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Author
Interpreter Member of the Wild Empire
Registered: October 2006 Posts: 314
Review Date: Sun 22, July, 2007
Would you recommend it? Yes |
Total Spent: £170.00| Rating: 9
Strengths:
Reduces ink costs considerably.
Weaknesses:
Not original ink.
The Media Street CIS comes in a large brown box filled with polystyrene chips to protect the 9 x 60ml bottles of ink and the inner box containing all of the hardware The inner box contains the CIS unit and 9 funnels, 9 syringes, a small toolkit and a pair of disposable gloves to prevent technicolour finger tips. Two CDs are included which contain detailed fitting instructions and a set of profiles to use with various papers. If your particular ink/paper combination is not included, a special profile can be obtained from the suppliers of the unit. This unit was the Media Street R2400 Starter Kit and came from Specialistinks. It cost £145 plus £25:38p VAT.
The parts were first laid out on the bench and the individual items were identified. A copy of the instruction manual was printed (7 A4 pages) and was read prior to fitting the unit. The ink reservoirs were prepared and filled with ink using a separate funnel for each ink. When this was done breather caps were placed into each container. Then the printer was switched on and the cartridge carriage was moved into the change cartridge position. The printer was then switched off at the mains. This allowed the carriage to be moved freely to fit the CIS. The cartridge cover was removed and stored in case it was required to put the machine back into it's original condition at a later date. The original cartridges were removed and also put into storage.
The next step was to feed the replacement cartridges under the main bar and out of the machine. This was achieved by moving the carriage fully to the left of the printer. The carriage was then moved back into the change cartridge position and the replacement cartridges were fitted. This penetrated the membranes in the cartridges. The cartridges were then removed from the printer and placed on the bench with the feed nozzle to the top. A syringe was then inserted into the nozzle and the plunger slowly pulled back. This caused a loss of pressure in the cartridge which caused the ink to flow from the reservoir along the pipe and into the cartridge. As soon as ink showed in the syringe, it was removed from the cartridge. This was repeated for each of the 9 cartridges. At this time the cartridges were held together as a block with two elastic bands. A spare cartridge carrier was fitted to hold the alternate black ink cartridge. I was using photo black so the matte black was kept as a spare. This bolted to the cartridge using the hole where the cartridge cover was hinged.
The spare cartridge carrier was hinged upwards and the replacement cartridges were fitted. The carriage was moved to the far left and then to the far right to position the feed pipes and to make sure that they would not catch on the printer parts when in use. The carrier bar for the pipes was stuck into position with two sticky pads. The ink bottles (reservoirs) were fastened to the right hand side of the machine with two strips of velcro and the fitting was complete.
The machine was then switched on at the mains and a head cleaning was carried out. The usual warning about the wrong ink being used came up and was dealt with and a nozzle check was printed.
I have printed a couple of A3s and cannot see the difference in quality. The ink is not Epson and may not last for 200 years, but then neither will I, so faded prints will be someone else's problem. Would I recommend the Mediastreet CIS? Provisionally yes, but I will have to wait and see how it performs over the next few months. It will definitely be a lot cheaper than buying original cartridges.
Before fitting the unit the user must print a nozzle check using the original Epson cartridges. The print must be dated and kept in order to prove that the printer was working correctly prior to fitting the CIS. Photographs of the unit are posted to the forum gallery.
The unit has been in use for a while now and has turned out a number of first rate A3 prints. Apart from sitting on the outside of the R2400 nothing looks different. I have made one modification to the original layout in that I have placed a small piece of padding inside the lefthand side of the lid. This prevents the pipes touching the top of the printer when the cartridge carriage is at the far end of it's travel. This makes the printer much quieter.
Every now and again, a warning appears on screen stating that this is not Epson Ink do you wish to continue. Clicking on continue returns the printer to full operation. What this means is that the printer has 'run out of ink' and filled it'self up again. It doesn't actually do this; it just thinks that it has. The levels in the ink bottles have not gone down very much. With original cartridges I would have had to change some of them at least twice by now. I think that the system is a success. I am now looking at a modification to the waste ink system. This replaces the waste ink pads with a seperate, external ink bottle. Without this the waste ink pads will eventually fill and overflow, damaging the printer.
------------------------------ Don't bother me with facts. My mind is already made up.
