Several catalysts prompted me to purchase a Continuous Inking System for my Epson 1280 photo printer:

• Cost Savings. Using 3^rd party inks can save a substantial amount of money when you buy them in bulk. Also, you waste less ink because you only refill the bottles that get low on ink. The initial cost of the CIS is expensive (I paid $200 when I preordered it from Nomorecarts.com), but with the amount of printing that I do, this cost has already been recouped in the short time I’ve been using it.

• Convenience. Using a CIS means you never have to install cartridges. The custom carts that are included in the system are always supplied with ink from the bottles that lie outside of the printer. If you use the supplied 4oz bottles, you also do not need to add ink very often.

• Ink Options. Using a CIS allows you to choose from various types of 3^rd party inks – some of which are arguably better than Epson’s (especially in terms of print longevity). At least two ink companies are claiming that their ink fixes the "orange shift" problem, although it appears they may only reduce it somewhat (see Bob’s testing for more information). At any rate, installing a CIS gives you ink options and that is a great advantage.

The instructions included with the CIS were clear, concise, and fairly simple to execute. However, I ran into trouble when I began using the vacuum pump on the first ink chamber. I assumed a good vacuum was necessary in order for the ink to fill the cartridge chamber. But I wasn’t sure if the pump was doing the job. After several pumps, I still heard air coming from the exit valve. Before inserting the tube into the bottle of ink to fill the chamber, I tried again after checking all connections. After the same thing happened on my second try, I simply assume it had to be working right… and so I inserted the tube. Thankfully, ink began to flow into the chamber, so I was a bit relieved. However, my relief was cut short when I discovered that the ink stopped flowing after the chamber was less than ¼ full (it was supposed to almost completely full of ink).

Since this was my first CIS installation, I was not sure what to do or how to proceed. I didn’t want the same thing to happen with my next chamber, so I immediately checked everything again. Upon close inspection, I noticed that the tip on the end of the vacuum pump had a crack in it. I assumed that this was causing a vacuum leak, so I immediately wrote Nomorecarts an e-mail (this was pretty late in the evening) and they replied within minutes! They told me to use the spare tip that was included in the package (little did I know that there was a spare tip!).

After installing the new tip, everything went smooth for the rest of the installation! It was easier than I expected, and I encountered no additional problems. I have to say that Nomorecarts has excellent e-mail support! I never thought I’d even be able to finish the installation that night, and yet I had the whole thing running in no time after that!

It was nice that I did not have to do any pouring when setting up the CIS since the MIS 4oz bottles come in the same Nalgene bottles.

My first nozzle check was perfect, so I immediately began printing photos. Using the MIS Lightfast inks from MIS Associates (www.inksupply.com), I needed to make some initial color tweaks in order to get a good match with my monitor. I had no desire to resort to profiling, so I had hoped that slider adjustments in the print driver would do the trick. Thankfully, I had some settings already saved from when I was refilling OEM carts with this ink prior to purchasing the CIS. I still had to make a few minor adjustments since I was now using 100% MIS ink (no more Epson residual ink in the carts).

I scrutinized every little detail about the CIS and my photos for the first few days. I kept a watchful eye on the ink levels in the 4oz bottles as well. With every print I made, I grew more and more impressed with the convenience and cost savings this CIS was providing.

After about 2 weeks, My 4oz bottles of ink are nearing the 1/2 mark! While 2 weeks may seem rather quick to use half of these bottles, there are a few things to note:

- Not all the colors are nearing 1/2. Photo Cyan, Photo Magenta, and Yellow are getting close and they are neck and neck. Cyan is still 3/4 full, and Magenta is in between it and the photo colors. Surprisingly, I've used more black than I thought I would – especially since I have used the printer exclusively for photos (very little text printing).

- I have printed a large number of photos! I haven't kept track, but I'm quite certain that I have printed at least 140 full pages of photos (most on glossy, but some on matte). This number is probably not extremely accurate, but I don't think it's a stretch to assume I could easily get 300 full pages of photos from the 4oz ink bottles (with quite a bit left over in the Cyan and Magenta colors). To say the least, I am quite pleased!

However, I encountered another problem that wasn’t too serious, but rather annoying. One of the reasons that I chose the CIS from Nomorecarts was because of the custom chip they used to keep the ink level full. I preordered the CIS from them when they first made it available. At this time, their advertising implied that the custom chip design allowed the ink level to always remain "full"… thus, eliminating the need to do a "chip reset". However, as I used the CIS, I noticed that the ink level was still getting lower.

An inquiry to Nomorecarts revealed that the ink level may still drop if you leave the printer on all the time. You still need to reset the ink level by turning the printer off for a short time and then powering it back on. Only then will the ink level be reset to full. Well, then I thought that I would just turn the printer off whenever I am not using it. Of course, this worked fine until I realized that a very annoying message from Epson appeared every time you used the printer for the first time after powering back on. It is a message that says you are not using Epson cartridges and asks if you would like to continue. I found this rather annoying, and then I begain to think about this custom chip that Nomorecarts was using. You still have to monitor the ink level and you still have to do a "chip reset". So I began to wonder why I paid $100 more for this CIS than their other CIS models for the non-chipped Epson printers. And of course, now the price is $25 higher than what I paid, so future buyers will actually be paying $125 more for the custom chip. The CIS itself is a great value and does exactly what it should. The custom chips, however, I believe are over-rated and each individual will have to evaluate the worth of paying for them. Hopefully, Nomorecarts will sell their system without the chips so that you can utilize an alternative chip reset method (such as the software solution for $20 from MIS).

Ultimately, I am very happy with the CIS and it has worked flawlessly since I installed it several weeks ago. I had to do one head clean somewhere in there, but it was nothing major and was fine after that. I just recently filled the bottles of ink when the lowest one reached the ½ mark. No problems refilling and the print quality remains consistently good. I believe I have already recouped most of the cost of the CIS from the prints I have made. I would highly recommend it to anyone that does moderate or heavy printing.

"Jiggytrav"