The Little Box Of Mystery

When I was working behind the counter at CE - fitfully, I hasten to add - I was often tasked with the job of setting out the inks for the printers. We carried a number of the Epson models - still do - and it was a precision task to match the various supplies with the printers. Fortunately Epson was pretty good about colour-coding the boxes - less so about the various sub-variants of ink. You had to read the label carefully to see if it was the right number. The Epson Ultrachrome inks are actually wonderful. When I set my R 3000 printer correctly, load my paper correctly, and get the computer to correctly send a signal ( Three correctlies in a row...), the results are all I could ever wish to see. The same applies to the larger and more expensive models of the Epson range. No wonder they feature largely in many professional labs and studios. But they use up ink. Of course. And the ink uses up money. Of course. And you pretty soon grow nervous looking at the bar charts that show how much ink is left. The circumstance when every bar is full up is pretty rare. You decide to stock up with a set of extra cartridges. Well, that's sensible, if you are printing pretty much all the time. And if you do a range of images that feature the gamut of hues - then each cartridge gets used fairly evenly and the whole lot changes over smoothly. But beware if your printing is of a type that only cycles a few of the inks. Others in the rack can grow stale, settle in their cartridges, and eventually fail to register on the paper. You may have to resort to a series of head cleans that will spray out most of your current ink stock just to recover the nozzles for one hue. Be wary of the date that the cartridge was made and when it will be coming to the " best before" or " use by " date. If you frugally stocked up on cartridges from five years ago you'll be better off ditching them rather than plugging them in and hoping. When in doubt, read the outside notices on the box. Be aware that some printers use larger cartridges that may stay in the holder for longer and put you into this dodgy situation more often. They are a great economic move if you're cycling through them, as they cost a lot less per ml of ink, but if you are throwing out a bigger stale one...