Which non-Epson cartridges or CISS ink for an Epson D88? (UK)

[AW]

After having bad luck with Canon inkjet printers over the recent
couple of years, (i320, i560 and ip4200 - all of which had major
malfunktions after about 3 months of high-volume printing), I decided
to give Epson a try.

I have just bought an Epson D88. It works fine so far, and I hope to
keep it that way - preferably without sticking with Epson cartridges.

I do fairly-high volume printing in all colours. Every 3 months I have
to do a multi-colour print job that's 2000 pages (75% is black text
and 25% is coloured illustrations or colour text) So I'm thinking of
trying a CISS for the first time. Can anyone offer any advice on
selecting one, and the brand of ink to use with it?

Or if you think CISS's are a bad idea, which brand of replacement
cartridges? I'm in the UK, so am interested in supplies that can be
got easily from the UK.

Thank you,

AW

 

[AW]

So I'm thinking of
trying a CISS for the first time. Can anyone offer any advice on
selecting one, and the brand of ink to use with it?

PS Which kind of tubing is best - PVC or silicone?

Thanks

AW

 

[AW]

PS Which kind of tubing is best - PVC or silicone?

What, no replies? What is this - the land of the living dead, now? Or
the land of the *dead* dead? What can I do to entice you dormant
inkjet-wizards out of the woodwork? What happened to the likes of
"Art" ??

AW

 

[Arthur Entlich]

The C88 is a light duty printer (it only costs about $50), as were the
Canon models you mention, so I am not surprised they died after several
print runs of 2000 copies.

The C88 is designed for Durabrite inks which are pigment type, but it
actually will probably last longer with dye inks. Many people have
success using CIS, others go to easy refill cartridges. Cost of the
easy refill carts is cheaper, but requires refilling them more often
than a CIS.

Ink Republic is reported to make a good CIS system using dampers.

MIS has some easy refill cartridges, although I do not know if they are
yet being made for the C88.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Art had another power failure to deal with, wanna buy me a generator? ;-)

Most of the kits I've seen seem to use a PVC or similar type of tubing.
I suspect silicone would be too flexible and tend to twist and pinch
unless you used a pretty thick tubing. You can probably buy some
designed for that use by the foot. They usually come fused in a ribbon
like "set" now, 4, 6, 7, 8 hoses together. It keeps things much
neater... you just split them at either end to go into the bottles of
ink or the damper/cartridges, etc.

Art

 

[AW]

The C88 is a light duty printer (it only costs about $50), as were the
Canon models you mention, so I am not surprised they died after several
print runs of 2000 copies.

The C88 is designed for Durabrite inks which are pigment type, but it
actually will probably last longer with dye inks. Many people have
success using CIS, others go to easy refill cartridges. Cost of the
easy refill carts is cheaper, but requires refilling them more often
than a CIS.

Ah - you're there! Thanks for the input and I hope you got your power
failure sorted.

Thanks for the tip on the inks. I was planning to buy dye inks, as it
happens - I found a supplier on eBay with good feedbacks who seems to
specialise in Epson-compatible ink. He sells a lot of it and it's dye
ink.

So far, I'm very pleased with the performance of the C88, especially
considering the price. The quality of photo printouts is better than
the Canons I've owned, which is pretty good for a mere 4-colour
printer. However, draft mode really is "draft" mode, whereas on my
Canon printers it was nearly as good as slow mode. I'll be interested
to see if it lasts longer than the Canons. I've ordered a CISS today.

I want to send you a private message by email in a moment, if I can
figure out your email address.

Thanks again,

AW

 

[AW]

Most of the kits I've seen seem to use a PVC or similar type of tubing.

That's a relief! The one I have just ordered has PVC tubing. I thought
PVC sounded a bit suspect, but I guess not if you say it seems to be
the norm on these things.

Thanks,

AW

 

[Jan Alter]

Ah - you're there! Thanks for the input and I hope you got your power
failure sorted.

Thanks for the tip on the inks. I was planning to buy dye inks, as it
happens - I found a supplier on eBay with good feedbacks who seems to
specialise in Epson-compatible ink. He sells a lot of it and it's dye
ink.

So far, I'm very pleased with the performance of the C88, especially
considering the price. The quality of photo printouts is better than
the Canons I've owned, which is pretty good for a mere 4-colour
printer. However, draft mode really is "draft" mode, whereas on my
Canon printers it was nearly as good as slow mode. I'll be interested
to see if it lasts longer than the Canons. I've ordered a CISS today.

I want to send you a private message by email in a moment, if I can
figure out your email address.

Thanks again,

AW

The C88 uses the same cartridges as the C84, C86, R1800, R2400 and other
models. It would need the specific Dura-brite -Ultra chip installed on it,
but happily would utilize the spongeless variety cartridges that are
available for these models and make refilling a breeze. Check MIS
(www.inksupply.com ) and then you'll have something to center on when you go
looking in UK.

 

[Ar Q]

Cut from another thread, thanks to Jan Alter.

Epson C88 printer, these resetting cartridges below

http://www.alotofthings.com/viartshop/product_details.php?category_id=37&page=2&item_id=1169


Comparing the cartridges that the Epson C88 and C88+ use show they take
the same ones when I just went to the Epson web site ( www.epson.com ) and
looked at the model numbers on their online store. The cartridges would
work.
If you're looking for ink from MIS go to

http://www.inksupply.com/epsoninks.cfm#860

and you'll be able to locate the ink for the C88 on this page to give you an
idea of cost. I recently read that one ounce of ink is equivalent to two
fills for these cartridges. Hence a 4 oz bottle will give you about 6 - 7
refills per color, being conservative. Additionally you would need at least
a 10 cc syringe and a priming nozzle for the very first time you fill each
cartrtidge.

http://www.inksupply.com/spongless_carts.cfm (Look at the very bottom of
the page) . This nozzle twists onto the bottom of a syringe. After filling
the cartridge for the first time one punctures the bottom plastic of the
cartridge where it feeds into the print head and pulls out about 1cc of ink
with this bottom adaptor. This pulls out any air that was originally trapped
at the spring loaded valve. After this is done it does not have to be done
anymore when new fillings are done as ink is already filling the valve
cavity.

MIS carries the spongeless cartridges also but I think one would be better
off with the auto resetting chips to have to purchase the additional chip
resetter.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

My email address is:

e-printerhelp(at)mvps(dot)org

(at) = @
(dot) = .

Art