck the ink into the replacement cartridges if you used the syringes to fill the reservoir. I didn't, and I kind of cross contaminated the ink colors. Bummer, but it wasn't a loss.
Second, on one of the cartridges I filled up, the valve didn't close properly after I pulled out the syringe. Thus, black ink continued to bubble out of the valve. After a couple of minutes of cleaning up black ink, I decided to stick the syringe back into the valve and this caused the valve to properly seat. No more leaks.
It's probably be a good idea to fill these two things up someplace that is easy to clean. I was super careful when filling, but I still managed to make a small mess.
After filling the cartridges and reservoir, you remove the factor cartridges and install the CIS cartridges. I made sure to put the CIS cartridges into the slots as labeled on the printer head. (Original Epson Black catridge, replace with CIS cartridge with Black ink, Epson Cyan, CIS cyan). The instructions didn't expressly state this, but I guess it's kind of intuitive if you think about it.
Afterwards, you're instructed to put the reservoir on its side beside the printer at printer level.
Had I not had any problems, installation would have taken 15-20 minutes at the most.
Then I tried to print a Littlest Pet Shop poster my daughter "won" online. Nothing happened. You could see the hard drive light blinking like mad, but still no printing. I had to restart the computer. I tried printing one of my t-shirt designs. Still nothing happened. I restarted the computer then restarted the printer. Finally, both printed out.
The results were pretty good. I tried to upload a .bmp file of the image, but I got an error. So I just took a picture with my camera and posted that. The image I've posted isn't anywhere near the quality of the original image. The flash messes it up. It was printed on regular printer paper, and you can see the different colors and shades of the creatures on the image I printed out.
I was curious to see if the print manager would recognize the new ink levels, it did. It also gave me a warning that Epson factory ink catridge wasn't installed, and asked me if I wanted to proceed. It only gave me the warning with respect to Cyan. After clicking yes, it did print.
I wonder if it would recognize the new ink levels if I'd waited until the factory cartridges were empty? If I recall correctly, I read somewhere on another thread that it was better to not wait until the factory ink cartridges were empty before installing the CIS or there would be problems. Because of the warning, I made sure I still had some ink left in the factory cartridges before installing the CIS.
One problem I did notice when printing was the the tubing needed to be babysat while the printhead was moving. The CIS came with some clips to try to keep the tubing out of the way, but it didn't work very well. I actually had to hold the tubing so it wouldn't get caught in the printhead. Not really a big deal, I plan on making some clips to hold the tubing in place, but until then, I wont leave the printer running on its own.
Also, the way the tubing is positioned using the stock clips, the lid on my C88 didn't close, so I left it up during the first print. It caused a misfeed of the paper. Again another reason why I'm going to be making my own clips.
All in all I'm pleased. I spent about $100 bucks for the CIS, including pigment inks, and at least after installation, it seems worth it. I'll follow up after I use the inkjetfly pigment ink on a transfer and then after a wash test. The inkjetfly inks are relatively inexpensive, so if the transfers hold up, it seems to be a decent investment.
Hope this information helps someone.
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I was advised by another member with an Inkjetfly CIS that the reservoir should be standing up, not laying down. The instructions were kind of vague on this. It makes sense. I appreciate the input.
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Last edited by jlgill; September 25th, 2008 at 08:58 AM.
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