That video at last...

Well, it's been installed, it works, and this far I'm very pleased with it. Those who've never really had the confidence to put one of these in will probably be interested to know how (relatively) easy it was to fit. In fact it would have been installed and running in less than 15 minutes if it were not for a couple of annoying problems (they sound far worse than they really were, so you absolutely shouldn't let them put you off going down this route). These top two pictures show it installed exactly as the printer would be when I'm printing.

I bought my system from City Ink Express. The R285 wasn't listed on their site when I ordered (although it is now) so I ordered the R265 version, which is presumably the same and cost £38.99 (+ £4.95 postage). They sent it very promptly, first class recorded delivery. It is packaged as the 'Colorfly' brand, although branding is often all but meaningless on these generic Chinese products. The first surprise was the instruction book, which was pretty comprehensive, straightforward, and well illustrated. And the English wasn't too bad either.

The only difficult part of the installation was removing the clip that secures the ink carriage cover, and I've managed to get it out twice without any damage now. It does require a reasonable amount of (careful) pressure, prising the clip towards the front of the printer before it can be lifted clear.Getting the cartridges and tubing installed was simplicity itself, with the amount of tubing that you need to leave looped for the carriage to have full travel pretty easy to judge (the tubing clips seemed to have been well positioned for sticking in from the off). The clips secure with sticky pads, one inside the printer, the other outside (these photos show exactly how it fitted). Check the carriage travel, then power the printer up and you're away. Hopefully.

Well, I wasn't, unfortunately; the printer refused to recognise one of the cartridges. So I removed the system, refitted the original Epsons which worked fine, and carefully cleaned the contacts on the chip of the problematic cartridge. But when I refitted the system, no improvement, so I rang Shane at Ink City who was really helpful. He said that the cartridge concerned must have a faulty chip, and that he would get another one out in the post for me straight away. But now the real problem; when I tried to remove the system again the ink carriage wouldn't position properly for me to get the cartridges out. With hindsight, I should have unscrewed the printer casing, but I thought I could manoeuvre them out. But by then the printer had had enough, the carriage wouldn't position correctly at all and it didn't want to recognise any of the Epson cartridges either. Presumably there was some sort of circuit failure in the printer, and my first thought was that it was connected with the CISS problem, although now I'm inclined to think that it was entirely co-incidental. So the printer had to go back and I had to wait, not only for the arrival of the new cartridge but the replacement printer. Shane did reassure me that if I had any problem over the warranty for the printer then Ink City would sort it for me.

Once the new printer arrived a couple of days later and I got the replacement cartridge, I had the system re-installed in a matter of minutes. And when I powered up, full recognition of the cartridges, so I was ready to go. After a couple of prints I knew it all worked well. And the print quality is really excellent (see my last post for more on that).

There are still one or two little bits to finalise. In particular the blue tubing clip which shows up on the top of the cartridges. The R285 has absolutely minimal headroom, and the clip tends to knock against the roof of the printer each time the carriage gets to the left side. This is inherent in the tube positioning used here which operates with the tubing twisted by 90 degrees between the carriage and the clip inside the front of the printer. But with space so tight, it is difficult to see any alternative. It doesn't effect the printing in any way, but the click-click-click gets annoying after a while. In the video I put a strip of tape over it, which solved the problem very effectively, but is not the greatest aesthetic solution. I've now put a small double-sided sticker under the clip, and hope that holds; we'll see. And I'm not entirely sure about the five remaining original cartridges and their chips; a couple of times now all five suddenly showed up as empty when the printer was turned on, although a cartridge change cycle restored them to action. My first thought was that the chips weren't latest spec, but I've had one out to check and it definitely is. So my instinct at this point is that whatever electrical event it was that caused the failure in my first printer has in some way affected them.

Chip compatibility is an issue with the latest generation Epson printers; Epson have taken to changing the cartridge chip coding from time to time in order to stay one step ahead of the suppliers of compatible products. This is tiresome in an extreme, and means it's best to play safe and keep away from software updates for the printer once everything is working.

I've just had Shane get back in touch, and he is confident that turning off the Epson Status Monitor on my PC will solve the problem with the chips, so I've done that and hopefully it'll all be sorted. I'll let you know how it goes.

The only other thing to mention is that the bag of small accessories inside the Colorfly box was split, and several minor bits and pieces were missing. Since all the six balance valves for the ink reservoirs were there it was no great problem, although in truth I could have done with the spare pads shown on the parts list because after removing my system twice the originals weren't as sticky as they had been first time round. And I was surprised that they only supply a single syringe; I know that quite a few manufacturers provide one per colour, and that seems to make more sense.

You'll probably think that it all sounds like too much bother, but in truth it just comes over as being far worse than it actually was. I'm sure that it was simply bad luck that I had the chip problems; there's just no way you can eliminate encountering that sort of occasional manufacturing fault. Nevertheless, despite that very minor aggro, I am very pleased, and very happy with the support from Ink City; I'll certainly be recommending them, since you only really find out how helpful a business is when things go wrong, and they've definitely been both helpful and patient. And I'll definitely encourage friends to think about switching to a CISS too; I know that most CISS installations are absolutely painless, so doubt very much that they'd have the hassle I've experienced, and even with all that it's been more than worthwhile.

If I was going to give one bit of advice on fitting a CISS, it would just be to get straight back to your supplier if it doesn't work right from the off. Too much tinkering in hope just increases the chance of something going wrong.

So finally, here's that video of the printer in action. Waiting for a sunny day to film it put the kiss of death on the sunshine, so I've gone with this on a temporary basis. It shows an A4 colour print from start of printing to end, so if you're interested you'll be able to see how fast it prints (remember though that I use the 'photo' rather than 'best photo' setting). I've not given any commentary but don't worry; as soon as there's brighter weather I'll replace this with something better, and talk you through it too (an edit here to say I've now shot that second video and added it at the end of the post instead). When you start watching this one I'm afraid that you will need a little patience; trust me, I do lift the lid of the printer up after 20 seconds!

As a footnote: the photo I'm printing here shows my best friend Lorna Bratton on Gwithian beach one evening; the two of us had just spent a fairly damp day in St. Ives. Lorna's photographing a really spectacular dark cloudy sky that had developed over St Ives. I'm looking north towards Godrevy Island, the home of Virginia Woolf's iconic literary lighthouse.

No sooner had I posted a video complaining about the dull weather than we have a brighter day; isn't that always the way? I've posted this as a second video as it was a rather nice picture of Lorna printing in the first one, and because this one has turned out very much on the dark side. My camera simply doesn't offer a fast enough ASA, and fitting a mirror over the printer to reflect light in feels rather excessive somehow. But here it is anyway. Sticking that blue clip down on the cartridges has worked well. Ignore my comment about the printer moving; I should have just said that it shakes a little when it's flat out. The photo here is a view looking down to St. Ives earlier that same day; the weather was merely overcast at that point.

Sorry but I'm no Martin Scorsese....

Inks and Cartridges

It's grey and overcast here right now, so I'm unlikely to be videoing my CISS in full flight today. But I can comment on the ink quality as against that of the Epson Claria inks supplied with the printer.

It's always a bit of a gamble using 'compatible' products, particularly with ink, where it's simply impossible to assess the permanence of the results. I have however been using compatibles for the last 10 years now, almost exclusively for photographic work, and at this point my earliest prints have lasted quite as well as those printed with OEM ink. One of the other problems with compatibles is shifting ink formulations; it's difficult to be certain that the ink you buy one month is going to be the same as the one you'll get the next. Not least this is because UK distributors can start to source from a different supplier, or simply because branding on these generic Chinese products is always a little on the vague side. But again, I can say that I've not experienced any problems whatever so far.

When I am printing photos, I tend to normally print on the same media, and to use the same printer settings, which at least produces consistent results. And I think that the media is a far bigger factor in determining the final quality of the print than the ink. I use Epson Premium Glossy paper, and get excellent results with it. I prefer to have my printer set for 'standard' rather than the Epson 'vivid' default. And if the ink dictated it, I would tweak the colour balance for the best result. I print at 'Photo' rather than 'Best Photo' quality; it uses a hell of a lot less ink for an absolutely minimal drop in quality.

So how does the 'Colorfly' ink that came in my CISS compare with the Epson Claria? Remarkably well, actually. I have done several identical A4 prints with both inks, and the compatible ink colours are far more accurate than the Epson. The Claria has a pronounced magenta bias, which is clearly visible in flesh tones and light areas, and probably not quite enough yellow, as greens lean slightly towards the turquoise. This could of course though be dialled out. The Claria colours are also excessively saturated although most people tend to favour this; I actually prefer a more natural appearance. If I wanted stronger saturation with the compatible ink I would simply revert to the 'vivid' setting on the printer. So I'm happy, and I suspect most other users would be too.

Digressing slightly, I have been looking at various reviews and seeing repeated comments about ink consumption and the perception that there's a benefit of having individual ink cartridges. But is there any benefit? I certainly thought so when I decided to buy an R300, but now I rather suspect that it is actually the reverse. Firstly it seems to me that the Epson chips calculate ink consumption on the basis that you are producing prints with an average colour balance, that is to say that they don't actually measure your ink usage. There's only one way to definitively test this hypothosis; start with a full set of cartridges and repeatedly run off plain yellow prints. Either the yellow cartridge will empty while the others remain full, or they will all 'empty' at the normal relative rates (maybe I'll try one day). So your individual cartridges could be showing as empty when they are in fact completely full. And secondly, ink consumption is heaviest when a cartridge is replaced, as the ink supply to the head re-primes. And this priming draws off ink not only from the new cartridge, but from the partially-used cartridges that are in situ as well. So replacing a set of six cartridges on six different occasions draws off six times the amount of ink.

Priming the print head is done by pumping ink through the head, and out into a waste pad at the back of the computer. People who fit an external waste ink trap are always surprised by the amount of ink discarded in this process; something approaching 5mls. As a guestimate I would say around 10% of the content of the cartridge. And now that I've done the maths, I would say that a combined colour cartridge probably represents significantly better value than a set of individuals, as well as being far less hassle in terms of cartridge changing. These printer manufacturers; never miss a trick, do they?

I found a curious Epson Printer Support blog (I've linked to their R285 review). Despite its unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Epson (most posts sound as if they come straight from Epson's promotional literature) it surely can't be an official site. But I was interested to see that they identified the same magenta tinge in flesh tones with the Claria inks.