HP 7110 and CIS system

[pfarber]

I got a new printer.. an HP 7110 Wide format inkjet printer (13x19 or Super B) for printing positives for burning screens. Its a great printer that only costs $150. Yeah, I know, Epsons are supposed to rule the screen printing roost but to get this size output in an Epson you're talking well over $500-$1000.

So, big prints mean lots of ink being put down. A lot, a shit ton. When I print a positive I have the printer firing all 4 colors to get the opaquest possible print. So that's were CIS systems come in ( Continuous Ink Systems).. yeah yeah CIS system is redundant.

So not wanting to throw $200 at a CIS setup I opt for a local ebay-er that has a $60 CIS and I also order a refill kit for $17.

This is just a photo of the extras that you get, 4 syringes with blunt tips for refilling the tanks, two plastic tubing guides.
The kit came with no directions, and the Changlish web site that was supposed to have the most up to date installation tips was a joke.
The biggest problem is that the tanks are plumbed wrong.. this is how they come in the box:

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Note that the black is on the left and the tubing goes straight 'up' from the carts. There is no HP inkjet on the planet that has the black on the left. NONE. To you would think its a simple task to pull the small plastic elbows out of the tanks and reposition them. Yeah.. but ink squirts all over. Now your black tank is on the right, but the tubing is laying in such a manner that it will never work flat as in my photos. So you try and twist the small plastic elbows and they become destroyed. I had to contact the seller and got them to send me (FOR FREE, including shipping) 5 new elbows... of course they said they 'never had this problem' and 'sold thousands of kits' (ebay said they sold 10 kits) yet no HP inkjet has the black in the left... so there's that.

Here's the CIS installed:

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Note the clear carts are exact dupes of HP carts. The tubing runs under the print carriage (the heads are about 2 inches back) and I simply glued it to the metal rail... its all trail and error. Note that the tubing runs to the left, is flat, and each cart has a custom fit to the elbow. This is the work you must do. Also, one VERY IMPORTANT thing that was never mentioned in the joke directions.. you *MUST* prime the tanks. That means get the air out. If you look at the sellers ebay photo you can see that the tubes are not full of ink. Air pockets are bad, um kay? There are several videos on youtube on how to prime the CIS, its easy enough, but never mentioned in the directions... I just knew it had to be done because when I researched buying one every other CIS seller mentioned it.

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This is the side of the printer and the tanks/refills. I did drill a half inch hole so the tubing would run flat under the carriage (even when parked).

Bottom line, I had to pull the tubing, reorient all the tanks, cut the tubing the correct size so that it will feed from the left and also lay flat. Not a horribly difficult affair, but hardly 'drop in'. From what I can tell of the $200 CIS kits they all suffer from this problem... at least the photo's on the web sites do.

One last thing... you will lose the ink level reporting feature, and the printers drivers will complain of 'counterfeit' ink carts... easily worked around and does not interrupt printing at all:

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For my needs and skill level saving $100+ was a no brainer. Its not plug-n-play but even the expensive ones don't appear that they would drop right in, either. The tanks hold 100ml of ink, and the carts probably hold 20ml if that. Walmart sells a complete refill kit for $50, and for $75 I have the equivalent of 10-15 refills. But the real savings will show up when I start doing a lot of positives and use a lot of ink.

I have printed out photo's and color pages... the ink looks fine and I cannot tell any difference between the ink from the original HP carts and the CIS ink.

[pfarber]

Well, time for an update. I have used the CIS system for about 1 month (maybe printing 50 pages TOTAL, including test prints) and there are some huge issues.

First, resellers are idiots. 'Insert the needle in the hole in to bottom of the cartridge' was the solution from the seller. My reply? "Hey dimwit, have you ever SEEN the carts? There are no holes in the bottom". This was after a testy exchange where I wanted an RMA because the print quality was udder rubbish (ink drops, fading like the cart is out of ink). Extensive google-fu has not come up with much. Either the CIS systems work great, or people quietly throw them away and never mention them again. The same 10 'tips' are always repeated, but no one ever seems to mention if they actually fixed anything.... my guess is they gave up, tossed the CIS and bought carts.

Whats odd is that the black ink never had any issue. Its always been a color cart. After many test prints (I made a C Y M K test page in Corel) I was able to narrow down what colors were the problem (all of them ) and since its affecting 3 out of 4 inks I was really at a loss. Factory carts print fine, so its not the printer.

What I noticed was the that ink tanks have a vent line, and on top of that a filter. And due to changing barometric pressure the ink was actually being forced up the vent, into the vent filter, and drying, clogging the vent totally, and making a vacuum in the tank.

Here's an image (not mine, but I have the same issue)

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Note the Yellow tank, see the ink flowing UP the tube? And the filters at the top... they are ink stained because ink has pushed up into them and clogged the pores in the filter. The filters at the top should be clear/white. Mine had some ink in them and I cleaned them by soaking them in water and blowing through them to ensure the filter was passing air.

So after I cleaned the filters, a few days later, still the same issue.. black is good, colors seem to 'run out of ink'. So I took off the filters and the stoppers leaving the ink tanks open to air. And it really helped. Banding stopped, test prints were good and the colors solid. That lasted a few days... so to google-fu and my last, hail mary attempt.

Since the ink carts are full of ink, and the tubes are full of ink, and the tanks full of ink I can only guess that I am still drawing a vacuum somewhere. I noticed that a few 'higher end' (I only paid $60 for my CIS, but others are well over $150) have 'isobaric chambers' I assume these are basically check valves, and you can but them on ebay in 4 or 6 chamber units for $8.

So that's where I am now, waiting for the chamber thing to show up. If I still have issues then I'm just gonna refill the carts by hand... I have lots of ink, and the CIS carts are already altered to by refilled... so I'll still be able to use them, just not in the CIS mode.

[pfarber]

Well it looks like the printer may have had an issue out of the box. I installed the isobaric chamber (aka check valve) and noticed that intermittently the paper would not advance under the sensor, cause a fault, and eject it. I figured it was just dust or something. But now this:

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This is even with factory carts in.

So I go to HP and make sure the printer is under warranty. HP says is not. So I had to email support with proof of purchase (my newegg invoice) that I bought the printer in Dec 2013. Since its a one year warranty they should accept it back for repair. I purposefully kept the box just in case.... good thing I did. The box also has the shipping label AND the proof of purchase sticker.

So with any luck HP won't fight me on this and service the printer.

Its always something.

[pfarber]

Well after 1:04:57 with HP support I'm getting another printer. Evidently this is a known issue (ink sensor failure) because, well, they said it was a known issue for this printer.

Typical call center stuff.. I did waste about 25 minutes because the level 1 support person thought I said "Ink SYSTEM error" (as opposed to "ink SENSOR error" that I had read off about 6 times). So as soon as that was cleared up things went a little faster.

I still don't know why support wants to take remote control of your PC. I never give access to the outside world. If they press the wrong button its my job to clean it up/make it work. I spend hours a day with this PC, I've got photos of my dogs, a custom layout and things set up the way I like... remember what that P in PERSONAL computer stands for... I wouldn't let them rummage through anything else I own.... I'm full capable or following directions and giving them exactly what they need to know.

[pfarber]

New printer is installed. HP support was everything one could hope for. Initial level 1 troubleshooting, escalation to a 'hardware engineer' (I'm sure he was ) where they determined that the printer had a known manufacturing defect and shipment of a replacement unit (with a CC for security if I didn't send one back) was ordered. Replacement unit was refurbished, and I had to remove some parts from the new printer that were not sent with the refurb one. HP support stressed that the refurb printer was NOT a complete unit and to test/make sure that all items worked. There were three things missing... the back panel for the duplexer (which is an accessory I would by, but cannot seem to find) and the top of the paper tray and power cord. Refurb unit also included 4 starter carts.

I have not put the CIS on the refurb printer... I will, but I want to use it for a few weeks to make sure. After watching a few moew CIS videos, there seems to be a simpler way to run the lines than what I did... will try that but will need to get some strong tape (I have Gorilla tape but that stuff is scary strong).

PITA that I had a broken printer for a while and that was the cause of the poor print quality... but until something broke broke there was really nothing I could do.

So yeah, HP saved the day.